Fat Eck’s World Cup build-up (part 3 - it’s not just about the goals!)

It’s all going on the back-burner. I’m trying my best noh tae think aboot Stefan Klos’s injuring himself on a cycling accident in Switzerland (how GERMAN an accident is that!!) - I’m trying noh tae think aboot Karl Svensson’s shoring up oor defence (22-year old captain of Gothenburg??!! That’ll do nicely, Paul!) - I don’t even want to get into the possibility of Martin O’Neill being in the away dug-oot for our first home game under Monsieur Le Guen (There’s nae way he’s goin tae Boro, tho, is there?). That can all wait.

Sorry but it’s the world cup I’m into.

I don’t work these days - I don’t do a website - I don’t eat, sleep, drink or walk the dog we don’t have: All I do is SIT ON THE FIFA WORLD CUP WEBSITE CONSTANTLY CLICKING ON THE “RE-SALE BUTTON” FOR Tunisia-Ukraine in Hamburg or Angola v Iran in Leipzig. There’s always some bu**er quicker than me and I’m running out of time. But I will get there, oh yes - I will get to a World Cup finals match. I must. It’s my destiny.

Might actually just pay over the odds and see Argentina.

In the meantime, I’ve today started growing a World Cup/Neitzsche moustache. I won’t shave that part of my bumfluff til Jurgen’s boys are knocked out of the tournament or I get a ticket for one of the games. As I have a hair-growth rate of about 1 per decade, I’ll never get it as full and bushy as Friedrich boy and Germany’ll need to win the bl**dy Cup before anyone thinks anything other than a bit of stray chilli sauce is resting under my nose. If they do get to the final I’m gonnae get a mullet hair cut, tie a lot of footie scarves round my wrist and wear a manky auld denim waistcoat with lots of patches on it while listening to a David Hasselhoff album. Ich bien ein FUSSBALL!! … for the next few weeks anyway.

And why? Well, it’s not just about the brill players and the super-duper goals on show this summer. There’s other stuff, isn’t there:
Whichever collection of assorted superstars and soon-to-be legends come down the tunnel of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on the evening of July 9, 2006, some of the millions watching on TV will, for just a few seconds, be more interested in an altogether more mundane presence � the corner flags.

Germany, land of efficiency and pedantic eye for detail; Germany, proud host to this summer’s 18th FIFA World Cup finals tournament; Germany, the country which, on the occasion of staging its first World Cup final on July 7, 1974, forgot to provide the four basic wooden stakes which even the Sunday pub league player demands as his right.

If you’re old enough to remember West Germany v Holland in the 1974 final, this little incident - the game being held up as English ref Jack Taylor spotted something was missing - will probably be as well remembered as the fact that the Dutch then opened the scoring without a German touching the ball, and the fact that John Neesken’s strike was the first ever World Cup final goal to be scored from a penalty.

Every World Cup final throws up incidents and images, records and scandals. It’s not always the result we remember first.

In the 1982 decider, Antonio Cabrini of Italy became the first man to MISS a spot-kick in a World Cup final. The emotion-wracked face of Marco Tardelli as he celebrated his winning goal and the geriatric fist-waving of an octogenarian Italian premier in the Madrid crowd may also stick in your mind if you watched the climax of Spain 82.

The referee also noticed something was missing at the start of the 1978 final � Argentina! The ticker tape snow-storm of colour as the hosts took to the pitch five minutes after Holland was then followed by another cynical delay. Dutch winger Rene Van der Kerkhof was forced by referee Gonella to alter what the South Americans claimed was a “dangerous” bandage on his forearm. River Plate’s Monumental Stadium in Buenos Aires has seen many famous sights but eleven grown men protesting about the possibility of injury from an overblown Elastoplast is the most infamous.

Argentine gamesmanship at a World Cup final is not unique to 1978. In 1930 a Belgian referee in plusfours tossed the coin twice � the second time for the choosing of ends, the first to settle a dispute between finalists Argentina and Uruguay over which make of ball should be used. With soldiers surrounding the Montevideo pitch with fixed bayonets, a one-armed striker called Castro scored the winner for hosts Uruguay.

In 1990, in Rome, Jurgen Klinsmann’s Master Class in simulation contributed to Argentina’s implosion in the Olympic Stadium. Unable to tolerate the site of anyone cheating better than they could, Pedro Monzon became the first and Gustavo Dezotti the second player to be sent off in a World Cup Final. Andy Brehme continued the West German tradition of featuring a penalty in their World Cup final appearances - the one he scored was the only goal of the game.

In 94, in the U S of A, the fial was decided by a legendary penalty miss from Roberto Baggio. Quite appropriate as the whole tournament began with a spot-kick fluff-up even worse than that of The Divine Ponytail’s: The Divine Diva, Diana Ross, managed to break the goal in two during the opening ceremony despite missing the target by the length of her plastic surgeon’s bank balance.

Nike wasn’t one of the brands involved in the ball dispute of 1930 but they were deeply immersed in the multiple changing of the Brazilian team-sheet before the 1998 World Cup final. Ronaldo had collapsed in the dressing room but the Brazil national team’s main sponsors demanded he play. He was playing, dropped, playing, dropped and playing again before eventually taking the Paris pitch and doing nothing as France crushed the South American giants 3-0.

Johann Cruyff was no such slave to commercial bullying and, indeed, if you follow him closely as he darts across Berti Vogts and into the West German box before being fouled by Uli Hoeness for that famous 1974 penalty, you may notice he has only two stripes down his shirt sleeves and his shorts. The rest of the Dutch team wore Adidas’ famous three stripes but Cruyff, a Puma man, made his unique brand-stand.

Some spectators, apparently, were on the pitch during the last minutes of the 1966 World Cup final, just before the concluding goal was scored. But more people, worldwide, were captivated by the moment some 19 minutes earlier when a Swiss referee and a Soviet linesman somehow conferred and agreed that a ball had crossed a line for England’s killer third “goal”. The final judgement was wrong but - my god - the delay, the debate and the contrasting reactions of both sets of players to the eventual decision was about as dramatic as sport gets.

Pele remains the World Cup’s most famous figure and thus the game’s most famous player. But we’d be kidding ourselves if we thought only good guys and clean moments of entertaining and fair play were always the most memorable aspects of a World Cup final. Enjoy this summer of soccer, folks and, on both June and July 9th, make sure you’re in front of the TV long before the final kicks off - the unforgettable stuff may have already started …