I expect even the Amish are aware that there has recently been a small competition called 'The World Cup'. This year it was in South Africa in which the main talk of the World Cup wasn't in anyway football related. It was the new word the whole world learnt: 'Vuvuzela'. Surprisingly, no spell check recognises it as a word... Anyway, most people spent the four weeks complaining about the incredibly irritating sound caused by them and how it meant we could no longer hear the chanting (or booing) from the crowds. For the first few matches there should have been a sign at the bottom of the screen saying 'Do not adjust your sets'. The Vuvuzela, to me, made it sound as if an apocalyptic-sized swarm of angry bees had been set upon South Africa.
I will now join in the millions of English people in criticising the England Football Team. Well, what a ridiculous display that was; a whole nation setting their hopes upon a bunch of over-paid men. Every four years we chant that we will win the World Cup, just like the squad did in 1966. I'm not sure how we developed this naivety towards how rubbish we are. Everyone expected fantastic things from the foot of Wayne Rooney (apparently, he has now just been house trained). Everyone expected great things from the Italian who looked like Postman Pat, Fabio Capello. Everyone even expected us to sail through the group stage with relative ease. How wrong we were.
Every fat man sitting in a pub drinking his third glass of bitter, will claim that they could do a better than the England Team, even though he barely manages to co-ordinate his right hand holding the glass to his open mouth. Well, I feel I should join in on this national pass time. “I reckon me and my ageing family would have done a better job than the England team did against Germany. My blind Nan would obviously be in goal, with the defensive line being covered by all the old female relatives with their handbags and moaning. Midfield would consist of selected Aunts and Uncles and upfront would be my Dad and Grandad, grumbling about their aches and pains. This team, in my idiotic, uncared for, naive, and arrogant opinion, would have done better..."
However, in all honesty, competing in the World Cup was just a waste of money for us Brit's really. We drew 1-1 against the USA, a country who have no interest in our football, but only when it comes to trying to win something. Also, what a ridiculous display by Rob Green in goal; I mean, I know girls who would never let go of a ball that easily... We then drew 0-0 against Algeria and then finally, won 1-0 against Slovenia. This was just about enough for us to get through the Group Stages. However, up until this point, we had done awfully, so I vowed to not watch the game against Germany, and how right I was (even if I was the only person in England to get sunburnt during that game). It was awful as far as I can tell. We lost that 1-4, and yet, everyone made a huge fuss over Lampard's goal being disallowed. What difference would that have made? We still would have lost badly, but not by quite as many goals... How stupid can English people be when it comes to football?
I actually watched a majority of the football games, either the entire way through or at least one half. Nothing exciting really happened, apart from quite a few goals being scored (145) and even more yellow cards given (260). That's only in a space of 64 games. To bring maths into this blog for just a few seconds, that is an average of about 2 goals and 4 yellow cards in each match. Anyway, as I said, I watched a majority of the games but, and this may just only be me that thinks this, a majority of the games were not that entertaining.
The second to last match (the battle for third place between Uruguay and Germany) was possibly my favourite game of the lot. Many goals were scored and it was rather close. I don't see the point of games were teams just pass the ball around to each other. Surely the main purpose of a football match is to score as many goals as possible and stop the other team from scoring more.... This nicely brings me onto the subject of the final match between the Netherlands and Spain. That was possibly one of the most boring matches of the World Cup. Spain eventually scored just before the end of extra time, but by then everyone had stopped caring who won and just wanted the football to finish. I personally think Germany deserved the World Cup more than Spain. Oh well.
I do have one thought: Does the fact that Switzerland was the only country to beat Spain during the World Cup, mean that they are infact the better team?
The World Cup was shown on both the BBC or on ITV. Both had different ways of handling the coverage. The BBC opted for Gary Lineker (a majority of the time), with a row of various pundits such as Alan Shearer and 'Motty', professionally reviewing the match. ITV opted with Adrian Chiles being almost as ignorant as me towards Football, with a team of pundits not as well known as the BBC's. Also, both sides had a South African sat in the middle, occasionally giving their opinions which no-one understood at all. Both Lineker and Chiles would sit their nodding quietly until they thought he'd finished and turned to one of the other pundits and said 'Do you agree?' It was a pointless accessory to the coverage.
ITV also had James Cordon as a key part of their coverage. After every evening football match that ITV showed, he would do a half-hour show, in which he would talk to random celebrities who foolishly put forth their uncared for opinions, in front of a studio audience and the British public. I didn't care much for the show. He then even recorded a World Cup single with Dizzee Rascal, which was a football adaptation of Tears For Fears song - Shout. I didn't care much for the song either. Essentially, I was going to write a concluding joke about James Cordon for this paragraph of the blog, but all I came up with was a big fat nothing...
The worst thing about the World Cup was the adverts. Thanks to them, I was sick of the World Cup before it even started frankly. The nation full of false patriotism became even worse when American brands, such as Mars, began supporting England team on their packaging. Some companies will do absolutely anything to sell their products. Pringles even had Peter Crouch on the front while they imaginatively changed their name to 'Pringooooals'.
Almost every advert included some form of mention of the World Cup. The Nike advert was possibly one of the worse, with them paying numerous footballers lots of money for them to appear in their television advert. Wayne Rooney in a caravan with a beard (however, an attractive prospect) and Ronaldo in The Simpson's were just two examples of the pointless 3 minute advert wasting my time and their money.
The television companies were the best at using the World Cup for fraud. Sony spent a lot of their advertising campaign for their new 3D televisions, saying how YOU, the British public should buy THEIR 3D television in order to watch the World Cup in spectacular 3 dimensions. Carefully forgetting to point out that no coverage of the World Cup in the UK would actually be broadcast in 3D; but that is only a minor problem in their plan - right?
Anyway, feel free to correct me on any information I may have got wrong. I do actually only have limited knowledge of football. I have enough to get through life, but not enough to have a substantial conversation on the topic.
P.S. What is with Football and awarding cutlery as a prize? The World Cup... The Super Bowl...
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