Russia vs Spain, the Cliff Notes version

YOBBO ON EURO: MATCHDAY 18 | SEMIFINAL 2
The reign of Spain sends Russia down the drain

Uh, yeah. First game I've watched completely live, in its entirety, of this tournament, and all I have written down here about the game is:

• Good game
  

Gee thanks for that, Captain Obvious

• Same margin as last time

Ditto

• What the fuck happened to Arse Shavings and Pavlovachenko? They're harder to find than a taxi after 3am

Since when have you been out later than half eleven, smart arse?

• Dani Guiza fancies himself as a Spanish archer judging by that ponderous goal celebration - still, at least he's more accurate than the last Spanish archer who came to prominence, that useless clown from the Barcelona Olympics opening ceremony who missed the cauldron and set fire to half the adjoining suburb*

*Facts may have been embellished for humourous effect

• Three goals in a half - finally John Helm will shut the fuck up about the 'Curse of Vienna'
• Speaking of which don't go to Vienna for holidays in summer unless you like being pissed on from a great height
  

Likewise certain parts of Amsterdam I'm told

• The batshit old racist had it all over Aussie Russkie United Nations Guus

True dat. Luis Aragones, batshit old racist by appointment to the Spanish FA, took Hiddink to the cleaners just as he'd done to the Italians, though Rino Gattuso still installed a Rheem with a pre-match burn which is clubhouse leader for the Steve Waugh Mentally Disintegrated Red Hanky for Sledge Of The Tournament. Aragones, prior to the quarter-final against the Azzurri, declared Gattuso was infinitely more rubbish than his surrounding media hype: "If Gattuso is vital [for Italy] I am a priest." Gattuso, bearded thug by appointment to AC Milan, replied that Aragones was an elderly fruitbat in need of as much Viagra-fuelled action as he could get at this late stage in proceedings: "If I was in his shoes I wouldn't become a priest. He is at a certain age already and he should enjoy life."

OK, so Gattuso won the battle, Aragones the war, but the latter went on to declare that for the cause, his players would and should be prepared to die on the pitch. Which went down rather poorly in Spain considering Antonio Puerta did exactly that - collapsed and died on the pitch playing for Sevilla in a La Liga match earlier this year. Put it this way - if Aragones doesn't manage to win the tournament he may actually be lynched if he sets foot inside the Sevilla city limits again.

Meanwhile, also from our file marked 'batshit' and 'old', former FIFA El Presidente For Life (before Septic Blatter gave him the shove) Joao Havelange has declared to his local Sao Paulo paper that the 1966 and 1974 World Cups were fixed in favour of host nations Engerland and Germany (Western Conference) respectively, because neither side could have possibly beaten Brazil on merit. He claimed that playing fixtures stacked with British and German refs and linesman meant The Fix Was In for the hosts. Have-A-Lunge's claims don't quite explain (a) why the Germans would agree to a fix which would see them getting beaten by England in the final in 1966 and never hear the fucking end of it again, or (b) what the fuck he's on about given Brazil's washed-up side of 1974 were lucky to get within half a bull's roar of the Total Football-era Dutch who dispatched them two-blot in the allegedly fixed Brazil-Holland match. Of course, Have-A-Lunge goes on to assert that after HE took over as FIFA Trough-Snouter-In-Chief immediately after the '74 finals, nothing at all dodgy ever went on until he was given the arse in 1998. Certainly nothing dodgy about Argentina 1978 where the hosts needed to beat Copa America holders Peru by four clear goals to reach the final ahead of Brazil... and won 6-0, with an Argentine-born keeper between the Peruvian sticks...

Speaking of South American rort, neither of the ANZAC brethren need to worry about running into the likes of Argentina or UR Gay on the road to 2010 World Cup qualifying. Having topped their group in the third round of Asian qualifying, Australia pulled a decent draw out of the AFC for the final group stage, deposited into Group A with Uzbekistan, Qatar (who we dealt to in the third round), Bahrain (who we dealt to in 2007 Asian Cup qualifying) and Japan (who we dealt to in the World Cup. And the war. We won't mention the Asian Cup quarterfinal.) The Soccerwhos only need to finish top-two in the group to qualify directly; finish third and there's the slightly dubious safety net of a playoff against the third-placed outfit from the other final-round Asian group (probably either Iran, South Korea or the Saudis), the winner of which gets to take on the champion of Oceania - if it's not the All Whites, football should be outlawed in New Zealand on principle - in a home-and-away playoff. So it's not UR Gay who Australia need to get past, but if they play their cards wrong, it might just be the side they left Oceania to get away from. In the same way that one changes seats on an international flight if trapped next to the most boring, tedious and/or punishing person on Earth.

The Doctor is OUT.

Basel: faulty

YOBBO ON EURO: MATCHDAY 17 | SEMI-FINAL 1
'You can feel the electricity in the air on these big nights...'

Sure as fuck could, and not all the lightning bolts were delivered on the pitch. In another utterly un-Germanic display of scoring spectacular goals and defending arseflavouredly and various other signs of the pending apocalypse, Germany nicked past Turkey 3-2 with a last-minute, last-kick-of-the-game, closing-down-everything-must-go winner. Not that most of the world saw it, or the other two goals scored in the second half, courtesy a massive electrical storm which took out the EURO International Broadcast Centre and meant that only two networks actually had live coverage of most of the second half: a local station who hacked into the live feed going around the stadium boxes, and for some bizarre reason that will probably have the 9-11 conspiracists frothing at the bunghole, Al-Jazeera.

Anyway it was a cracking game, largely because the Turks did what every unfancied team in this tournament has done: chucked the form book down the Insinkerator, turned up to play, and had a fucking go at them. Not content with the tag of being 'this tournament's Greece' (which they weren't because they could actually launch an attack on goal - several in the space of five minutes, as Mad Jens Lehmann between the Kraut sticks could attest), they threw everything at ze Chermans including the kitchen sink, the steak knives and that big fuck-off radial heater the doner meat gets vulcanised on. Hamit Altintop was more ubiquitously visible than a Hilton sister at a premiere, while midfield playmaker Kazim Kazim (Colin Richards to his former teammates at Sheffield Utd) banged against more wood than Jenna Jameson. The Germans had to defend like bastards and take every chance they were able to fashion. It's been a cracking tournament for the same reason - everyone's turned up to play attacking football, and anyone who hasn't - I'm looking at you, Italy - got the arse. Even the Russians, who were turgid in their opener against Spain, have gone from being the team everyone expected to see lapped by the field to a dark horse to top the Spanish (overdue for the wheels to fall off) and take it to the Germans in the final.

Then again maybe it was just down to playing on the ugliest pitch this side of the painted sand of Suncorp. The original pitch at Basel's St-Jakob-Park was wiped out in the Biblical deluge in two installments that was Switzerland-Turkey and Switzerland-Portugal in the group stage. So UEFA trucked in a new one from Holland, where all the best quality grass can be found (see what I did there?) and relaid it overnight. Despite the thing looking faulty as hell and nastier than Frank Ribery's face, the unmade bed of St-Jakob-Park has produced the following results since being ripped up and relaid: Portugal 2 Germany 3, Netherlands 1 Russia 3, Germany 3 Turkey 2. In the same period, the spotless, billiard-table-smooth surface of the Ernst Happel Stadion in Vienna, the other knockout-phase venue, has produced some of the most God-awful football games seen at a European championships, with a grand total of six goals scored in eight and a half hours of international football at the Ernie Haps. From which we can conclude:

(a) Far from being faulty, the pitch at Basel is deceptively flat and unimpeded;

(b) The premier league footballers and managers who whinged like bitches about the effect the dire pitch at Wigan last year (who ground-share with the city's league side) had on their ability to play well and score goals, were lying little tossers (that's you Arsie Wenger, you twunt);

(c) That commentator who keeps banging on about 'The curse of Vienna' every time a goal doesn't go in at the Ernst Happel is a delusional old retard, but might be onto something; and

(d) Given tonight's game and the final are both scheduled for the Ernie Haps, it's going to be a fucking shit game of football so sleep in and catch the highlights instead.

The Doctor is OUT.

Launceston: producer of export-quality fucktards since 1974

Happy third birthday, This Lot Of Shit. Today's sermon is from the gospel of Rhomb, chapter Forever Malcolm Young verse Track Three:

Johnny Ramone was in a fucken good band, but he was a cunt
That's why he was on stage left, and Joey was up front
Marky, Dee Dee, Tommy, Gary, Phil and Steve
They were all too lazy, to get on the record sleeve
Second verse, different from the first,
Hey redneck, get in the fucken hearse
And while we're at it, before it's too late
Invite your tall skinny mate
Oh fuck
Gabba gabba you suck
Gabba gabba you're fucked
Gabba gabba you're dead

Which brings us to Launceston, Tasphobia. Not content with loosing chippy small-man-syndrome sufferer Richard Ponting on the world, Launceston went on to excrete former V8 racer and insufferable arseclown Marcos Ambrose a mere two years later. You may remember him as Greg Murphy's dance partner from the Cutting at Bathurst a few years back. Marcos Ambrose was in a fucken good team, but he was a cunt; even made Ingall look a bit less of a twunt. He did potter around to a couple of championships but his inability to set a car up for endurance spec - i.e. not stiffer than a fucking skateboard and chewing through its tyres inside half a thirty-lap stint - meant he never contended for more than a few hours in the only race that matters on the Strayan calendar. Stone Brothers gave up on trying to partner he and the Enforcer because neither were prepared to budge an inch on their preferred setups, which were diametrically opposed. In the end, frustrated in multiple attempts at the Big Hill, Ambrose took his bat and ball and nascent pattern baldness and fucked off to where his inbred redneck styles would be properly appreciated. NASCAR. After a couple of years to make it through the B-grade ranks, he finally made his top-flight NASCAR debut last weekend at Infineon Raceway - one of just two 'road course' races the oval-obsessed stock car series visits, meaning he was basically drafted in for this race for his specialist ability to turn left AND right.

