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.
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