World Cup Nonsense

[El Gordo]

It seems churlish to complain about performances when we are through to the quarter finals, but really, it's getting embarrassing. It's reminiscent of Greece at Euro 2004. Yep, they ended up winning the cup, but is there a non-Greek on the planet who can recall a single goal they scored? A single 'moment of magic'? I doubt it.

And that's what I'm getting spooked about. The phantom team of the World Cup. One minute we're preparing for our first game, the next we are in the quarter finals. How did we get there? We seem to be walking through walls. We are moving from one room to another without leaving any lasting impression. Nothing more permanent than the faint whiff of cigarette smoke.

Just days after they took place, I can barely recall anything of note from our four games so far. Gerrard's goal, and Cole's of course. They will bob around in te memory for a good while, but in 6 hours of football, hardly anything else. Lampard's misses (and I don't mean Elen Rives), Ashley Cole's heroic block in the Ecuador game.... Owen's crumpled knee. That's about it. A month from now, even the ink of those memories will have faded.

It's not too late. For England, Italia 90 began in the 119th minute of the second round. We'd been poor in the tournament up till that point, and yet Platt's wonder goal, followed by the struggle against Cameroon and that final, extended defeat in the semis, washed down with Gazza's tears, not to mention our own, left us with the delusion that we'd had a great World Cup.

We may have just 90 minutes to rescue ourselves. We need to find an extraordinary game from somewhere. It's a very English thing, but I'd prefer glorious defeat in the quarters to another pedestrian victory and a pedestrian defeat in the semi. As for the possibility of actually winning the thing, well! I can honestly say that I think I'd get no lasting pleasure from seeing England win the World Cup in this fashion. As a feat, it would a replica of that side who won Euro 2004.

Whoever they were.