Football pundits the length and breadth of Sky Sports are screaming for the head of the Norwegian referee who single-handedly prevented that miserable-looking, lantern-jawed Russkie getting his filthy-rich mitts on the European Cup. In this atmosphere of rampant hostility and accusations of ineptitude, and cheating aimed at the our beloved football officials Pedro takes time to calm the waters (!)
"As many of you may know, I have connections of a very minor nature to Italy, home of Machiavelli and the Mafia amongst about 60 million others. With such a heritage, conspiracy theories abound – from suggesting that the last Pope was murdered because there were photos of him having sex with a cardinal (or was that Claudia Cardinale?) to one suggesting that Peter Mallinger is a closet Direone$ fan (of course nobody reading this would believe that!).
Anyway, in this spirit I want to take a look at the last world cup and Euro 2004. I want to try to stick to the facts, not idle speculation. At the end of it, you decide whether it was cock up or conspiracy!
Firstly, let’s look at the world cup in South Korea and Japan (you can guess what’s coming?!). You may remember there were several countries furious at the refereeing in their matches, mainly involving South Korea (I so like the Japanese who clearly think a back hander is a strange hand shake!). Let’s start with the first to cry foul – Italy (this isn’t whingeing – I’ve watched Italy crash out of tournaments many times, and hitherto had always blamed the sterile negative tactics, except in 1982 of course!). The first knock out stage pitched Italy against South Korea and we witnessed what anybody watching the game would have had to agree was some of the worst refereeing ever. The rather rotund (ok, pie eating freak son of two whales whose idea of keeping up with play was to stop it so he could waddle up to it) Byron Moreno of Ecuador took ineptitude to a hitherto unreachable plane. Baffling decision followed baffling decision (in his attempt to appear even-handed, he even gave decisions against South Korea… well, maybe one!).
But the facts: firstly, totally undeniable, is the fact that he was from Ecuador, a team Italy had put out of the tournament in the preceding group stages. (Might he have been bitter? Who knows? Does it make any sense for an organising committee to allow such a doubt to rise? Fortunately, organising committees have learnt this lesson…. or have they – read on dear reader to find out!). Secondly, Totti was sent off for diving – replays showed very clearly the South Korean must have thought Totti was a dog in danger of escaping from the dinner pot and had to be stopped at all costs. Finally, a perfectly good golden goal was disallowed for offside (even the snail-like Byron and his linesmen needed some imagination to give that).
Off side is a very good way for conspirators to deny goals, which brings me to Spain (anyone remember their ‘offside’ goal in Euro 2004, I forget against who! J). They were South Korea’s next victims, sorry, opponents. By this point I’d more or less given up on the tournament so I don’t remember the game very well. This time FIFA (surely we can introduce the word, “blatter”, into English meaning a bald headed Swiss twat who comes up with the most stupid ideas about football, plunders the game’s coffers, and gets away with it?) had learnt their lesson and the ref was from somewhere Spain hadn’t done the dirty on (ha – I did actually look it up, it was Gamal Ghandour from Egypt). Anyway, same old story: decisions from fantasy island, and two disallowed goals. One disallowed goal is acceptable to the average fan, two and the referee is at risk of a severe lynching (is there such a thing as a gentle lynching?!).
Sadly for South Korea, the pretence couldn’t be continued and they fell at the next hurdle!
Finally, for that world cup, I present Brazil v Belgium (I’m not one of those people who think the sun shines out of Brazilian football’s arse – as far as I’m concerned, although they have undeniable talent and on their day – rarely! - they can be wonderful to watch, most of the time they’re as cynical a team as you could dread to watch!) And is it a coincidence that much of their recent success has come at the same time as FIFA has had either a Brazilian president, or one who relied on them for his position (we Europeans stupidly tried to have a non-corrupt bald non-Swiss twat as head!).