Anyway, anyone who's seen more than fifteen minutes of Ambrose's V8 career could have predicted the three take-home messages from his debut:

(1) He was quick - running as high as second at one point

(2) He crashed into someone quicker than him - running as high as second solely because of punting Juan-Ton-O-Pies Montoya off at the hairpin (after which point Montoya's crew chief mildly suggested that one-race-wonders like Our Marcos might like to respect the chances of people who were actually trying to score points for the championship, and not try to deposit them in the weeds)

(3) He fucked the car up because he has the mechanical sympathy of a rabid gorilla on P - after a tap from the gloriously named Elliott Sadler (for whom, it would seem, time is a traveller*) he managed to punch a hole in the gearbox casing through which the entire lubricative contents of same flowed out.

Good to see some things never change. One that had, though, was Ambrose's demeanour in post-race interviews. Instead of the snotty little crank who used to sulk whenever anyone with a headset and a cameraman in tow stuck a mike in his face and asked how he'd managed to fuck it up this time, Ambrose was all down-home charm and media-trained sponsor name-dropping. And he was putting on the broadest Strayan accent heard since Steve Irwin bellowed his last 'Crikey! Have a look at this little beauty!' This is vaguely understandable from a PR perspective as further evidence from our US correspondent suggests Americans are too stupid to discern an Australian accent from Stephen Hawking on helium, unless it's offering to toss prawns on outdoor grilling equipment on their behalf. But it's still laughable, pathetic and thoroughly, embarrassingly shit.

The Doctor is OUT, presumably hit up the backside by Marcos Ambrose like everyone else.

*Tenterfield Saddler is both a song by renown son-of-the-Tablelands Peter Allen, and a beer brewed in its honour. Appropriately it tastes highly reminiscent of something which has been in long-term contact with a stockman's sweaty arse. The saddle I mean, not Peter Allen.

Work experience kids: why they make poor international managers

YOBBO ON EURO: MATCHDAYS 15/16 | QF3/4

Every international tournament needs a catchcry. France 98, for instance, was 'What the fuck's that kid doing on the field?' As applicable immediately before Wee Michael Owen's bullshit 'carving through midfield then nailing one from 30 yards' goal against the Argies in the first knockout stage. In the same vein, EURO 2008's would probably be 'What the fuck's that kid doing on the bench trying to coach an international team?'

It's been an interesting development in recent years that high-profile retired players looking to make the move into coaching have gone into international management as a means of getting experience for the apparently more serious gig of club management. Frank Rijkaard got the Barcelona gig on the back of his EURO 2000 efforts with the Dutch national team, which was his first proper coaching gig. Similarly Marco van Basten had done fuck all really before getting the keys to the Dutch manager's office at the KNVB, and is leaving that job to go manage Ajax, one of the two biggest clubs in Holland. It's not just a Dutch thing either. Mark 'Sparky' Hughes managed Wales before he got a real job with Blackburn, and more recently was headhunted by former Thai despot Frank Sinatra's Man City Mercenaries. Rampaging Slaven Bilic's one and only management job to date has been with the Croatian national side. And before he had the Italian Job, Bob Donadoni had only coached a couple of dodgy Serie B sides - badly - and had been sacked in each job, but still got the callup for the big chair after Marcello Lippi pulled stumps post-Germany 2006.

The theory is that international management is less intense than club management, being almost a part-time job (as it was for Aussie Guus, who for many years managed PSV - the other big Dutch club - in parallel with his international commitments at South Korea and Australia); and it's more a test of tactics and man-management, given that unlike at a club there's no prospects for recruiting the best players in a given position - you can't just buy in better cattle to cover a hole, you're stuck with picking the least shit 23 jokers holding your nation's passport at any given time. Then, once you've learned the basics of formations, tactics and ego-massaging in the international game, you can be entrusted with the tiller of someone's club, with the greater pressures that come with greater economies of scale.

All well and good. Except when the work experience kids run into crusty, wizened old veterans in the opposition dugout. Proper international managers who know what the fuck they're doing. Who didn't just inherit a side overflowing with talent who've already won half the tournaments in the land, but had to build the whole thing up from fuck-all using tactics, guile, cunning and old-fashioned hard bastardness. Then we have a problem. Then the accepted wisdom of giving young managers international jobs as a means of getting high-level experience looks pretty fucking stupid.

Like the Dutch did at EURO 2000 when the wet-behind-the-ears Frank Rijkaard was given a thorough tactical dust-up by Italian legend Dino Zoff, whose ten-man Azzurri lived on their wits (and more importantly Zoff's) for 90 minutes to hold out a charging Oranje outfit who'd put six past the Yugos in their previous knockout game, and barge past on penalties. (Those were the days.)

Like Slaven Bilic, whose Croatian formation had nothing for wily old Fatty Terim's Turkey across 118 minutes of football. 119 minutes, OK, they finally figured their shit out. But their lead lasted for approximately fuck all, Bilic utterly lost the plot and his team bottled it with him.

Like van Basten, who despite his side's overwhelming form in the preceding games (sound familiar, Dutchies?) was so utterly outplayed by his countryman Russkie Guus in the Netherlands-Russia QF it ended up being embarrassing. Being Dutch coach is more than just being able to keep 23 planetary egos in check for a month (24 counting one's own). Admittedly it's not a lot more but being reduced to having 30-yard cracks because you can't get within a five-iron of the penalty area means Your Tactics Are Shit.

And, last and most blatant of all, Roberto Donadoni vs Luis Aragones: the most one-sided Italy vs Spain duel since Valentino Rossi wiped the floor with Sete Gibernau. Aragones might be an elderly crank with batshit racist tendencies but he is An International Manager. Donadoni couldn't even work out in two hours of football that Luca Toni is a fucking rubbish striker, and subbed everyone else instead. Not to mention giving certified genius Alex del Piero a grand total of eleven minutes to go find a winner. He might be a genius but he's not a fucking miracle worker.














Non-Swiss Toni muses whether his new moustache is enough of a disguise, just in case his actual performance wasn't completely fucking anonymous enough already

And on the topic of things that look totally gay, can someone please ask the match-going men of Russia to put their fucking shirts back on? Russia's not a poor country any more since Put In flogged all that oil and gas to western Europe, and while Nike international replica strips are exxy, it doesn't mean your pasty white flesh is cutting it as a substitute, lads.

And can someone tell your women to lay off the peroxide? FFS, the way you lot are carrying yourselves, you'd think England qualified after all.

The Doctor is OUT.

Ornithology 101

The Onion Sports, June 19, 2008
Man Who Used Stick To Roll Ball Into Hole In Ground Praised For His Courage

SAN DIEGO—A man who used several different bent sticks to hit a ball to an area comprised of very short grass surrounding a hole in the ground was praised for his courage Monday after he used a somewhat smaller stick to gently roll the ball into the aforementioned hole in fewer attempts than his competitors. "What guts, what confidence," ESPN commentator Scott Van Pelt said of the man, who was evidently unable to carry his sticks himself, employing someone else to hold the sticks and manipulate the flag sticking out of the hole in the ground while he rolled the ball into it. "You have to be so brave, so self-assured, so strong mentally to [roll a ball into a hole in the ground]. Amazing." The man in question apparently hurt his knee during this activity.

Yes. Meanwhile, in a battle of two different sorts of birdies...

YOBBO ON EURO: DAY 14 | QF2
Stoned Cros plucked like Turkeys
and other fucking horrible bird-related puns which we'll skip over hurriedly

We begin with controversial racism. People of Europe, if you are seeking a leader... don't look towards Turkey. Turks aren't leaders. They're mere followers. They are the Alex Crivilles (wow, really obscure MotoGP reference, getting down with the kids) of the era. They are the EPO'd-up Tour de France sprinter emerging from the pursuing peleton in the last fifty yards to run down the breakaway who led all day and who deserved the stage win far more. They are late-arriving, fluke-artist arrivistes.

