EURO 2008 DIARY DAY 16: SAYIN’ SPAIN CAN REIGN MIGHT NOH BE SO INSANE! (ESHPANYA … Nada EEETALYA… zerrow, Eeeshpanya win quatros-dos on penaltaties)

Well, troops. That’s it. After sixteen straight days of top quality football we can finally take a two-day sabbatical and ponder the four best international teams in European fitbaw as we know it at the most up-to-date moment: Russia, Germany, Turkey and, finally, SPAIN. It’s a momentous night - Spain finally getting into the realms of being as good at national level as they are with their clubs - but this evening I will try not to bore ye too much with my usual trivia-soaked pseudo-historical Simon Schama-esque ramblings. We’ve no time for that. We all need a rest. 24 group games and 4 quarter finals, all of the highest quaity and intensity, all in successive days - we’ve had to watch a lot of telly, we’ve had to express a lot of uninformed opinions, we’ve had to slag a LOT of commentators. It hasn’t been an easy couple of weeks for us - but we didn’t shirk our duty. Cans were bought, cans were sunk, crisps nuts and the occassional pot noodle were crammed in there too - all to keep our buttocks fully parked and our eye-balls fully exposed to the relentless intoxication of the Thirteenth European Championships. We ended that sequence with four quarter-finals on four straight nights - three of them went to extra time and two of them to penalties. If we hadn’t trained so hard during our club season, such an international scehdule could have killed us. It’s been tough but we got there in the end - so did our sofas, although not without some serious wear and tear. So put yer remote controls to one side, give the World Soccer and 4-4-2 supplements a wee bit of time in the magazine rack and hoover up all those crumpled bookies slips strewn around the floor beneath the Plasma wide-screen ‘gainst which they were so viciously bounced. We need to give ourselves a couple of days good solid rest, folks. We’ve got the semi-finals on the horizon and we need to be fresh. I’ll make this one brief. Unlike the opening paragraph. Aherm.

You know the score by now: My rants all follow the same themes: I hate the BBC coverage, I’ve fallen out with Italy, I’m into strips and little bits of pointless trivia and coincidences - all with a half-arsed effort at painting a long-term picture of what this tournament means to each country competing. Take a last slug oot the last can in the box and youse can join the dots I’m about to serve up:

Why was Sergio Ramos wearing Duran Duran wrist bands (free with this month’s Jackie!)? And why did he have his wallet taped to his back - do they noh lock the dressing room doors at the Ernst Happel? HAS LUNCH MONEY BEEN GOING MISSING AT THE SPANISH SQUAD’S HOTEL??!! Mmmm? HAS IT??!!

Puma should NEVER be allowed to make an Italian national strip. Too Germanic a make. Just like Adidas, its estranged brother company, Puma’s Teutonic cut is the very antithesis of everything the Italian strip wants to be.

Italia and Espana - only competing countries whose names, in their own lingo, begin and end with vowels. And, although Spain are seen as being nowhere near as successful as Italy, that’s only in the World Cup. In the Euros they have both won one final and lost one final and both their triumphs came on home soil, in the sixties, in a less than convincing or, some would say, legal manner. Maybe the only real difference is that Span’s national anthem has no words.

Why the lingering close-ups of Buffon’s gloves at the national anthems? Are we back to the days of keepers getting their personal product placement in? Bit blatant.

Herbert Fandel is the referee. Feyenoord v Rangers in February 2002, UEFA Cup, in De Kuip. Herbert Fanny. Only ref I’ve ever blamed for a Rangers defeat. Can’t stick him. Can’t forgive him. Can’t grow up. Won’t.

Sickening to see Italians accussing anyone of diving as they did with the Spanish tonight. Forgive me, Lord, but after the last few years of Italian off-field scummery I actually wanted Spin to CHEAT their way to victory tonight by any way which did not involve death … but not too far short of it. I wanted what’s gone around to come around in the fullest sense. Two wrongs don’t mnake a right but they give you a real sense of satisfaction. Di Natale - who rolled off the pitch in apparent agony then rolled back on it, still feigning injury, purely because he knew Spain were on a counter-attack and wanted the ref to stop play - missed the decisive penalty. That’ll do for now - but I’m still waiting for Italy’s official complaint to UEFA which will result in Gli Azzuri playing Russia on Thursday next.

Both captains tonight were goalies - just as they were when Italy won their first World Cup in the 1934 Rome final against Czechoslovakia.

Gary Lineker and his team in Vienna were trying to be enthusiastic about tonight’s game before kick-off. They obviously realised that trying to sell Italy-Spain as a shitty un-interesting clash was going one step too far. But it was actually more depressing to watch Anchorman Lineker (the “w” is silent), Hansen and Shearer trying to feign enthusiasm. So disingenious. You could see their foundation cracking under the strain.

This tournament has made me crave the views of Martin O’neill and Gordon Strachan - because they seem so NORMAL and SENSIBLE and HUMBLE compared to the arseholes on the BBC panel who have never managed a team in their lives but sit there slating those who’ve done it to international standards. It’s obviously the Celtic job which turns people into complete paind in the ass.

See that big Cathedral in the background, behind Gary Lineker’s ears? I’ve been up to the top of that spire. Yes I have. It’s St Stephen’s and if ye’ve ever been on the underground in Vienna ye will never forget the recorded announcements rhyming off the stations when they’re saying “STEPHANSPLATZ”. Least, I haven’t.

Luca Toni looks like an Ealing comedy spiv.