I was working in Belgium at the time so watched the game in the office with fans of the “red devils” (the only time when the Phlegms – whoops, Flems and Walloons agree on anything). I watched in astonishment (actually, by now I was used to it!) as decisions went the Brazilians’ way, topped off by a wonderful header into the Brazilian goal by Marc Wilmots that was, to quote the BBC, “harshly disallowed”!
So, on to Euro 2004.
(To remind you, Italy went out when Sweden and Denmark were “fortunate” enough to have a 2-2 draw, a score guaranteed to put Italy out whatever Italy did.) I find it very funny that people thought this was not contrived! Admit it, who wouldn’t have tried to contrive it in their position? I know I would! We’re talking professional big money sport. The ridiculous thing is that UEFA allowed the possibility (I won’t even mention that the head of UEFA is a bald headed Swedish twat)! If you have a league of four, why the fuck don’t all the results have equal standing? It’s then much harder to have a situation where two teams can be in a position to assure themselves of qualification. So I put my money where my mouth was (on a 2-2 and 3-3 draw) and came out of the competition in the money!
Anyway, I’m sure you’re all fed up of Italy so let’s go on to…. England! Anybody remember how England went out? Wasn’t there a dodgy disallowed goal against Portugal? Yes, there was, I remember now! Of course by now tournament organisers were making sure that things really were whiter than white. Err… actually they weren’t! Yes, once again the referee was from a nation that one of the countries had put out in the previous round! No prizes for guessing which one – the referee was one Urs Meier (another fucking Swiss!), whose mutter land England had put out! Was he bitter about England putting the cow bell clanking Swiss out (surely a service to humanity?!), or just favouring the home nation?
But it didn’t end there! How did Greece slide into the final? How did Portugal plod there? Neither team had performed particularly well. Certainly everyone expected the Czechs to put the Greeks out. Well, here’s a curious fact – the pre-defined draw was such that the qualifiers of group A, if they got to the quarter-finals, would have two extra days to prepare for the semis over their opponents, not one! To be fair, one days difference is unavoidable but two? Remember how knackered the Czechs were in extra time? Who was in group A? The hosts, that’s who! How convenient! How fucking Heineken!
So? Cock up or conspiracy? Personally, I never believe in coincidences. But you, dear reader…?!"
Pedro
"As many of you may know, I have connections of a very minor nature to Italy, home of Machiavelli and the Mafia amongst about 60 million others. With such a heritage, conspiracy theories abound – from suggesting that the last Pope was murdered because there were photos of him having sex with a cardinal (or was that Claudia Cardinale?) to one suggesting that Peter Mallinger is a closet Direone$ fan (of course nobody reading this would believe that!).
Anyway, in this spirit I want to take a look at the last world cup and Euro 2004. I want to try to stick to the facts, not idle speculation. At the end of it, you decide whether it was cock up or conspiracy!
Firstly, let’s look at the world cup in South Korea and Japan (you can guess what’s coming?!). You may remember there were several countries furious at the refereeing in their matches, mainly involving South Korea (I so like the Japanese who clearly think a back hander is a strange hand shake!). Let’s start with the first to cry foul – Italy (this isn’t whingeing – I’ve watched Italy crash out of tournaments many times, and hitherto had always blamed the sterile negative tactics, except in 1982 of course!). The first knock out stage pitched Italy against South Korea and we witnessed what anybody watching the game would have had to agree was some of the worst refereeing ever. The rather rotund (ok, pie eating freak son of two whales whose idea of keeping up with play was to stop it so he could waddle up to it) Byron Moreno of Ecuador took ineptitude to a hitherto unreachable plane. Baffling decision followed baffling decision (in his attempt to appear even-handed, he even gave decisions against South Korea… well, maybe one!).
But the facts: firstly, totally undeniable, is the fact that he was from Ecuador, a team Italy had put out of the tournament in the preceding group stages. (Might he have been bitter? Who knows? Does it make any sense for an organising committee to allow such a doubt to rise? Fortunately, organising committees have learnt this lesson…. or have they – read on dear reader to find out!). Secondly, Totti was sent off for diving – replays showed very clearly the South Korean must have thought Totti was a dog in danger of escaping from the dinner pot and had to be stopped at all costs. Finally, a perfectly good golden goal was disallowed for offside (even the snail-like Byron and his linesmen needed some imagination to give that).
