Card me, butt me, cheat me - just don’t BORE me! (Fat Eck’s World Cup Diary - day 17)

After the hot, passionate, artfully erotic Tango of Argentina-Mexico, England-Ecuador was like watching Morris Dancing on valium. Pronounce “Celt” with a “K” and I’ve never been so proud to be one - at least Scottish Country dancing involves a bit of nifty footwork, flair and the hint of inappropriate touching. The dull, Anglo-Germanic application which I so love for its proven consistent success in the hands of Deutschland can also subsume passions to such depths that, well, the only “out” is throwing plastic chairs at foreigners when you’re guttered on their beer. How I long to see England finally learn how to let loose on the world stage as an international football side.

How can Michael Owen be fit enough to get injured for 6 months by falling over a blade of grass? How can Wayne Rooney be fat and ugly enough to be the most scintilating player in the England team by a mile - able to run for 93 minutes, unaccompanied by a fellow striker, in searing heat, against South Americans, after a month out of action?

I don’t know. But what I might know is why England have been so consistently DREADFUL to watch at this World Cup as they consistently progress to the next stage, and why that trend continued against Ecuador.

It’s as though the weight of public and media expectation has been parcelled up at Dover, divided into eleven metaphysical back-packs and placed over the shoulders of each England player on any German pitch since the tournament started.

Players who excell in the Premiership and the Champions league - even La liga - suddenly can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t relax into their footbaling stride. Only Wayne is stupid/wise enough to unshackle himself and give it large: He’s doing it for his own enjoyment and glory rather than to appease a bunch of rabid hacks.

I also know that being so bad to watch in games against clearly inferior opponents does not necessarily mean you wont win the competition outright. There’s every chance that, having shed part of that weight of expectation due to the onset of highly-rated opposition, England will shine against The Netherlands/Portugal. All of Rooney’s team-mates will suddenly be distracted from the fear of failure by every top player’s instinctive love of a ding-dong with another fancied side.

Even if they don’t go beyond next Saturday in Germany, Sven Goran Eriksson look set to become the Dick Advocaat of England: He’s led them to three successive quarter-final spots in the three tournaments he’s been in charge: Oh yes, hear me now: He’s brought a stability and level of performance which was not always so readily delivered by previous managers - just as Dick took us damned close in two Champions League campaigns, beyond Christmas in one UEFA Cup campaign and up to December in another two. Yet no-one remebered all the years under Walter Smith in which we struggled to avoid continual thrashings from minnows like IFK Gothenburg and Grasshoppers Zurich: All everyone remembered when judging Advocaat at Rangers was one great Champions League run uder Walter and the millions of quid which Dick had been given. So, it seems, the England support can only compare Eriksson to Sir Alf Ramsay rather than Kevin Keegan and Graham Taylor, and hate him for the fact he’s the best-paid England manager ever…who can also shag any bit of tabloid crumopet he likes.

God, this game with Ecuador was AWFUL. One brilliant free-kick from Beckham, on the hour, and a lot of stolid, truncated ineptitude for the remaining 92 minutes. The only surprise was that he BBC anchor team didn’t “cross over to the England training camp in Baden-Baden” at half time. The only laugh came with Ian Wright doing his huffy big wean act in the studio - “I care more about England than anyone, I do!” his mannerisms told Gary Lineker, the man whose scored more goals in World Cup finals tournaments than any other Englishman. The only glamour - sorry Posh Spice, in the crowd celebrating yer man’s goal with one of the results of one of the times he scored with you! - was provided by the Ecuadorian fans in their striking Colombian colours - “Viva La Tricolor, Vamos La Ecuador!”. The real highlight came as the teams went down the tunnel before kick-off and one Eng-er-lish voice bellowed “Come on, lads - it’s all about fucking NOW!”.

They’d better hope it isn’t - they’d better hope it’s all about the next game. Any more of this keich and England will be humped and dumped next weekend.

… OR WILL THEY??!!!

It’s well seeing I wrote the above nonsense BEFORE watching the PORTUGAL - NETHERLANDS game live fae the lovely connotation-free city of Nuremberg (oh, okay then - maybe we do think of Max Morlock and Albrecht Durer when we think of Nuremberg. I’ll grant ye that.)

Suddenly Sven’s record of having taken England to three succesive Quarter-finals is thrown into harsher relief by the fact he will have faced Big Phil Scolari in every one of those last-eight meetings. However, the fact portugal will have at least two main men - Deco and Costinha - suspended next Saturday, and maybe Ronaldo is out through injury, has given England a gilt-edged chance to beat a big name without a few of their big players.

Third time lucky? Well, Gabby Yorath’s already set the tone by declaring that “hell hath no fury like a nation scorned, Big Phil!”. Yet the Guy ADORES English football. Scolari’s confidants told the English media that the guy was so in love with the British style of play he’d WALK to England to take the FA’s top job. But Fleet Street then made life so bloody hard for him when he was first even RUMOURED to be taking the reins from Sven that Scolari was scared off. Now, in true unbelievably-hypocritical style, the Anglo hacks are ready to slaughter Phil, to get revenge on him for the fact THEY harassed him out of the job!

