More Football drivel.

One would think that the most foul-tempered, red-and-yellow-card ridden game of world cup history might be between teams with 'a bit of history'. Perhaps France vs. Germany, or Poland vs. Germany, or Holland vs. Germany, or England vs. oh never mind. But no, it was between Portugal and Holland; two countries with no shared border or historical enmity barring colony and slave disputes. So it really begs the question 'pourquoi?'. There are certainly teams with strong traditions of cheating and other histrionics i.e Italy and Argentina, but there was none of that with Holland and Portugal. The fact is the players were by and large a bit twatty and it didn't help that 'Phil' Scolari (the Portugal manager) and the ref were even more twatty. I wouldn't have deemed this comment-worthy were it not for the fact that it shows how little history really counts in the World Cup. Germany and Poland played each other with great professionalism by the way.

So England play the twattier team on Saturday meaning we will probably win. However, I doubt we will make the most of our chances and lose the ball a bit, meaning everyone will be moaning as England acheive their best World Cup result in 16 years. Unfortunately it is looking increasingly unlikely we will go all the way, but at least Anglo-German relations are reaching levels of goodwill unknown for a hundred years. So its not all meaningless.