World Cup Nonsense

[Sweder]

Congratulations!
To the Mighty Aussies . . . you guys just don’t know when you’re beaten.
A real scrap of a match tonight; blood, guts, bodies on the line, fabulous.
Now finish the job and send those conniving, nefarious prima donnas from Italy back to their brown-envelope strewn pizza parlours and soon-to-be Serie B-bound clubs.

Commiserations!
To the BBC exec who will surely be scanning the media rags for a new position having taken the baffling decision to bury the one match tonight that really mattered to the barren wasteland that is BBC 3.

Congratulations!
To Ronaldo, who has equalled Fatty Arbuckle’s World Cup Pie-Eating Record tonight taking his tally to 14 pies in all World Cup matches. His second goal was a wonder strike, and went some way to salvaging his reputation on the biggest stage. That, and I signed him this morning for my Telegraph Fantasy World Cup side . . .

Commiserations!
To Graham Poll, who will surely wake up from his crack-cocaine-fuelled funk to learn that he’s the first ref in the history of the World Cup to have yellow-carded the same player three times in a single match.

Add to that two blatant penalties missed (both in favour of Australia, one a basketball tip-off style handball, the other a fabulous waist-high two-armed tackle on Mark Viduka) and the utter pandemonium surrounding the final whistle and I’ll wager our Graham won’t be planning a trip to Munich on July the ninth. Shame, as before tonight the FIFA stats had the Pollmeister head and shoulders above his fellow whistle-blowers in the race for Cup Final duty.

And finally . . .

. . . Congratulations AND Commiserations to the hero of late night telly, Adrian Chiles.
The Baggie Bird (who I accompanied through mile 14 of the 2005 London Marathon) will be even more melancholy than usual on tonight’s hilights show. His Croatian Mum, who provided our Ade with a bespoke red and white chequered short-order cooks hat, will have needed some consolation this evening.

I’m astounded at Chiles’s spreading influence and infectious enthusiasm.
Not only have the Beeb offered him anchor on The One Show, the soon-to-be-launched successor to the classic Nationwide, he’s also managed to teach the entire army of Croatian supporters to maintain the Baggies ‘Boing Boing’ for 90 minutes. Fabulous.

Let's hope the new role with the Beeb doesn’t lead to embarrassing tabloid headlines as it did for his predecessor, one Frank Bough. . .