OK, that's largely bitterness at the prospect of the ludicrously entertaining 'Roy' Slaven Bilic no longer bounding up and down the touchline like the Energizer Bunny on P, now that Croatia are on the bus home following their penalty shootout loss to Turkey. And obviously on behalf of our Balkan Contingent (i.e. the Cro who flew West.) But let's face it. Turkey have now played four games at EURO 2008, some three hundred and ninety minutes of competitive football. They have been in the lead for two. Second half injury time winner against Switzerland; second half injury time equalizer AND winner against the Czech Republic; extra time second half injury time Edward Woodward against Croatia. Well into the second minute of the one minute of time to be added on, one might add. Roy Slaven's haranging of the referee at full time (in the centre of the pitch - SOMEONE's getting a long touchline ban from UEFA when they get home) was presumably ref getting the battery in his watch fixed sometime soon.

On the balance of play across 120 minutes Croatia did deserve to win more than Turkey, and would have if (a) we were still rolling with them retro Golden Goal styles (soooo last millennium) or (b) if any of Team Tablecloth's strikers could hit a cow's arse with a banjo, or could convert even one in every ten chances presented to them by the likes of Modric and Rakitic down the flanks. Ivica Olic (whose name loosely translates as 'Luca Toni') wasted more opportunities to score than an overly picky fat bloke at Santa Fe Gold. Or that Orkland rub and tug shop the English rugger buggers got themselves in trouble at. Come the ridiculously late leveller, the Croatians were rubble - utterly destroyed to a man, Slaven inclusive. No wonder they rolled into penalties with the confidence of a no-stars trainee lion tamer and the collective accuracy of a Seppo airstrike - presumably the photographers being bombarded either side of the posts were Pakistanis.

















Choose your own caption:
(a) More birdwatching
(b) Ah, Croatian chicks. They're.... loud
(c) Best to avoid anyone with a chequered past
(d) Already laid the table for dinner have we?
(e) Dammit, why couldn't the Swedes had made the second round


Tonight: the Oranje Crush vs the Arse Shavings.

The Doctor is OUT.

Big girls don't cry

So Cristiano Ronaldo's a big girl then.

YOBBO ON EURO: DAY 13 | QF1
Germany 3, Portugal 2, full time whistle. While all those around him in red shirts were crumbling into tears - Pepe who'd run his arse off all game over a dodgy 3D-rendered pitch which looked to have been relaid by a Dunedin City Council roadworks crew, Postiga who'd come on as a sub late-on, scored a goal, kicked a bunch of peeps, got a yellow and generally sparked what miserable late comeback the Portuguese had - Ronaldo broke with tradition by declining to break down and bawl his eyes out. Instead, possibly fearing his mascara streaking, he just stalked off with the look of a snotty teen with entitlement issues who'd been told his car-borrowing privileges had just been revoked. He clearly just wanted to be elsewhere. Real Madrid, perhaps.

The Ronaldo-to-Real story dominated Fleet Street coverage of the EUROs, with one sanctimonious Sky UK journo trying to take the moral high ground (surprising enough to think a Murdoch media employee would be able to locate same without a Tom-Tom) in a pre-game press conference by demanding Ronaldo look down the barrel of the camera at all those heartbroken Man U fans, some of whom may actually live in Manchester rather than London or Shanghai, and tell them why he would be so cruel to leave the European champions. The team interpreter attempted to defuse this, like every other Ronaldo-Man U-Real question, by repeating that Cristi wasn't discussing club issues until after the tournament, but the Sky hack persisted, to the point Cristi actually busted out a moderately impressive smackdown on the perp, reminding him that he'd said he wasn't answering the question and he was pretty sure his English was good enough to be understood. The Sky hack felt the burn and sat the fuck down. Presumably though he can turn up to the team hotel and say 'Ah, Cristiano, you said you wouldn't discuss your future until the tournament was over. It is for you, son. Now answer the fucking question you chippy little twunt.'

But it wasn't just Ronaldo who looked distracted. Make no mistake, regardless of the QF score the Portuguese team are all going places, usually places other than the ones they're currently employed at. Bosingwa has already signed for Chelsea and Deco is likely to follow. It wasn't a coincidence that Chelsea announced Portugal coach Big Phil Scolari as their new manager midway through the tournament. It also wasn't a coincidence that Portugal played like a shower of busted arses for the remainder of the tournament, with their half-caff' side beaten by the Swiss and the full strength team losing to der Fatherland. German coach Joachim Loew (pronounced 'Lurve' by various pervy commentators, not helped by the very metrosexual slim-waisted white fitted blouses he ponces about in) might have been absent from the touchline, banished to a corporate box by UEFA for his stoush with the Austrian coach in the final group game, but Big Phil was absent from the moment the Chelsea PR department put out their press release. Meanwhile someone called Hansi Flick drove the German bus from the touchline while the Lurve Coach paced around the corporate box and tried not to smoke while the cameras were watching.

But the biggest problem the Portuguese faced, the one that lost them the game, wasn't being distracted by the Ronaldo-to-Real stories, or the Big-Phil's-now-Abramo's-bitch coverage. Nor was it being run off the park by the sheer creative brilliance of the Germans, who were efficient and sharp - particularly in the period they scored two quick goals - but weren't really Netherlands scary for either team in tonight's QF with prospects of playing the Germans next week. And it wasn't the dodgy pitch, or bad refereeing, or not tying their shoelaces properly. Nope, the biggest problem they faced was not marking fuckers at free kicks. Which, against Germany, is stupider than turning up with your shoelaces tied together.















Now rack off, Portugal

Transfer Watch
Haitch Kewell turned up on the NRL Footy Show - which was remarkably watchable for once courtesy the lack of Fatty Fucking Vautin; I realise that's about as sensitive as a housebrick considering he was off work after his brother dropped off the twig but the guy is as pleasant to watch as goat electrode porn - dressed remarkably like a chavvy twunt who gets paid a lot of money to play very few minutes of football. Like most of the current England team. Sadly he also talks and carries himself like the same lot of twunts - the ones currently being torn a new 'un on Football365's brilliant virtual alternative-universe diary of England's campaign at EURO 2008, in which despite being coached by a moron in Steve McClaren and fielding a bunch of vain, preening, merking, roasting fucktards like John Terry, Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole, they somehow qualified for the tournament and proceeded to wallow around Europe making cocks of themselves, and it's getting more and more ridiculous as the 'tournament' goes on - at last check the 'C**t' England XI had been kidnapped in an Austrian cellar and replaced by a 'Non-C**t' XI made up of England footballers who weren't complete, well, cunts. Anyway Haitch has finished his latest injury recouperation at Liverpool and looks like signing for AS Roma - because a team with four Italian international midfielders in its squad in Francesco Totti, Daniele de Rossi, Alberto Aquilani and Simone Perrotta (not to mention Cicinho of Brazil, or Ludovic Giuly who only missed the French EURO squad because his coach is a blithering square-spectacled tool who uses astrology to guide his team selection) really needs another midfielder, particularly one who has played approximately 15 minutes of first-team club football in the last five years. However with any luck the world-renown defenders of Italy should successfully manage to kick the smug out of him and he should probably do very well in Serie A, at least until he gets broken again. Hopefully so he can get plenty of rest before the Soccerwhos' next round of World Cup qualifying in Asia.

Feng Shui Watch
Finally to French coach and pretentious nutbag Raymond Domenech, who after presiding over one of the worst showings Les Blues (French: The Blues) have ever produced at an international tournament - or at least since they failed to even score a goal at Japorea 2002 - you'd think the coach would be contrite, or at least apologetic. No, the coach was more concerned with slagging off the feng shui of the hotel. "The layout of the hotel was all wrong. It was in a kind of cul-de-sac with only one route in and out. Plus, there were no proper directives from the Swiss about gatherings of people watching us eat." The French football press, who never bought into Domenech's weirdness and bullshit, have consistently slagged the French Football Federation for hiring as their national coach a poncy theatre critic with a penchant for astrology. And they're right - Australia might be a bit arse-backward compared to Europe when it comes to football management, but even so, when it's time to replace Aussie Pim after some cashed-up Russian club comes to to spirit him away with the power of Money, it's not gonna be David Stratton or Karen Moregold who gets the gig.

Margaret Pomeranz, maybe. If Haitch and co are into that whole annoying English high school teacher thing.

The Doctor is OUT.

The Adventures of Captain Unpronounceable and Shaven Arse

YOBBO ON EURO: GROUP STAGE DAY THE END
Russia suck at football. The last time they lasted beyond the first round of any international tournament, they still had 'CCCP' on their shirts, most of their 2008 starting side were in Communist standard issue cloth nappies, and President-For-Life Vladimir Put In (named after what his under nines union coach used to scream when he was late turning up to the breakdown) was still applying high voltage to dissidents' undercarriage in the name of information gathering for the KGB. That's twenty years of biennial tournaments since they've done anything other than turn up, play three bad games of football, go home, have potatoes thrown at them. And having been torn an exciting range of new arseholes by the Spanish in their first group game, then flatulated past the Greeks with of the dreariest 1-0 wins since old-skool Italy were punishing their way around the world, any change in plan looked unlikely at best. Prognosis: fucked.

