HanniganWorld Cup TV ViewWelcome home Gilesie! Alas, he wasn't modelling lederhosen in the RTÉ studio when he turned up for duty yesterday afternoon, so he clearly didn't enter into the World Cup spirit of things when he was in Germany. But he's home, back to calm us and to stamp out all this hype nonsense, and presumably to sit between Eamon and Liam and Eamon and Graeme and Eamon and Kenny and Eamon and Denis, just in case there's a sniff of trouble. In that sense he's RTÉ's very own Kofi Annan.
Spain v Ukraine. It's a rare thing to find a bookie who'll reject a wager, even when you insist you'll be happy with odds of a 150,000 to one. On. "Do we look like a charity," he said, "of course 'underachievers' will feature in the same sentence as Spain more times than you've had hot dinners. No deal. We can, though, offer you very attractive odds on 'Spain is a footballing nation that routinely lives up to expectations in major tournaments'." Go on then, deal.
ITV. "Ruud, Spain is a footballing nation that routinely lives up to expectations in major tournaments, isn't it," Gabby Logan didn't say. "Ruud, Spain are the great underachievers of world football, aren't they," she did. Obviously. You could hear the bookie chuckling.
There followed a heated discussion on just why Spain never gets its act together at these big dos. Gullit suggested it was a historical, regional, political kind of thing, that they all love their clubs a whole lot more than they love their country.
Andy Townsend was aghast. "But the Basques don't think they are Spanish," Ruud explained to him. "But that's crazy, that's just can't be right," said Andy. "And Catalonia is the same thing," said Ruud. "Well then that's the coach's job, he must sort that out, surely," said Andy. Cripes, Jack Charlton was lucky Andy didn't tell him to put Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams under a bit of pressure.
"I think you can a little bit compare it with the Ryder Cup, why the Americans don't click together," explained Ruud, leaving us a little unconvinced, but his colleagues impressed. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Andy. "That's true," said Ally McCoist.
"Good point," cooed Gabby.
Anyway, Spain, as it turned out, achieved plenty against Ukraine. "It should take off a lot of the pressure that Spain have been under for a number of years as underachievers," said Gilesie. "As we said before the game they're very much underachievers," said Denis Irwin. "A few more performances like that and they may very well lose their tag of perennial underachievers," said Peter Collins.
Tunisia v Saudi Arabia. By half-time Souness was perspiring with irritation, having wasted 45 minutes of his life watching two teams he suggested were on a par with the Dog and Duck. Reserves.
Germany v Poland. Okay, let's get this over with. "I think as a nation the Poles are intimidated by the Germans," said Souness. "With a certain justification," chuckled Bill.
Right, that's that out of the way. Hello Gary Lineker. "A bit of history between these two nations, need I tell you. Poland have never beaten Germany. In the World Cup." Right, enough. Let's move on. "There's been a mass invasion of Polish fans in to Germany - there's some sort of irony there," said Gary. Stop. Right. Now.
Back to RTÉ, where Bill was taking his turn to welcome Gilesie. "You'll be able to give us first-hand knowledge of Germany," said Bill. "Well, I'll be able to give you first-hand knowledge of the German railway system - it's not as efficient as I expected, Bill," said Gilesie, who was meant to be in Munich yesterday but ended up in Montrose. Platform B, Platform D, they're damn well indistinguishable in German.
