Football World Cup

~ ~ Well, the 2006 FIFA World Cup is over and now all footy fans are looking to the European Championships in 2008, the qualifying stages of which start later on this year. ~ ~ So was it a good World Cup, and did Italy deserve to win it? I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it with the sole exception of England (yet again) failing to deliver on their unquestioned potential, and once again crashing out on a penalty shoot-out to the Portugese and their “diver extraordinaire”, the much maligned Ronaldo. (Who’ll take a bet he’s played his last game for Manchester United, despite Sir Alex Ferguson’s protestations to the contrary?) Did Italy deserve to win? ...  Read the complete review

World Cup Germany 2006 was a memorable tournament for many reasons. The first final in seemingly eons that hasn’t featured either Germany or Brazil, debut appearances at the tournament for many smaller nations, a record number of red cards and THAT incident at the final. In fact, it’s could be forgotten that some football was actually played at the tournament. ***PRE-TOURNAMENT HYPE*** Before proceedings began, the favourites were easily reigning Champions Brazil. Their South-American rivals Argentina were looking solid as well, and if you were to believe the English press then Sven Goran Eriksson’s side were also favourites, in fact if the pundits, ...  Read the complete review

"All Things World Cup", what a brilliant idea for a category, especially as it doesn’t imply one has to write about the matches or football proper! I couldn’t do that even if I had to, I don’t like sports in general which means that I don’t like football, either. I don’t hate it, I’m just not interested, watching 22 men chasing or catching (or not) one ball for 90 minutes bores me stiff. You may think now that I’m like the blind one talking about colours, if I had only ever watched a match live, I would have seen the light and become a convert. Ha! I was in a stadium once, don’t ask how I got there, that’s a long story, and it was even a World Cup ...  Read the complete review

The world cup is almost over and on the whole it has been an exciting tournament with some great performances by many of the teams. I support Italy and I’m delighted they’ve got to the final. I always thought they had a good squad with a few world-class players but I didn’t think we had the beating of Argentina who impressed me the most in the competition. However the world cup is a tournament and anything can happen in the knock out stages. Argentina failed tactically against Germany and Italy took advantage by playing a great game in the Semi’s, a real team performance. But now let me turn to England… Once again the England fans (although I support Italy I ...  Read the complete review

What went wrong for England wasn't Sven, or Rooney, or Beckham or Ronaldo. It was penalties. England has only won one of the five penalty shoot-outs they've played over the years in international football. If you only manage to put one penalty into the back of the net, sorry but you are going to lose the penalty-shoot-out. England did practice penalty taking - indeed they boasted that they'd practiced more than the Portuguese. But it comes down to nerve in the end, nerve to keep your head and not fluff it. England doesn't have it. I don't know if that's down to the enormous pressure we all put them under. Old Andy Murray showed ...  Read the complete review