FOR A while, we were led to believe this World Cup would be the one of shocks and surprises. We had Brazil spluttering to a draw, Argentina getting hammered and Germany beaten by Mexico. Messi would exit, leaving his last World Cup unfulfilled, Ronaldo would be crowned the greatest of all time and perhaps “little” […]
IT is easy to admire many things about Germany, from the trains running on time, to German pragmatism and consensus, employee protection, high quality products, Kraftwerk and refusal to discard industries that appear to have little in common with modern trends. Back in the 1990s, some people in Britain laughed that Germany was still “bashing […]
WHEN Mexico beat Germany 1-0 in the group stage of the 2018 World Cup, it was greeted with mild hysteria, not just by the Mexican fans, but also by pundits and onlookers. As far as they were concerned, Mexico had pulled off a major shock, unseated the world champions and created a little piece of […]
IT HAS not been a totally disappointing World Cup, but it hasn’t quite ignited into the festival of football we are always promised and rarely get. The fancied teams have yet to find their form, although it is feasible they are merely pacing themselves after long domestic programmes. The surprise of the first week was […]
WHAT will we take from this year’s World Cup? Too often, the great FIFA bunfight fails to deliver something really lasting, certainly in more recent times. Arguably the most striking thing about 2014 was Brazil’s dramatic capitulation to Germany – that 7-1 defeat is still really hard to believe. In the long and distant past, […]
THE FINAL of CONIFA’s World Football Cup may have been something of a damp squib (literally), settled in the unsatisfactory manner of the penalty shoot-out, but the occasion underlined the very warm feeling the tournament created among the many people who watched the games in and around London. There were glitches, notably the clumsy exit […]
HARRY Kane has been appointed captain of England, possibly the nearest the nation will get to a “Roy of the Rovers” figure leading the team into battle. Kane has already delivered the kind of message the hordes will want to hear from the man with the armband, “England can win the World Cup.” Even the […]
NO sooner than the World Cup is over, we will all focus on the next international competition, the UEFA Nations League (UNL). Designed to create relevance in a crowded fixture list, the UNL is UEFA’s attempt to make national team games more interesting. Little have they admitted it, the real reason may be to cut […]
THE Italian headlines have been screaming, the histrionics have begun and the post-mortems are in full flow – Italy will not be in Russia in 2018 and it is excruciatingly painful for the four-time winners of the FIFA World Cup. Millions of Italians woke up on Tuesday with a sinking feeling in the pit of […]