However three men conspired to avert yet more potato abuse for the Russian side, leading them to a dominating two-blot win over the stagnant Swedes this morning and with it depositing the pride of Mother Russia into the quarterfinals. One you may remember as Aussie Guus Hiddink, Dutch coaching veteran with a knack for taking unfashionable teams deep into the knockout stages of international tournaments. Guus' work in turning a horrible side in the Spain game into one which made the well-credentialled Swedes look like England without the talent (i.e. England) ranks alongside his transformation of the South Koreans from tardy Asian middleweights to World Cup giant-slayers in 2002.

A Russian bloke called Roman figures as the second key man, though it's not Abramovich of Chelsea - though the buckets of coin he chipped in to pay Guus were probably useful - but Pavlyuchenko of Spartak Moscow, scorer of half Russia's goals to date. Which is two of four. Not exactly Archie Thompson against Samoa then, but just see how far the bastards would have got without him.

The last is probably the most significant, and not because he's clear favourite for the Stefan Kuntz award - Zenit St Petersburg playmaker Andrei Arshavin. His influence can best be outlined by the difference between the side's performance while he was suspended in the first two games (fucking dreadful) c.f. on his return from suspension overnight (could/should have beaten Sweden by double figures if not for their strikers developing a chronic touch of the Luca Tonis in the second half). Arshavin is getting bigged up massive in the football press, his hype distorted by the fact not that many peeps have seen that much of him, but judging from his show against Sweden he's all that and quite a bit more. He was the single-handed reason that his abject no-name hometown club Zenit not only scythed through the knockout stages of the UEFA Cup, laying to waste club after club from the second least mediocre tier of European club football, including running into the only proper big-name Euro club in the tournament, Bayern Munich (who somehow got lost on the way to the Champions League knockout round) in the semi-final - and farken smaaaaashed them. Five-one on aggregate, for Christ's sake. Then they made Rangers look stupert in the final, which Rangers' fans didn't take too kindly to, so they went into the centre of Manchester after the game and farken smaaaaashed it. Still, Zenit were UEFA Cup Champions, making them the best team in Europe that season that weren't good enough to qualify for the Champions League in the first place.

Now you can take it as read that the UEFA Cup is pants. But it's often a bellwether of European football trends to come and properties to watch. For instance, the rise of Jose Mourinho began with Porto winning the UEFA Cup in 2003 - they won the Champions League the year after, then he was off to Chelsea, and now Inter. Current Spurs coach Juande Ramos built his profile on Sevilla's consecutive UEFA Cup wins in 2005/06 and 2006/07. Add to that the reams of players for pissant clubs like Odense Boldklub, Liepajas Metalurgs and Excalibur Tractor Zagreb (note: only one of these teams are ficticious) and who've used the shop window of Thursday nights in Europe when fuck-all else is on TV to get on the radars of bigger clubs and get themselves PAYYYYED, G. Not only were Arse Shavings' string-pulling efforts in midfield THE reason Zenit won the UEFA Cup, it'll probably get him a massive fuck-off contract with some cash-bloated, clueless Premier League club like Newcastle or Man City.

But first, the small matter of a quarter-final against the monumentally scary Dutch, in what amounts to a rematch of the EURO 88 final - the last tournament the Russians didn't have to go line up at the AEROFLOT departures counter immediately after their third group stage game. The final, which the Dutch won on the back of a bullshit van Basten volley, was itself a rematch of the opening game of the tournament, which the Russians won. Any reason they might do the same in four days time? Only that the Dutch would not have been remotely concerned by the prospect of playing Sweden in the quarters - 4-2-2, handy and workmanlike, but more predictable than a Desperate Housewives plotline. You know exactly what you're going to get with the Swedes. Usually bored. However Russia, with their squad of pre-pubescent kids spearheaded by Captain Unpronounceable and the Shaven Arse, and coached up by Russkie Guus, one of their own (indeed, their own coach as of ten years ago in France), might give them a few darker concerns.

Then again it could be another 6-1 pantsing like their EURO 2000 quarter against the Yugos.

In the other game, Spain proved that Portugal are gay by being another already-qualified side to field their 'B' team in the last match of the group stage and still win comfortably. Just like the Dutch did, Croatia did, and Portugal didn't.

Tomorrow: Quarter Final 1, Portugal vs Germany. Where Cristiano Ronaldo learns all there is to know about the Crying Game.

The Doctor is OUT.

Swiss Toni says...

YOBBO ON EURO: DAY TODAY
Among the many weird and wonderful characters invented for The Fast Show, the BBC's comedy classic of the mid to late '90s, was Swiss Toni. Swiss Toni wasn't Swiss. What he was was a sleazy used-car dealer with a big Eighties-style square-shouldered grey suit and bouffant quiff who despite his trowelled-on air of self-assurance was pretty obviously going through a midlife crisis. Judge for yourself.
















Now The Fast Show was at its heart basically catchphrase comedy - Scorchio! Nice. Cheesy Peas! Brilliant! Ethethitheth thethitheth Chriswaddle! Boutros, boutros Ghali. Suit you, sir. Me? The thirteenth Duke of Wybourne? In a girls dormitory? With my reputation.... Does my bum look big in this? But of course... I don't remember... because I was very... very... very drunk.

Uh, yeah. Anyway it was catchphrase comedy - classic catchphrase comedy if you want to sound like some twattish voiceover promo - and even Swiss Toni had a catchphrase. Everything in life, he would tell his earnest offsider Paul, could be compared to making love to a beautiful woman. Like washing a car: "You know, washing a car is very much like making love to a beautiful woman. You've got to caress the bodywork. Breathe softly and gently. And give every inch of it your loving attention. And make sure you've got a nice wet sponge." Or laying floor coverings: "Laying a carpet is very much like making love to a beautiful woman. You check the dimensions, lay her out on the floor, pin her down, walk all over her. If you're adventurous, like me, you might like to try an underlay." Or camping: "Putting up a tent is very much like making love to a beautiful woman. You rent her, unzip the door, put up your pole and slip in to the old bag."

(Though it's utterly irrelevant to the story and beginning to stretch the point to unfeasible levels, just one more: "Buying jewellery for a beautiful woman is a lot like making love to a beautiful woman. First you check the size of her ring to make sure it will fit. Then you end up giving her a pearl necklace.")

Now, as Swiss Toni would point out, if you're Italy, taking part in the group stage of an international tournament is often very much like making love to a beautiful woman. You begin slowly, tentatively. Don't push it, even if you don't win on the first night, or even the second. Sometimes you don't even win on the third night and have to go home early and make love to yourself. Actually, fairly often you have to go home early and make love to yourself because you've started too fucking slowly entirely (case in point EURO 2004, EURO 96...) Other times, you make it past the early exchanges, into the excitement of playing off...

Well fuck yers, if I could write like Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson I wouldn't fucking be here would I.

Point being, after being spanked three-blot by the Dutchies there wasn't a lot of love for the Azzurri out in punterland in terms of odds for making the knockout rounds, but the number of times the Italians have lost their opening match, drawn the second and won the third in order to scrape out of their group in second place with minimal class and maximal arse, playing horrible disjointed football all the way... it's now so much a part of the Italian football landscape it's in the same echelon as catenaccio, Baggio's ponytail and Juventus bribing refs. In fact at the '94 World Cup in the States, when they went on to take the spectacular Brazilian side of Romario and Ronaldo to penalties in the final, they couldn't even manage second in their group - they actually finished third in Group E behind both Mexico (?) and Ireland (!) but scraped through as one of four third-placed teams who made up the numbers in the round of 16 along with the winners and 2ICs from the six groups. Needless to say, Italy were fourth out of those four groups, behind even Argentina who'd had Diego the Dago packed off home for testing positive to everything short of trinitrotoluene. Yet somehow they limped past Nigeria with an 88th minute Robby Baggio equalizer and a 100th minute extra time penalty winner; staggered past the Spaniards with an 87th minute Robby Baggio winner, then motored (relatively speaking) past Stoichkov's Bulgarians 2-1; any guesses as to who might have scored both Italian goals in that one? After all that, if anyone had earned the right to balloon his penalty in the shootout wayyyyy over the bar to lose the final, it was the Divine Ponytail, who'd dragged the bastards into the final in the first place.

So, USA 94: started so slowly they barely made it out of first gear for the rest of the tournament. EURO 96: started so slowly they didn't make it out of the group. France 98: started slowly and didn't really get any better. Played horrible football from day 1, trailing 2-1 to Chile (?!?) in the first match of the tournament until... 85th minute penalty, Robby Baggio. Laboured to top the group despite the rest of the teams (Austria and a post-Roger Milla Cameroon) being rubbish. Dribbled past a horrendously unspectacular Norway in the round of 16 one-nil with the vim and vigour of spilt vomit down a Valley gutter. Finally got put out of their misery by a French firing squad 4-3. On penalties. The game itself ended goalless after 120 minutes, of course.