Off side is a very good way for conspirators to deny goals, which brings me to Spain (anyone remember their ‘offside’ goal in Euro 2004, I forget against who! J). They were South Korea’s next victims, sorry, opponents. By this point I’d more or less given up on the tournament so I don’t remember the game very well. This time FIFA (surely we can introduce the word, “blatter”, into English meaning a bald headed Swiss twat who comes up with the most stupid ideas about football, plunders the game’s coffers, and gets away with it?) had learnt their lesson and the ref was from somewhere Spain hadn’t done the dirty on (ha – I did actually look it up, it was Gamal Ghandour from Egypt). Anyway, same old story: decisions from fantasy island, and two disallowed goals. One disallowed goal is acceptable to the average fan, two and the referee is at risk of a severe lynching (is there such a thing as a gentle lynching?!).
Sadly for South Korea, the pretence couldn’t be continued and they fell at the next hurdle!
Finally, for that world cup, I present Brazil v Belgium (I’m not one of those people who think the sun shines out of Brazilian football’s arse – as far as I’m concerned, although they have undeniable talent and on their day – rarely! - they can be wonderful to watch, most of the time they’re as cynical a team as you could dread to watch!) And is it a coincidence that much of their recent success has come at the same time as FIFA has had either a Brazilian president, or one who relied on them for his position (we Europeans stupidly tried to have a non-corrupt bald non-Swiss twat as head!).
I was working in Belgium at the time so watched the game in the office with fans of the “red devils” (the only time when the Phlegms – whoops, Flems and Walloons agree on anything). I watched in astonishment (actually, by now I was used to it!) as decisions went the Brazilians’ way, topped off by a wonderful header into the Brazilian goal by Marc Wilmots that was, to quote the BBC, “harshly disallowed”!
So, on to Euro 2004.
(To remind you, Italy went out when Sweden and Denmark were “fortunate” enough to have a 2-2 draw, a score guaranteed to put Italy out whatever Italy did.) I find it very funny that people thought this was not contrived! Admit it, who wouldn’t have tried to contrive it in their position? I know I would! We’re talking professional big money sport. The ridiculous thing is that UEFA allowed the possibility (I won’t even mention that the head of UEFA is a bald headed Swedish twat)! If you have a league of four, why the fuck don’t all the results have equal standing? It’s then much harder to have a situation where two teams can be in a position to assure themselves of qualification. So I put my money where my mouth was (on a 2-2 and 3-3 draw) and came out of the competition in the money!
Anyway, I’m sure you’re all fed up of Italy so let’s go on to…. England! Anybody remember how England went out? Wasn’t there a dodgy disallowed goal against Portugal? Yes, there was, I remember now! Of course by now tournament organisers were making sure that things really were whiter than white. Err… actually they weren’t! Yes, once again the referee was from a nation that one of the countries had put out in the previous round! No prizes for guessing which one – the referee was one Urs Meier (another fucking Swiss!), whose mutter land England had put out! Was he bitter about England putting the cow bell clanking Swiss out (surely a service to humanity?!), or just favouring the home nation?
But it didn’t end there! How did Greece slide into the final? How did Portugal plod there? Neither team had performed particularly well. Certainly everyone expected the Czechs to put the Greeks out. Well, here’s a curious fact – the pre-defined draw was such that the qualifiers of group A, if they got to the quarter-finals, would have two extra days to prepare for the semis over their opponents, not one! To be fair, one days difference is unavoidable but two? Remember how knackered the Czechs were in extra time? Who was in group A? The hosts, that’s who! How convenient! How fucking Heineken!
So? Cock up or conspiracy? Personally, I never believe in coincidences. But you, dear reader…?!"
Pedro
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