Who ate all the pies, Ray?

By Mark Daniell

08/07/2014

Cutting to the chase: happy semi finals day! Clearly the weekend has lofted so many talking points our way that it’s taken till Tuesday to digest them all, and even then much of the ingested sport remains an indistinguishable mass in the pit of our stomachs (And a tiny chewed up piece of tennis gum. Yeah, he may not have won, but pooh to all you naysayers who wanted Federer to retire after going our in the second round last year. You know who you are).

So, first up: what’s the verdict on the Brazuca football? After all that Jabulani jibber jabber, it’s nice that the ball has not been an issue with either goalies or players. We take that junk for granted obviously, but spare a thought for the ball designer who’s sitting at home happy that no-one cares who he or she is. Also, it may just be the carnival of football speaking, but it looks quite funky too. Obviously I probably felt that way about every major tournament ball, even the atrocity that is the Roteiro. How did this slip through the net? It looks like a bowling ball.

Secondly, as expected, the group stage goalfest has dried up a little, and has been replaced instead with a tacklefest. Take a look at the number of fouls commited in each of the quarters (with yellow cards in brackets):

Arg 11 v 14 Belgium: (1v2)

Holland 15 v 13 costa rica (2v4)

Brazil 31 v 23 Colombia (2v2)

France 15 v 18 germany (0v2)

What’s interesting is not the number of fouls (although Brazil impressively notched up one every three minutes for an entire game), but the fact that unlike in the group stages, in every case bar the Argentina game, the winning side is the one guilty of committing the most fouls.

This pales when held up against Neymar’s broken spine, of course, and I was the first person to shout at the screen for him to pick himself up and get on with things. I think my exact words were something along the lines of “you’d be up and about in a flash if the score was reversed” “yeah, yeah, he’ll be back up the moment that stretcher reaches the touchline” and “a fractured vertebra is hardly a broken back.”

It’s a sad day when Mark Lawrenson feels he’s being even-handed by continuously pointing out occasions when Robben could have fallen over but instead did what most of us learn in infancy and didn’t. To be held in high esteem for not trying to cheat is quite a trick. But don’t worry, as soon as the Dutch lose one anti-hero, they’ve won another with the arrival of Tim “get-in-their-grill” Krull. Think you’re going to score a penalty? In Your Grill!! Just played 120 minutes of exhausting football and feeling the pressure of a nation on your shoulders? In Your Grill!! That’s everyone’s favourite attitude right there. I have to say, I always thought the Dutch were supposed to be an easy-going, laid back lot. Where does this anger stem from? Is it with the phasing out of their coffee shop programme? Is it the orange? Is it because of the Germans? Who knows? but once again an individual Dutchman has found a way to interpret the rules in such a way as to alienate all impartial viewers. In Your Grill, impartial viewers!

Lastly, as we warm up for tonight’s uber-clash, spare a thought for Tim Vickery who a) insists on adopting a Mexican fruit stall owner’s accent when pronouncing any South American word, and b) is talking even more crazy than usual. Brazil win on moments? To paraphrase a child watching rastamouse: What do you mean?

Now let’s not be hasty, funky pronunciation and crazy footballing interpretations are what great commentary is all about, but I get the feeling old Vickery has made up his mind about how he’s going to interpret a match before the match has been played, and then he just picks bits that fit his idea and churns out his ‘moments’ patter. Kind of like a lazy arts student.

Speaking of which, there are lots of people who are looking forward to the end of this World Cup, most of whom leave a comment about three rows below a Guardian article on Jogi Loew’s outfits. And I must confess, in one way at least, I’m with them: Nobody needs to hear Ray Winstone’s ‘who ate all the pies ay ay’ sing song ever again. It’s not nice, I can’t see what he’s referring to, and it’s not suitable for family television. Stop it Ray. As a person with a self-confessed gambling problem, in that I don’t gamble anywhere near enough, I really think we’ve got enough tv and busstop ads to have converted every last waverer. Yes Ray, I know you want me to bet in play, but you can’t really expect me to start counting the number of corners. That’s no way to live a life.