EURO 2000: had their act together. Won through to the semis easily and efficiently, not even dropping a point, scoring two goals a game and looking Fab-O. Who are you and what have you done with the Azzurri? They turned up in the semi against the Dutch, but in a good way. In a packed stadium of tools in OH&S vests (the Dutch were co-hosts) Zambrotta was sent off after 30 minutes. The Azzurri busted out their oldest of old-skool defensive skillz to hold off the rampaging Netherlands goal machine (four days earlier, quarter final in Rotterdam: Netherlands 6 Yugoslavia 1) for another 90 minutes - a full game of football - with 10 men. Including two missed/saved penalties. By the time the actual shootout came around the Dutch were rubble, bottled it as usual, and Italy went through to the final. Which we don't talk about around these parts. It was as if all their USA '94 eighty-somethingth minute Robby Baggio karma (well he is a Buddhist after all) came back to bite the Azzurri on the arse: leading up until the last minute of regulation, shipped one goal then and another AET, which really put the GAY in Trezeguet.

So that sucked, because it meant Italy were due for another fucking horrible show in WC Japorea '02. And lo and verily it came to pass. Lost to Croatia and drew with Mexico, only wheezed into the second round (avoiding having to get a lift back to Europe with France, the Czechs and the four-fifths of the Argie squad based there) because Ecuador, who the Italians had squashed 2-0, somehow managed to contrive to beat the Cros. Of course they proceeded to run into Guus Hiddink's South Koreans in the Round of 16, which went appallingly badly for them, losing AET on a goal to a bloke who played for an Italian club. At least until the day after the game when he was told to fuck right off in true rational, professional Italian fashion. And speaking of fucking right off, EURO2004: see EURO 96.

WC Germany 2006: this time the cliche of 'Italy always starts tournaments slowly' amounted just to drawing with the USA, then needing a very late, very dodgy penalty to get past first-time qualifiers Austria in the Round of 16. (I may have read that incorrectly as I'm not that familiar with the game in question. Didn't get much press at the time.) And then they were away and went like the clappers, scoring six goals in three knockout games, conceding one, busting out the Roberto Baggio 'Better Late Than Never' Memorial Stylez to score not one but two goals in the last two minutes of extra time vs Ze Chermans, then getting the French captain sent off (his car still won't start) and winning the World Cup. Which does nothing for my point that Italians always start slowly, but does demonstrate that on the odd occasion when they can actually outmanouever their own ponderousness and inertia and actually play some fucking football, finals are in the offing.

However this tournament what we got here - EURO 2008, with its group-stage record for the Italians of lost one (badly), drew one (sketchily), won one (handily) - is not going to be another Germany '06 or EURO 2000 for the Azzurri. They're into the quarters, with the requisite four points which by typically pragmatic Italian calculations is precisely enough to win through, but they are playing some dour bloody football, not helped by the fifty billion golden goalscoring opportunities pissed away each half by Luca Toni, their lead striker. At least I think that's the role he's trying to fill. He may actually be a performance artist doing some interpretive piece based upon the lesser works of former Italian striker Filippo Inzaghi, which basically involved being offside half the time, falling over the other half of the time and looking about as sturdy and masculine as a Thai ladyboy. However Toni's installation does fail to capture the fleeting essence of SuperPippo which is to actually score a fucking goal on occasion, usually a scuffed swipe, flukey deflection or arsey tap-in which your bedridden nan could have guided past the keeper. And probably with less gay hair than either Toni or Pippo, with or without curlers. That said, Toni's performance did immortalize Pippo's characteristic 'get nudged very slightly in the box, cascade onto the floor like you're being shot from behind in slow motion, and win a penalty' oeuvre. Which got the French centre-half Abidal sent off (not long after France's very talented, yet very very ugly playmaker Ribery was scraped off the turf and into the medicab with a busted leg) and the Italians up 1-0. This being the Italians, that was Game Over. Meanwhile, down the road in Berne, Netherlands B did exactly what Netherlands A would have done, and stuffed the Romanians.

Meaning (probably) a Netherlands-Sweden quarter on the 21st Euro time and (definitely) an Italy-Spain winner-take-all on the 22nd. Which will be interesting in the same way that Portugal-Germany will be - aside from two Euro powerhouses beating seven bells out of each other, it'll also be two matches of new-skool Iberian flash-bang vs old-skool Euro structure and discipline. Nostrildramas foresees in both games, the crusty old warhorses of Euro football will stifle the merry fuck out of the flashy wannabes and will scrape through 1-0 or on penalties. But then again he would, because he is very... very... very drunk.





















Pirlo celebrates his penalty against the French
(lad could do with a fucking haircut)


The Doctor is OUT, because it's half eleven and the last group stage matches kick off in seven and a quarter hours.

Czech and mate

YOBBO ON EURO: DAYS WHATEVER-THE-LAST-THREE-HAVE-BEEN
Don't worry, there'll be worse Czech puns than that before this is over

Day 8
Spain and Sweden, who since being drawn together in qualifying as well as the tournament proper have seen more of each other than Britney and her therapist, regarded each other as old mates on their Sunday morning meeting. Fans from either side blew kisses at each other and the teams entered battle like flatmates duelling at backyard cricket - a fight to the death, but for fark's sake don't spill yer beer you tryhard. And of course, there's always got to be someone who has to bollocks it up for everyone by being the uber tryhard of all time; I give you David Villa, scorer of a supremely arsey injury-time winner, his fourth goal of the tournament. Yeah good on ya Davo, now go and get us another beer ya poof. Given there's only been one other game it's safe to assume Villa had a hat-trick in that - yay for arithmetic - so it's also safe to say Villa is the archetypal no-name player of the tournament who's going to score a bucket of goals, nab the tournament Golden Boot, sign a fuck-off-enormous contract with a Big Club, and then disappear into obscurity. For previous case histories please see Schillaci, Toto (WC90); Brolin, Tomas (EURO 92); Salenko, Oleg (WC94); Suker, Davor (WC98); Baros, Milan (EURO2004); and Klose, Miroslav (WC06 - OK he's still around but scoring 5 goals shouldn't be enough to win you the Golden Boot in any tournament, and he's funny looking, so fuck him).
Meanwhile, in the Who Cares Fixture To Rule Them All, Russia beat Greece 1-0. And by fuck was it dull.

Day 9
Portugal lost. Mwahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!
OK so it was to one of the co-hosts who were vastly more up for it than they were, and having already qualified for the finals they trotted out their B-team, but... their B-team got FUCKED THE FUCK OVER by SWITZERLAND, the first team punted out of the tournament for fuck's sake. You'd think in a 23 man squad Big Phil Scolari could have picked a bit of depth, perhaps? Or was he already thinking about his squad at Stamford Bridge?
Fair play to the Swiss though. And to the Turks, for their arse-to-end-all-arsiness three-goal comeback against the Czech Republic to bounce the Czechs out of the tournament, and themselves into the quarters.

Day 10
Germany won the State of Origin clash against the Austrians with a fairly ugly 1-0 win, courtesy an industrial strength free kick from the Dog's Ballacks. The game would have been enlivened considerably had the Austrian coach played his country's topless beach football side who beat their German counterparts 10-5 the day before.















Putting the 'tit' in 'gratuitous'... which there isn't, of course

Elsewhere Croatia trotted out their B-team and still beat Poland 1-0. You watching this, Portugal? All in all some horribly dull football but it gives us a decent pair of quarters thus: Portugal vs Germany (should be fun) and Croatia vs Turkey (should be messy.)


Whither the Choke Republic?
My first major football tournament - in that I followed all the games and tracked all the results - was EURO 96, which many people believe was held in 1996. Being approximately 51.125% Italian, I was obviously backing the Azzurri, runners-up in the last World Cup in the States, despite them being fairly gash in the USA 94 games I'd seen them in (which mostly involved 89 minutes of them puddling about doing a piss-poor impersonation of catenaccio despite being at least a goal down at the time, then 1 minute of Roberto Baggio doing something frankly astonishing and saving the fucking day again). Obviously, this being immediately following a decent showing in a World Cup, the Italians conspicuously failed to turn up and didn't make it out of the group stage. Which meant no team for me. I considered with backing England, but despite it seeming OK in principle, there's something fundamentally wrong about it, like Shannen Doherty's head. (One eye is lower than the other, since you asked.) Anyway they went out on a penalty shootout to ze Chermans before I had a chance to think seriously about it. That left tournament debutants the Czech Republic.

The Czechs were easy to like. They were one of the freshly-liberated Eastern Blockers - the Velvet Revolution, liberated without a drop of blood being spilt, the whole deal - who had a young team who went like the clappers, passed the ball like they were on bonuses for playing entertaining football, and scored some heroically bullshit goals - Poborsky's halfway-line lob vs Portugal in the group stage still routinely gets votes as the best goal in the history of EURO tournaments. And somehow they swaggered and arsed and enthused their way to the final vs Germany, and were one-up therein and looking to win the Whole Damn Thing...

Cue a double from Oliver Bierhoff, one in the second half, the other a Golden Goal in extra time. Well that was fun. Maybe next time, lads?

