All in the game

A world cup miscellany

“There's a saying among coaches that football is like a short blanket: it covers your head or it covers your feet, and if it covers your head, your toes are in the air. – Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez on getting the balance right between his attack and defence. Obviously.

It's a stupid old game: US only sing when winning

THE PAST couple of weeks, we noticed, the New York Postwas getting fairly excited about the World Cup, coverage of the United States' progress through the group stage even earning equal billing with baseball and the like on the odd occasion. There's nothing like a defeat, though, to lessen your enthusiasm, so you couldn't fault them for the headline after the Ghana game: 'This sport is stupid anyway'.

Frankly, the New York Daily Newsno longer gives a damn either, 'Ghan with the Win' their puntastic take on the game, their back page opting for 'Going, Going, Ghana'. "The spirit of soccer endures in the States, but the party is over, for now," they sighed.

They weren't too kind on the players in their match ratings, giving only four of them six or more out of 10, Ricardo Clark getting just 3.5, poor lad. Their website, meanwhile, offered the readers a chance to have their say on the exit, asking "Who is most to blame for the United States' 2-1 loss?" Fourteen per cent clicked on the first option, "Ricardo Clark, turnover leads to early goal", but 53 per cent sportingly picked "No blame, just lost to a better team".

Front page of the weekend, though, has to go to Uruguay's El Pais.

What else do you need except a rather splendid photo of two-goal Luis Suarez and a headline that reads 'El Heroe'. Nice.

Only fools and hand-balls: Domenech needs head read

NOW EX-French manager Raymond Domenech was chosen by the South African Times as their Mampara of the Week – we guessed this might be a bad thing, but just to be sure we checked. Yep, as we feared, it means fool.

“Domenech, the French coach who was defeated by Bafana Bafana despite fielding 76-year-old hand-ball specialist Thierry Henry, needs his head read,” said their tribute. “Seriously. He was the one who flew over the cuckoo’s nest. How else do you explain his ability to take the world champions of 1998 and turn them into Swaziland B?” Carlos Alberto Parreira (South Africa’s coach) “should have removed the Mampara’s glasses and stomped on them. The world, led by France, would have applauded”.

Poor Raymond. Although it could actually be Swaziland B who’ll be most offended by the piece.

A voyage with history: Carlos well up for Spain

A DIP in to the archives suggests that Portugal’s coach Carlos Queiroz might just be well up for tomorrow’s meeting with Spain in Cape Town.

It was May 2008 and the then Manchester United assistant manager was feeling a bit emotional about Real Madrid’s pursuit of Cristiano Ronaldo.

“Cristiano will never be Spanish,” he declared, “just as they will never take Olivenca again!” Olivenca (or Olivenza, as the Spanish call it) is a town on the border of the two countries – it has been under Spanish control since 1801, but Portugal claim it as their own.

“They already did the same with Christopher Columbus, and it now seems they want to naturalise Cristiano Ronaldo,” said Queiroz. “Have they already forgotten what we did to them in the past?”

As his former captain Roy Keane might say to Carlos: “Christopher Columbus?! Jaysus Carlos, get over it!”

Web Watch: Bildget their Wembley revenge

YOU COULD almost hear the champagne corks popping on the Bildwebsite yesterday afternoon, "Thanks, guys! That was incredible!" said the German paper's chirpy headline. They were also full of sympathy for England and the goal that wasn't – 'Revenge for Wembley?' (1966) they asked. Rascals.

The Fifa website, meanwhile, was scathing of the officials for their failure to spot that Frank Lampard’s shot had clearly crossed the line. Kidding. “Meetings between these two sides often provide talking points,” read their match report, “and this one’s came when Lampard’s shot from the edge of the box struck the underside of the crossbar and bounced down – Uruguayan referee Jorge Larrionda ruling the ball had not crossed the goalline.” You’d imagine there might have been a “but” there, but there wasn’t.

Mind you, that was harmless enough compared to Uefa’s effort after that Paris match. Remember? “A hopeful France free-kick found its way to Henry, who squared for Gallas to head the goal that takes his country to South Africa.” Maybe they don’t have tellies in Fifa and Uefa headquarters?

"They think it's four over," said the mourning Sun, although they couldn't quite decide whether to be angrier with the players or the Uruguayan referee Jorge Larrionda. "Ur a useless referee," they declared, as only the Suncan.

Fantasy World Cup 2010 update

HATS off to Tony Chambers’ inappropriately named Losers and Joe McDonagh’s naughty if brilliantly monikered Diaby Does Gallas for topping The Irish Times’ Fantasy World Cup leaderboard after the group stage of the tournament, the two teams earning a mighty 74 points.

We, of course, would have opted for a different line-up, one that included the highest individual points’ scorers to date. Our 11 won a combined 100 points in the group stage, although you could also have picked Portuguese goalkeeper and defender Eduardo and Bruno Alves and Uruguayan full-back Maximiliano Pereira.

Admittedly, our line-up, which didn’t even benefit from transfers, would have been disqualified because it contains more than two players from one country (Portugal), but that technicality aside our boys have been a bit special so far.