Tiki-Caca

By Mark Daniell

19/06/2014

And so it is that all things must pass. With parallels of the abdication of King JC, Spain have relinquished the throne to world football. In fairness, at least they got it out of the way quickly. In the end, in spite of a great generation of young players, they didn’t have the manpower to maintain the ridiculous physical demands of tiki-taka football. The constant pressing, the perpetual motion, the ever-perfect first touch. If one of those things drops, tiki-taka finds itself vulnerable to counter attack, and plenty of teams know how to play counter attack.

It wasn’t helped by De Bosque’s decision to favour familiarity over youth and pick Casillas over De Gea, but you can’t blame him for sticking with the backbone of a team that had won him so much. In the end, age catches up with us all. (Don’t believe me? Just have a think at how old you’ll be at the next World Cup… Oof!)

But let’s not lose too much sleep over the Spanish deposition. They had it good for long enough, and as far as I was concerned, an all Madrid Champions League final was one wafer thin mint too much.

So that’s that. Meanwhile, although Australia are on their way home too they can at least take the consolation of having scored the goal of the tournament. Worth watching again because, well you know, it’s nearly Friday. Besides, if you squint a bit, it could be Brazil…

And we turn our attention to tonight’s battle royale. No surprises that Uruguay England is an early decider with a ‘loser goes home’ flavour to it. Does that mean overly cautious play and a draw on the cards? Perhaps in the past, but having seen how Stirling, Welbeck, Rooney (yes Rooney) and Sturridge played when they went behind, this England side looks like it’s adopting a Vegas or bust approach to the World Cup. Finally we’ve got an exciting England team, and for that we should be pleased. Distressingly, this does give rise to those moments when the extremely well-groomed Hart spills the ball, someone hits the panic button and the entire defence races about, afraid to touch the ball for fear of glancing a shin. Still, better that than 0-0 against Algeria.

But enough chitchat, let’s get down to business: How come we’ve seen so little of Fuleco? You know, Fuleco? Fuleco! The World Cup mascot! I was delighted when I found out an armadillo was going to be up for the role. (Well, quite delighted, I’d really been gunning for Senhor Testiculos. But that was always unlikely.) Imagine the fun you could have with an armadillo: they roll up into little footballs themselves! You could have him as the ball in Goal Control who then unrolls and gives a thumbs up! Classic Fuleco!

But no. FIFA have done nothing cool with Fuleco, and on top of this I’ve recently found out that the absence of Fuleco from our screens mimics the total lack of support the conservation movement is getting in Brazil. You try and sponsor an acre of Brazilian rainforest and you won’t get far. No environmental agency can guarantee its protection because the Brazilian government can’t guarantee its protection. Basically, they don’t have the cash. It would be nice if FIFA coughed up some of the revenue generated by the sale of little Fulecos and put it where it was needed.

And because you know you want to, here he is again