Appropriately enough tonight, Gabby was wearing black but was unable to control the strange overlapping rants of Ruud Gullit and Terry Venables on her own little private ITV pitch. This is why Steve Rider and not she will be getting the final.

Oh aye: I’m alluding to refs losing control - subtle eh?

Valentin Ivanov: A famous, record-setting name in Russian football circles.

Valentin Ivanov was the Soviet Union striker who finished joint top scorer at the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile.

And Valentin Ivanov is also the name of the ref who tonight claimed the record for issuing red cards in a World Cup finals match: Four of them - two for The Netherlands and two for Portugal.

WHAT. A. RIOT.

Not as much of a laugh for me as it should have been, given I had money on the Dutch to repeat their two previous German tournaments by reaching the final. But all this posturing from Venables and David Pleat about the rammies and the diving and the sendings-off RUINING the game is completeley insulting to our collective intelligence as an audience: IT WAS GREAT FUN!

There were some magic moments of football but, if you cannae be guarenteed a great game of skill and goals throughout then you might as well get yer entertainment through the sight of continual bickering, assaults and card-waving. As Nick Hornby first said in Fever Pitch, real fans love a good rumble - it’s all part of the thrill of spectating. I mean, how excited were you when ye saw big Marco Van Basten sallying over to Scolari’s technical area. Philipao seemed to me to shit out slightly - Marco and his death-stare (He seems to have only one expression these days, Marco Van B, and it reeks of murder) had Brazil’s most famous “Hard man” backing off!

The Dutch, in truth, ARE everything the Germans are accussed of being: It’s the Dutch who’re arrogant beyond all belief, who’re violent, who dive and bitch with more regularity than any of their neighbours and it’s the Dutch who think the world owes them a fucking trophy. With their USA/Escape to Victory-style away strip (soon to be seen in all good Rangers/JJB shops no doubt), I found myself - Bookies slips aside - laughing at Robben when he was genuinely studded in the chest and got nothing from a ref who seemed to be giving everything: Classic Boy Who Cried Wolf. Just minutes earlier the brilliant Chelsea winger had thrown himself pathetically between two Portugese defenders in an effort to get a free kick. It was the theme of the evening - I’ve never seen so much determination to gain free kicks. The Dutch were slightly worse than the Portugese but it was absolutely hilarious to see the Portugese cracking up with the players of another nation for such fakery: Even I remeber Vito Baia’s histrionics in the 2003 Uefa Cup final.

Even the moemnts of true violence - when actual contact was made, still brought out the pathetic schoolboy clipeyness in the players who’d sussed the ref was there for the exploiting. The video panel cannot apparently punish Figo with a retrospective red for his head-butt on Van Bommel because he was punished on the night - somehow, Ivanov issued him with a yellow after completely missing the incident. Mmaybe we should be praising the linesman here or is the fourth official simply watching the big screens in th stadium? Are the players also doing this?. This is a dangerous precedent when most of the world’s stadia don’t have no screens in them!

But, all that aside, I think the video review panel should be having a look at Van Bommell’s over-reaction to Figo’s excuse for an assault: Don’t get me wrong, I’m about as tough as 2 plus 2, but there’s something instinctively WORSE about Van Bommel - a guy who plays in La Liga every week for christ’s sakes - tumbling onto the ground clutching his face some three seconds after Figo’s done little more than touch eye-brows with him. It hardly a full face-planter.

Figo then gets an elbow in the coupon which I genuinely think the big Dutch defender was throwing out in a general desire to block Figo’s whole body. Anyway, Figo does a Van Bommell and off goes another player. It was certanly gripping - as is Portugal’s steady rise: Controversially beaten in the semis of Euro 2000 then losing narrowly in the FINAL of EURO 2004 - maybe they’re gonnae sake it one stage further. Maniche scored a belter against Holland in that Euro 2004 semi and he scored a cracker tonight - the only goal of the 96 minutes played - things are happening for Big Phi’s charges but, does he have enough of them available to charge over England once again?

Four of teh eight last-16 games have come and gone and we’ve already had a full range of entertainment: A steam-rollering, an end-to-end extra-time thriller, a bore-fest and a bitching match. All we need now is a four-four after extra time and a nil-nil which both go to penalties, a 6-0 humiliation and a helicopter to crash into the pitch during the Ukraine v Switzerland … with no-one injured but a lot of players trying to get the pilot sent off.

Predictions for Monday:

Italy … 2 Australia … 0 (all the goals scored in the first half hour so that, even if I get away from work at 4:30, I won’t see them)

Switzerland … 0 Ukraine … 0 (Swiss do it on pens)