Pundits beginning to lose their touch

TV View: Asia Day. By now the novelty of endless football has given way to the actuality of endless football. And endless football talk. The strain is beginning to show.

We tuned into RTÉ at dawn yesterday morning, vainly hoping to catch a glimpse of Salman Dunphy but found only Gerry Armstrong in studio. Gerry was football-talking with Bill or Michael Lyster or Stubbsie or Gabby. Definitely one of them, we can't be sure anymore.

Gerry is new to this world of sporting sophistry and frankly, the stale studio air, the cheap coffee and harsh lights are beginning to take their toll. The big man is becoming gaunt and hollow-eyed and less cheerful. He may be metamorphosing into Johnny Giles. Or maybe they are cloning him for whenever Eamon Dunphy is hung, drawn and quartered for high treason. But Gerry is definitely not himself. We are worried.

But we are worried about lots of things. We are constantly uneasy now whenever Bill O'Herlihy is not on our screen. Bill has become the comfort blanket of football talking. We see in Bill a little of our own resistance to the dogmatic assertions of these football talkers. In Bill, we hear the voice of moderation, the plea for life after football. But Bill had disappeared yesterday and in these days of madness and paranoia, we began to fear the worst.

Maybe Bill had been done in by Big Cas and Chippy Brady. Maybe they had slave-traded him to a satellite channel or a quiz show. It was possible.

Certainly, there was an uneasy air about Montrose. Even the legends of football talking were flagging.

"Polish players," began John Giles, the Emeritus Professor of the genre, "are always. . . good."

Good? This was Gilesy in hypnosis, Gilesy on auto-cue. This was Gilesy reading a mid-term report card. And it wasn't even accurate. Polish players haven't been good since a brief period shortly after the Pope stopped playing for them. They have been, well, bad, and they remained true to that sorry tradition yesterday.

Poland was one of the opposition teams on the day that the host countries, Japan and South Korea came out to play. Hence Asia Day. That's what they call it. No fancy linguistics necessary when you are at this stage of football talking. It is more about endurance. That is what the World Cup becomes. Endurance and a series of jokes so bad, so utterly Polish that they will drive many decent people over the edge.

For instance, it was only a matter of time before Terry Venables of the ITV team of football talkers cut loose on the surnames of the Japanese players. He was especially tickled by the fact that one of the home players was called Suzuki. In fairness to Terry, he restrained himself for a good half hour. Perhaps he was building up to it. But he had it out before we could flick back to RTÉ.

"Suzuki," he trumpeted, "has got on his bike and away he goes."

And then his perma-tan went all crinkly as he gave himself up to a touching show of merriment. And it was a harmless quip in itself of course. What made it sinister was the thought of what will follow. This is just the first week and the football talkers are only warming up. A deluge of quips so pungently cheesy, of malapropisms and clichés and tautological observations and analysis are falling towards us like a meteorite. They will change the way we speak and think forever. We will become like they are. And there is nothing we can do about it.

Yesterday didn't really matter to the football talkers. They were happy for Japan and South Korea, both of whom "got results". The Poles were naive. So were the Belgians. The Koreans, said Terry, "got the game by the scuff of the neck", as they do so many ill-fated puppies in that region. The talkers were happy but not really bothered. What concerned everyone was today's game between the Republic of Ireland and Germany.

In the way that Polish players are always "good", the Germans are always "dogged and resilient". Terry said that. Or possibly Andy or Ray. No, all three said it, in unison, although on different channels. The Germans' doggedness, agreed all the football talkers, will be a feature of this chapter of endless football.

Among the things the Irish will be is old. All the football talkers paid tribute to Steve Staunton, the only footballer in this World Cup rumoured to have played against the Pope. It is also rumoured that his Holiness still has him for pace but no matter, Stan insists on picking up all these man of the match awards.

Awards and caps. Today, he gets his 100th Irish cap against the dogged Germans.

To celebrate, RTÉ showed us a picture of one of Stan's earlier caps. He wore it during the national anthem at the Giants Stadium before the game against Italy during the World Cup of 1994. It was a white cap and it was also unfeasibly large. It was fascinating and bold and absurd all at once. We are guessing that it must easily be twice the size of any of his other caps. Otherwise he'd simply have nowhere to store them.

We hope he wears it today as a sort of tribute to himself. Yes, we hope he wears it for the Germans. Such headwear is bound to test the doggedness of any nation.