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.