Except the Choke Republic had inadvertently shown their true colours. This wasn't supposed to be a nation borne of chokers, either on the pitch or off. As Czechoslovakia they'd not only faced Soviet tanks trolling down their main thoroughfares, but they'd also faced the mighty Krauts (Western conference) in a penalty shootout to decide the winner of EURO 76 and beat their sorry arse, with Antonin Panenka not only single-handedly inventing the arsiest penalty-take ever (wait for the keeper to dive then casually dink it over where he was) but busting it out at the most astonishingly ballsy moment to do so. The Germans had never lost a penalty shootout in a major tournament. Nor have they lost one since.

But this side - despite being packed to the rafters with serious talent like Poborsky (who went on to join Man U), Pavel Nedved (Lazio), Patrik Berger (Liverpool) and Vladimir Smicer (likewise) - followed up their giant-killing performance at EURO 96 by not even making it through qualifying for the 1998 World Cup in France (annihilated by Spain and the Yugos in their qualifying group) or four years later in Japorea (where they qualified for a sudden-death playoff against the might of Belgium yet somehow conspired to lose.) In between they made it to EURO 2000 but only for the duration of the first round. It wasn't until EURO 2004 that they actually got their act together to put in a decent performance, and with young 'uns like big stupid Jan Koller, Milan Baros and Petr Cech joining the team, they were justifiably named with the favourites after ripping through their qualifying group unbeaten, outpointing the Dutch. The Oranje made it through the sudden-death playoffs and came back for more, being drawn in the same group in the tournament proper, but it was more pain for the drug-addled pancake molesters: the Czechs beat the Dutch 3-2 in a bullshit comeback for the ages, won all three games, rained in seven goals and generally went into the quarters looking All That and quite a bit more. They smashed three goals in barely fifteen minutes past the Danes in the second half of their quarter final match in Porto. All that stood between them and another EURO final appearance against the hosts was a semi against Greece. Unfancied, untalented, utterly rubbish Greece. The new kings of catenaccio, of ugly one-nils and ten men behind the ball. Who scored less than a fat man on Lesbos and entertained as much as any of the 63 episodes of Acropolis Now, i.e. not fucking much.

Needless to say, despite rocking up with more attacking weapons than an inter-club meeting of the Coffin Dodgers and Hells Angels MCs, the Choke Republic couldn't score a goal in 90 minutes of regulation or 30 more of extra time. The Greeks thefted the winner a minute into the second period of extra time, and went on to bore their way to another 1-0 victory in the final. The Czechs had again come up small on the big stage. They'd promised the world and delivered an atlas. Still they'd make that up at the next tournament, surely?

World Cup 2006: qualified through the back door to the back door to the tradesman's entrance by winning a last-chance two-legged playoff having not qualified either directly from their group, or as one of two best-performing group runners-up. After all that, punted in first round after losing horribly to Ghana, despite smashing the Seppos 3-0 in their first game and being pronounced Tournament Dark Horses for the umpteenth tournament ever. (Also lost to Italy, but hey, all the cool kids did that at Germany '06.)

And now, EURO 2008. Qualified comfortably. Dispatched the Swiss clinically. Beaten by the Portuguese but nowhere near as seriously as the scoreline would suggest. A win against the Turks, who'd done nothing since the previous millennium, would guarantee progression which noone seriously doubted. Least of all once they'd gotten themselves two goals up by the second half. And then... not one, not two, but three goals to the Turks. Wikipedia is calling it the Miracle of Geneva, at least until someone from Prague or Brno cries to Wiki and gets the story deleted. You can change Wikipedia but you can't change history. Once more, the Choke Republic have auto-asphyxiated their way out of a major tournament, faster than... [Michael Hutchence reference removed for legal reasons]











Yet again, it's all gone tits-up for the Czechs


Tomorrow morning: the Group of Fatal Unsurvivable Morgue-Flavoured Rigor Mortis Inducing Death On Toast With Poppadoms And Salad And Yoghurt And Shit... And A Hot Dog. Meaning France-Italy and Romania-Netherlands B, who given they've qualified piss-easily might not be bothered turning up at all, gifting the Remains second spot in the group and meaning one less 'big' team in the mix for the Dutchies to have to negotiate around later in the tourney. Then again, having put seven goals past the pair of them, it's hard to see them being that concerned if they do end up having to play the wogs or the frogs again...

The Doctor is OUT.

Revenge of the Soccerwhos?

YOBBO ON EURO: DAYS 6/7

Last 16 of the tournament, deep into the second half. One team in gold shirts, the other Azzurri blue. The Azzurri get enough chances to win a full season of Serie A - two full seasons considering every Serie A game that doesn't finish one-nil finishes goalless - and yet honours remain even in the final minutes, thanks to the doughty, dedicated efforts of the lads in gold. Then, as if ordained from on high, a dodgy penalty is whistled to settle things once and for all....

Sound familiar?

It would. Except that Italian keeper Gigi Buffon's big toe intervened to prevent Romania exacting an unlikely form of revenge on behalf of the deeply wronged Australian World Cup side over the World Champion Azzurri. And it wasn't really that dodgy a penalty (compared to the Lucas Neill-Fabio Grosso fiasco). And both sides had already scored. Even so, Italy's participation in this EURO tournament - as it always seems to be at this point in the group stage of international tournaments - hangs by a gnat's pube. Despite their three-blot touchup at the hands of the Dutch the Italians could have been forgiven for turning up to the Netherlands fanzone in the centre of Berne frocked up in hi-vis safety oranje and bellowing patriotic Dutch songs about dykes, drugs, weed and pancakes, because the biggest favour the Dutch could do them after the first round result was to hand out three-goal shellackings to all other participants in the group. Not a particularly likely result seeing how the French began their game against them, throwing everything sans l'évier de cuisine at the council workers.

And yet, as if on cue: Netherlands 4, France 1.

Meaning (a) Luciano Moggi must have still been hanging around somewhere in the stadium and (b) whoever wins the Italy-France game on Wednesday morning goes through to the second round - unless Romania can jag a result out of the already-qualified Dutch in the parallel match, in which this clash of 2006 World Cup finalists becomes the most superinflated Who Cares fixture in recent history. Even a draw would be enough for the Romanians if the same result occurs between the wogs and frogs - probably just reward for being at least as good as either of the WC08 finalists across 180 minutes of European championship football.

The day before, Rockstar Roy Slaven managed to inspire, cajole and generally bully a fantabulously gritty performance out of his tablecloth-striped Croatian side, smacking the alleged tournament fave Germans upside the head with a ballsy 2-1 slapdown. The Cros were slick and fluent with the ball and pressed and harassed like buggery without it, and had everything that the same side lacked against the Austrians four days before. Even striker Ivica Olic took time off from his traditional role of rolling around on the floor a lot to stay upright long enough to tap in what amounted to the winner. As for the Austrians, they like the Italians this morning had fifteen billion chances to take the lead in their game against the Poles; like the Italians, got punished; and like the Italians, were bloody lucky to pinch an Edward Woodward courtesy the oldest, grumpiest bastard in their side - Vastic with the injury-time penalty for the Austrians, old man Panucci with the final touch on a free kick into the area for the wogs. While their co-hosts are goneski, Austria still have an outside shot at making the next round, but they'll have to pull a Quoinsland Origin-style nutbag redneck lynchin' out of the bag against their more fancied neighbours, as discussed in previous media commitments.

More awards:

The David 'Cement' Gillespie Memorial Stackhat for Hardest Head
...Goes to splendidly named Romania midfielder Razvan Rat for coming off decidedly better in his almighty bloody headclash with teammate Mirel Radoi. The latter needed scraping up into the first aid cart with a crater the size of the Sea of Tranquility on his temple. The former needed a small Elastoplast on his forehead, and went on to be one of his side's better midfield distributors. Cunning as a Rat.

The Captain Arse Award for Arsiest Goal In All Of Arsey Arse-Scented Arsedom
Since we can't give this to the entire Dutch squad, looks like it's going to have to be Wes Sneijder with his two monumentally arsey efforts - one, finishing off that rightly lauded Totalvoetball-esque team move (not quite Totalfootball though, maybe Partialfootball?) against the Italians, and two, the thirty-yard exclamation mark at the end of the France game. Unless Arjen Robben gets more game time in the next couple of games, of course...

Misleading Non-Football-Related Headline Of The Day
BBC Online: Gaza 'hurt by Palestinian feud' - you'd have thought with his alcohol-and-kebab-fuelled fall from grace in the years since he was a decent footballer he'd have more to worry about than whether the Palestinians were going to accept his 'Friend' request on Facebook.

Coming up on Day 8: Spain-Sweden at sparrows for insomniacs looking for action; Greece-Russia to follow for insomniacs looking for a cure.

The Doctor is OUT.

Great. Can we have Greg Inglis back now?

Bellamy gives new boys a gold star

leaguehq.com.au

Brad Walter | May 22, 2008

...In contrast, the Maroons sorely missed the direction of Lockyer and Meninga revealed the Test and Queensland captain was due to start running before the end of next week after undergoing surgery on the back of his kneecap 11 days ago.

He also nominated Price, the Warriors captain, as a possible selection for Origin II if he makes a successful return from the hamstring injury that has sidelined him since the opening premiership round.

