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off with the look of a snotty teen with entitlement issues who'd been told his car-borrowing privileges had just been revoked.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.
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