When Gigi Buffon let that Senna shot trickle under him and off the post it must have reminded the Spanish of the infamous footage of Arconada allowing Michel Platini’s tame free kick to trickle under him and into the Parc Des Princes net in the 1984 European Championship final. I’d like to think that made the Spanish on the pitch in Vienna tonight decide they were never going to have another campaign of regrets. But it probably didn’t register.

In Euro 2000, Spain lost 2-1 to the World Champions in a Quarter-final on a Sunday. I was worried for them.

The Italian defending is AMAZING. It really is quality and one of the great sights of world football. How many times dis Spain rip their group opponents apart with their slick inter-passing moves? But not the Italians. You turn them, you trick them once, you out-pace them for a burst, but they come back or there’s another one there. So many times it wasn’t even necessary for Buffon to make a save because his defenders clear most of the point blank shots. Why is defending only noticed in this country when it doesn’t work? Why is it never appreciated? Hansen says Italy got what they deserved because they tried to defend??!! Incredible for an international centre-half to say something so crass. Spain scored EIGHT goals in three group games - Italy paid them a huge compliment by doing all they could to limit that most potent of attacks and they did. Hats off to them.

The current Spain strip is class and may actually rival their pre-1990s classic of silky royal blue shorts with black socks. Combining the black and lighter blue to make both the shirts and socks a deep navy blue - and chucking in a regal gold trim - is very, VERY tasteful. Of course, the more they win in it, the better any strip looks.

Shearer: “I don’t like the way Italy play - there’s only 1 team trying to win the game here”. So why did Italy not put through their own net after two minutes? Why did Italy not give the ball to Torres or Villa and say “here ye go, mate - have a free shot”? If Italy had won the penalty shoot-out, Italy would have WON THE GAME, Shearer you twat! They were’n't trying to fucking LOSE it were they??!!

There is an Argentine and an English-born player in the Italian squad. There was a naturalised Brazilian playing for Spain. We won’t even start on the Germany team but stop for a second and think about it. These countries all have population in excess of 50 million. Isn’t it amazing that, when you take just 23 people from that mass of humanity within a certain set of border lines, so many of that 23 are NOT BORN in the country?? I’m not into nationalism in any way excpet the silly way football does it but you’d think you could rustle up 23 from a nation of over 50 million wouldn’t you?! Think about it - there’s 80million volk in Germany but they have one Brazilian-born player, two Poland-born strikers and is Ollie Neuville not Swiss or French or something? England have Owen Hargreaves, half the Turkey squad is German, and so it carries on. You’d think such huge countries with such solid football histories could all provide entirely home-born players for a squad of just 22/23…. Mmm? Is it just me? Okay. Fair enough.

Was even more worried when I was told Spain had lost three penalty shoot-outs on 22nd June. I did not know that.

Lineker and Motson - 0/10 for the third straight game. Bottom of the pundits league for them. Relegation looms. We know all about Lawrenson - he can’t be horrible enough - and what happened to his early-established incredulity about Ramos and Puyol being far too small to effectively mark Luca Toni tonight??? Never mind the Italian defending, the Spanish did a number on that big lump of cheating shite and sarky auld Lawro conveniently forgot he’d ever doubted they would. But Motty took it to new levels tonight:

Host broadcaster does a close up of Zinedine Zidane in the crowd. The whole world and every other commentator in the world says “there’s Zi-Zou, one of the greatest players of all time and the man sent off against Italy in the last World Cup final”. Mortty says “there’s Arsene Wenger”.

Because Arsene Wenger was indeed sitting next to Zidane - and Zidane, let’s face it, has never played in the Premiership. Wharra no-mark.

Motty remembered Gianluca Vialli scoring against Spain for Italy in EURO 88. He reminded us Vialli played for Chelsea - just so we would have some context by which to remember the man who scored both goals for Sampdoria in the 1990 Cup Winners Cup final and who captained Juventus to the Champions League title before retiring to England for his pension. Fucking surprised he didn’t say “Gianluca Vialli of Italy, Chelsea and Watford”.

And, finally, how many international tournaments has John Motson commentated on? He must have been at every World Cup and European championship since the seventies, as have Italy and Spain pretty much. Yet, he STILL hasn’t mastered the basic laws of pronouncing Spanish and Italian names. Daveed “Veeya” is, as far as Motty is concerned, “Dave Aston Villa”. And the decisive penalty was missed not by “Dee Natalaey” but “diNatalie” … that’ll be diJackie and diDeirdire’s sister then.

Spain have never been involved in European championship semi-finals which didn’t involve Denmark. But Spain have never lost a European Championship semi-fijnal. It was amazing to see them breach their much-vaunted quarter-final hoo-doo and now that they have, I think they will relax and cut loose the shackles against Russia. I saw Spain grow in confidence and conviction this evening and they even bust their penalty jinx too. ‘S’all gooood.

This champiinship has been so cosmically momentous that I feel it has one of the greatest matches of all time left in it. I’d like that to be the final but Spain-Russia might just do it. Bring it on … and wake me up before Germany-Turkey kick-off.

EURO 2008 Microphone League standings after Day 16:

Champion&Pleat - 20/30

Tyldseley&Pleat - 13/40

Whatshisface Wilson&Peacok - 4/10

Whatshisface Wilson&Bright - 7/20

Motson&Bright - 3/10

Drury&Beglin - 12/50

Mowbray&Lawrenson - 2/10

Pearce&Lawrenson - 2/30

Whatshisface Wilson&Lawrenson 0/10

Motson&Lawrenson - 0/30

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Published:
06.22.08 / 10pm
Category:
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