However, Meninga left little doubt that Prince would again be overlooked. Asked if he expected Prince's name to again feature prominently in debate about the team, Meninga said: "Only if you keep bringing it up."

When it was suggested that Prince would have to figure in discussions among the Maroons selectors, he said: "Why?"

That's why, Smel. That's why.

At least it'll give Gus Gould thirty good reasons to shut the fuck up for half an hour or so. And if anyone can explain how someone who played their junior football for Bowraville (which, last time I looked, was on the NSW mid-north coast) is legally entitled to turn out for Nutbag Rednecks Origin, feel free to enlighten.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world was watching this:

YOBBO ON EURO: DAYS 4 AND 5
Jukebox in Iberia
For it's the devious, dextrous dagoes who dominate at this early juncture. Day 4 saw Spain put in a game for the unbelievers with a thorough bending-over of the no-name Russians (to be fair, if anything they have a bit too much name - try some of these fuckers on for Scrabble clues) while Portugal took a slightly arsey win against the Czechs, in truth good value for the win but the margin was taking the piss somewhat. Meanwhile Zlatan the big Balkan bogan put the Swedes into an unassailable lead vs the Ancient Greek Empire of Anti-Football, backed up by possibly the most woefully unco display of goalscoring on behalf of fullback Petter Hansson (in the besst Scanndie traddition of havving supperfluous conssonantts in onne's namme) who bundled the winner in off his face, the post, the keeper, both knees and his night tools. Meanwhile in Basel, despite the Swiss cramming as many ex-pat Turks into their side as they could scrape together at late notice in order to confuse/gain sympathy from their opposition, and despite one of aforesaid Mehmets netting the opener for the Toblerone makers, Turkey ran them down 2-1. Scratch one co-host from the tournament - already - and it isn't even the shit one. Well it's the less shit one. They made it as far as we did at the last World Cup at least.

The really important stuff
Time for our award winning... awards... segment.
Well, at least this isn't awkward or anything.

The Stefan Kuntz Golden Boot (look for fuck's sake he does exist, he got the Krauts' equaliser in the semi against England at EURO 96 you know) for Best Named Player of EURO 2008
This came very close to being renamed the Quim Perpetual Trophy in honour of the splendidly nicknamed Portuguese reserve 'keeper. However Quim managed to fuck his wrist (and you thought that was also just a German thing) in training the day before Portugal's tournament opener and as such is sitting out the tournament in the 'Guesers' hotel bar. In the absence of Quim - sounds like life in an all-boys college run by Opus Dei - the current tournament favourite is now Ivanschitz (don't we all, Ivan?) of the co-hosts - the ones still with a mathematical shot at staying in the tournament (at least until the play the Poles tonight) - although he should get a competitor for the Kuntz when Zenit St Petersburg's Russian attacker Arshavin returns from suspension. Write yer own jokes for those folks, I can't be arshed.

The Karel 'Pob The Lob' Poborsky Commemorative Novelty Cheque for Goal Of The Tournament Likely To Result In A Fucking Huge Contract At The End Of The Tournament
Step up, David Villa! Oh, you already have. Well, after Valencia's busted-arse-horrible season anything's a step up, and three decent goals against the Soviets (including one luverly interchange with Iniesta for his and Spain's second) have him as clubhouse leader against anything Cristi Ronaldo can do. Though Cristi will probably get the bigger cheque in the end.

And yeah, that one the Dutchies scored against my wogs was fairly handy too, but gets disqualified on the basis of it being a 'team' goal. And because it was scored by a bunch of drug-abusing porn-addled pancake-eating Dutchmen.

The Inveterate Recidivist Misogynist Chauvinist Pig-On-A-Spit for Highest Quality Crowd Poontang
Can't say I mind as much if the Dutch win this category...






























Though the Germans will surely give it a decent shake...














And the best thing about the Swedes is that they always treat it as a team sport.






















Though it's probably for the best that the English didn't qualify, really.

















More of the same here (less the latter of course) for those of you who are into that sort of thing. Perverts.


The Doctor is OUT (as in sleeping 'OUT' on the couch tonight, most probably)

This just in...

It has belatedly come to my attention that the South Sydney Rabbitohs won a game of rugby league on the weekend. Not even against the Lower Clarence Magpies under 15s. Indeed, they beat an actual NRL side. In fact they didn't even beat a team debilitated by Origin absences. No, they beat a team debilitated by being the New Zealand Warriors.

But bollocks to that, it's EURO time and that means...

YOBBO ON EURO: DAY 3
Live from the Group of Death
Once, many years ago, the great Roy Slaven - the former Lithgow Shamrocks powerhouse not the Croatian rock star, movie icon and occasional football coach - came up with the most pithy description of a footballer I believe has ever been made. The game in question was a late-Nineties State of Origin fixture; the footballer in question was former Manly centre and idiot Terry Hill, the King of the Kids. The description was as succinct as it was accurate.

Scenario: Terry Hill, running the ball up for NSW, does something shit. Think really hard, you can probably imagine it.

"Terry Hill," Roy solemnly pronounced, letting his words hang in the air. "Slow, ponderous and stupid."

Add "Old" to that list and you have the Azzurri circa EURO 2008. Bereft of ideas or focus in the aftermath of their World Cup win (did we mention they were World Champions?) and cast adrift on a sea of poor motivation, over-hyping and arse-wiping, fresh from two years of being fanned with peacock feathers and fed peeled grapes by buxom handmaidens while reposing on poolside banana lounges. Last night's Italian first XI for the evening match against the Netherlands had more elderly washed-up hacks than the Canberra press gallery, with just two players under thirty - and they being Barzagli (27) and Pirlo (29), were hardly likely to be mistaken for travelling reserves for a Toyota Cup side. In response Marco van Basten rolled out a bunch of kiddies who ran rings around their decrepit opponents - the Dutchies passing them on the left hand side, the right and indeed straight up the middle of the park to rain in three goals and turn the Group of Death into a field efficacy trial for the latest deadly formulation of Agent Oranje. Indeed, with the gormless French turning in an insipid bore-draw against the Romanians, the Group of Death is looking DOA before it even reaches triage.

So, what say the Dutch as favourites to make van Basten the first bloke to win EURO as both a player and manager? Particularly considering they were smart enough to schedule their usual internal meltdown between players, other players, coaching staff, national federation officials, media, the team bus driver and/or pretty much anyone wandering past the hotel at the time - bi-annually scheduled for either immediately prior to or midway through the group stage of any international tournament - for the months PRIOR to EURO 2008 instead. Yes, instead of the ego-saturated Netherlands squad, particularly the strikers, getting their big Dutch honkers out of joint (see what I did there?) about how many minutes and in which positions they or their intra-squad rivals were or weren't playing, and collectively cracking the shits mid-tournament - this time van Basten was innovative enough to fall out with Ruud van Nistelrooy and Clarence Seedorf well before the tournament actually kicked off. Now he's no Rinus Michels and his side plays something a lot more pragmatic than Totalvoetbal, but van Basten is showing tactical nous off the pitch which pretty much every Dutch manager before him - Aussie Guus included (whose World Cup 98 squad was as guilty as any of self-destructing) - haven't managed...





















Guus finally gets jack of yappy little shit Edgar Davids at France 98, and throttles the bastard

Watch this space
Though the much-vaunted openers in the Group of Fatalness turned out a bust - one a non-event, the other a thorough arse-kicking - the following fixtures are bound to produce less talk and more action, or at least action commensurate to the amount of pre-match talk. Get your arse cable-sports-side for the following:

Group A
Czech Republic vs Portugal
June 11, Geneva, 6pm Euro time, seriously fucking early AEST
Two sides made up largely of showboaters, stepover merchants, divers, simulators and product-smeared ponces. Both are perennial pretenders, flat-track bullies of the group stage going back the last umpteen fucking international tournaments who always, always fall over when the going gets tough. Time to front with some balls, lads. Both sides will progress, but this might tell which side has the better backbone. Look for the steelier Czech spine to put the reducers on the call-my-agent flouncers of the Portuguese flanks, as a taster of what may come later in the tournament. And remember, it's not an international tournament until Cristiano Ronaldo is bawling his eyes out face down on the carpet while Someone Else is larging it in front of their massed fans up the other end of the park.

Group B
Austria vs Germany
June 16, Vienna, 8.45pm local, quarter to seven NZ time, fuckin' tidy eh
Ignore the nearly three-figure disparity in their FIFA rankings. This will be border hostilities of the highest order. This is centuries of brotherly squabbling gone postal, of state against state, mate against mate. An organised, civilized modern democracy, the commercial, intellectual and social powerhouse of the region, versus their retarded cousins from the hills, a nation of alcoholics and bogans famous only for producing Hitler, Schwarzenegger and that seriously dodgy cunt with a very misguided take on the old slogan of 'Lock up your daughters'. Yes, it's State of Origin all over again, just with an overwhelming whiff of bratwurst and Becks. And of arse-kicking. Despite the Austrians' handy showing against the clueless Cros, there'll be no Fatty or Alfie style heroic against-the-odds wins for the inbreds from the sticks this time. Austrians to win the kicking competition; Germans to win the actual game. And as regards the actual game of Origin II - despite their continuing Lockyer deficiency, mark this one down as a win for the nutbag rednecks (thanks very much B.W. Mason) at home.

