Ground Floor: I was watching England versus Paraguay on Saturday when I jumped up from the chair and shouted "offside" at the TV. And the Mexican ref then blew the whistle which proved that I do finally understand the rule!
I've decided that my next career move should be sports commentary. I'm a total armchair analyst who loves shouting at the TV and pointing out the obvious inadequacies of managerial strategies. Anyway, I don't have to be spectacularly expert to know when things are going right, when they're going terribly wrong, or when the manager and the team captain are stonewalling - which is what Sven and Becks had to do after their fairly pitiful start to the campaign.
Still, what can you do when you've started brilliantly and ended up hanging on grimly but nevertheless managed to get the result?
Your critics, knowing that there's more to a campaign than just one win, will spend the next few days poring over your mistakes, suggesting ways in which you could improve your game and offering unasked for advice. And then they go down to the bookies and make their bets accordingly. Sometimes, they'll bet that you're just not good enough. Sometimes they're prepared to give you another chance. And while they're waiting for your next attempt they talk about all of the great players and great managers of the past and how they would have dealt with the situation. Unless you get it right next time, the comparisons will get even more unflattering.
That's, more or less, how things are going for Ben Bernanke at the moment. Ben was appointed as chairman of the US Federal Reserve last February and the armchair critics are still out on his performance as leader so far. Ben's main problem was succeeding Alan Greenspan who'd been in the post for 18 years and whose tenure was like that of Arsene Wenger - an innovative tactician who doesn't get everything right but will always be regarded as a success.
So far, Ben's time in the top spot has been uneasy. It's always hard to follow in the footsteps of a successful manager and Greenspan's length of tenure meant that the team of Fed, markets and investors were comfortable with his style. But they weren't always. There was plenty of criticism of his actions in the past, with some commentators rueing the fact that he didn't have the same skills and understanding as Paul Volcker, the man he replaced. I remember clearly worrying about the dollar portfolio which I was trading in the months after Greenspan's appointment when the market was still suspicious of the new boy.
Volcker had been chairman from 1979-1987 and he inherited a Dutch-team style economy - lots of flair and promise but rife with internal bickering and difficulties. Volcker got it all together, gaining widespread support so that by the time Greenspan took over the reins everyone was doubtful about his abilities to carry on Volcker's good work.
Greenspan was more of an Alex Ferguson than a Marco van Basten, supporting Team US monetary policy through thick and thin; helping the market during those panic inducing stock market fall periods by pumping it full of liquidity and only once being critical - when he warned of "irrational exuberance" - but eventually letting himself get caught up in the exuberance too.
Not everyone liked it though. In fact, last year Paul Volcker himself described the US economy as "skating on thin ice" and suggested that although it might be relatively easy to have a soft landing for the US, the combination of policies necessary for that to happen were not in place.
Volcker suggested that capital market support for the US might eventually ebb and return it to a period of stagflation, like the 1970s, thus revisiting the problem that he'd had to sort out first time round. Volcker was looking for monetary and fiscal discipline which he believed was sorely lacking. He didn't point the finger at his successor and suggest that Greenspan's assistance to the market at every opportunity was part of the problem, but it's hard not to believe that he wasn't as enamoured with his successor as everyone else.
Will Bernanke manage to keep the US as a winning team? He's already been nicknamed Helicopter Ben after his Milton Friedman reference to using a helicopter drop of money into the economy to fight deflation, but nicknames don't bring you glory. Unlike Greenspan, Bernanke won't have the luxury of cutting rates sharply if there are problems in the stock market because inflation is too high. Right now the Fed is still in rate hike mode and Bernanke has started talking tough, suggesting that a hike too many would be less dangerous than one too few. We're all great armchair commentators of course. And even if we understand offside it doesn't make us good managers.
Meanwhile, Ben has other managerial problems. He's already had his taste of being shopped by a gorgeous female. Maria Bartiromo, a US financial reporter and author (nickname - Money Honey), spilled the beans on a private conversation she'd had with Bernanke on Fed policy to CNBC. He told her that his position on interest rates was "misunderstood".
All great managers are misunderstood! It comes with the territory. So does having your intended "off the record" comments to reporters splashed all over the news. Stock markets tumbled after Maria's scoop but insiders were furious saying that it wasn't her job to move markets and that she kept the information quiet until her own show aired.
Another month of the World Cup. Another 14 years of Ben Bernanke. Should be fun.
• www.sheilaoflanagan.net