Group C
Netherlands vs France
June 13, Berne, 8.45pm there, breakfast time here
Statistically it should be Italy-France, the final game of the group between the first and second ranked sides in the world, which attracts attention. You know, world cup final, Zidane's headbutt, all that schtick. But statistics, as Disraeli pointed out, are justificably ranked below lies and damned lies respectively, and he had an awesome Cream album named after him so he must have been a'ight. Statistically this is the Group of Death because the FIFA world number 1, 2, 4 and 8 are playing each other therein. The dude at UEFA who works out the seedings for the draw to keep the big sides apart until the quarters was clearly off having a shit when they were figuring this one out. Anyway, this will be The Game of Group C, largely because France can't continue to be as pants as they were against the Remains with that much talent on the park, and the Dutch aren't going to get as much space to work in as they found between and around the weather-beaten, moss-covered, pigeon-shit-encrusted statues of the Italian back four. Plus the wogs and the frogs have played each other approximately nineteen billion times since meeting in the World Cup final and are thoroughly sick of the sight of each other, meaning that game will be about as interesting as watching pigeon shit dry on the Italian back four. And besides, the Netherlands-France game will be at the superbly-named Wankdorf Stadium. What more could you ask for?

Group D
Sweden vs Spain
June 14, Salzburg, 6pm Central European Time, pulling zeds Me Time
This group is a near perfect Xerox of Group A from EURO 2004 which the Spaniards, the Greeks and the Russkies were chillin' in, along with the Portugeezers. This produced some frigging excellent football, notably the Greeks turning their Geezer hosts over in the first match of the tournament (as they did again in the last game), the Soviets inflicting the Grecians' only loss of the tournament, and as usual, the Spanish playing a bunch of pretty football, looking fan-bloody-tastic for about 15 minutes, and then flopping outat the first available opportunity, like an Iberian version of Craig Gower's dodger in the front bar of the Coogee Bay Hotel. Yet some hapless pundit-monkeys have put their name down again as a contenda - in fact most have them listed on the second line of betting. Have these people never seen Spain play at an international football tournament? And in a year where the Spanish league is more shit than it's been for years, with no Spanish side making it to any major European club final? If Spain make the quarters, let alone the semis, without disappearing up their own arse, it'll be an achievement. The first real test of this Spain side's cojones will be the game against the Swedes, who will be organised, tenacious and willing, with just enough attacking spark to be dangerous. Watch for Lyon axeman Kim Kallstrom to try and significantly injure someone with his fucking implausible piledriver shooting from the edge of the area. The Spanish version of MBF may need to make sure some of their clients have kept their premiums up.

The Doctor is OUT.

Yobbo on Euro: The Beginning

Well it's half-past 2008 and as all Worldly folks out there would be aware, June in an even-numbered year means it's time for one thing and one thing only: England to bleat about not being in a major international football event again. This time it's the month of mayhem that comprises EURO 2008, live from those very lively nations of Austria and Switzerland (aka Swissteria - cheers Football365). Let's get into it.

Day 1: how about this for openers?
If it's the opening ceremony you mean, only marginally better than New Zealand's openers, who are shit. Prior to their tournament pipe-opener versus the bouncing Czechs, Switzerland took time out to bore every one of the 39, 730 in St Jakob's Park bored busted-arse badgershit with selected 'highlights' of their nationhood, including such historical milestones as winning (purchasing) the America's Cup, inventing cheese with weight-saving holes in, inventing new and pointless tools to stick onto folding penknives, and apologising for their role in profiteering off the back of the Holocaust and harbouring Nazi war criminals and Nazi war gold in the aftermath of WW2. What, they didn't get around to that bit?

Switzerland went on to bear out another historical truism regarding their ludicrously self-inflated cuckoo-clock republic in the hills: possessors of a football side good on organisation and cohesion and all those other useful, if fucking tedious, elements - but when the footballing gods were handing out creative spark this parking inspector of a nation was presumably out the back giving some poor cunt a ticket and a lecture about not ashing his fag on the footpath. Even more so when Switzerland's lead (and indeed only) striker Alexander Frei became notably Frei-ed at the edges (sorry), departing from both game and tournament with what medicos characterised as a totally fucking rooted knee. While the Swiss lacked a striker, the Czechs had more than they could use in the form of big stupid Jan Koller, last of the throwbacks to the original Czech Republic side of Euro 96 which gave the Krauts a big fat scare in the final on their international debut as a stand-alone nation. However they needed to get rid of the big stupid one before they could actually manage a goal through sub Vaclav Sverkos. The Czechos are missing the midfield string-pulling of Arsenal's Tomas Rosicky - winner of the World Cup '06 Tasco Telescope award for the greatest goal scored from the greatest distance - like a hole in the head.

Later, in the battle between the biggest hackers and the biggest divers of the tournament, Turkey lost to Portugal. Happily, Cristi Ronaldo scored no goals and got fouled a lot. What a cunt. (At last, something even the Man U fans can agree on.) Mind you, against the Turks, even Casper the Friendly Ghost would end up tits-up on the playing surface. Little known fact: 'Doner' meat is made from the pureed extract of showboating opposition wingers.





















Beckham had a poor game against the Turks in a pre-tournament friendly

Show us your helmet
The best dressed man of EURO 2008 wasn't anywhere near Swissteria on the weekend, unsurprisingly as the Swiss would have him arrested for crimes against conformity going back a dozen years or more. Yes kids, it's long-time World favourite Valentino Rossi. Not content with last week's effort of turning up at his home race at Mugello with the best helmet design in the entire history of motorsport....
















Seriously, in what way is that not the funniest shit ever?

...he followed it up this weekend in Catalunya with not only a bike repainted in the world champion blue of the world champion Azzurri, the Italian national side (world champions, or so I hear)...
















...but a set of leathers designed to look like the Azzurri's playing strip. Complete with shorts, books, socks and a football for a head (making him more like Bert Newton than Marco Materazzi, but anyway.)
















Admittedly the pink bits were a bit dodgy - not the first time Rossi's been accused of associating himself with dodgy pink bits, although he claimed the grid girls were totally professional - but the idea is thoroughly choice. He carried the idea to the podium after just ousting Casey Stoner from second place in the race, having been gapped by race winner and personality bypass recipient Dani Pedrosa while hauling through the field from his crap grid position of ninth. The Azzurri would want to start better tonight against the Dutch in the opening matches of the Group of Death, but they're equally renown as shit-slow starters.

Day 2: Offen mein schiesse
From the Group of Death to the Group of Dull, which sees Germany playing a bunch of teams which are equally as snore-bore-draw focused as Der Fussballmannschaft: Poland, who would be a much better side if Germany would give back the players of theirs they annexed previously - a bit of a habit of theirs as it turns out - Klose and Podolski (two goals v the Poles, who will be happy with getting a F1 Grand Prix winner out of the weekend instead); Austria, Germany's retarded cousin who belied their hundred-plus world ranking to give the Croatians a serious case of the irrits; and Croatia, whose reputation as a 'tournament dark horse' (largely given them by sour Pom pundits trying to gladhand, glorymonger and bandwagoneer following their nation's thorough mannschafting in qualifying at the hands of the Cros) wasn't helped much by playing like a geometric array of busteds in the evening game.

But you gotta love the Cro's, not just because they're prepared to turn up and be seen in a playing shirt that appears to be made from the tablecloths from a cheap Italian bistro. (Happy 2nd Birthday, That Joke.) And not just because of the great players which have worn aforementioned tea-towel like Zvoni Boban, Davo Suker, Robbo Prostheticneckski or their great, of short history of giant-killing, shit-stirring and generally agitating their way through Euro 96, France 98 and... actually they've done fuck all since other than top their group in qualifying for this. Mainly you got to give points for their coach, Rampaging Roy Slaven Bilic, who was part of those late-90s sides (he actually got French captain Laurent Blanc a red card in the France 98 semi which meant the decrepit old bastard missed the final - which the French were probably secretly delighted by) and has graduated into being the best-value international coach in the game. I'm not seeing Aussie Pim sledging opposition coaches, playing in a rock band in his spare time, or not bothering picking enough defenders for his squad because he figures his midfield 'magicians' will arse their way out of trouble. And when you figure that among the six defenders in the Croat squad is listed the busted-arse-useless Joey Simunic (the three yellow card man from the World Cup game against Australia - apparently the idiot pom ref wrote Simunic's first yellow down against Australia rather than the Tablecloths after hearing his ex-Canberra accent and getting momentarily confused) - you know Rampaging Roy Slaven is serious about all-out-attack. Judging by the evening game, he just has to explain the concept to his attacking players and they should be away...

The Doctor is OUT.
(Actually, as pointed out earlier, he came second. The ladies prefer it that way apparently.)