This is secret footage of the Azzurri at training.
viennesewaltz has said that I have not yet talked about the World Cup. Well - to be honest - I think the World Cup is about as important as the Olympics or Wimbledon - i.e. not very.
It determines who plays well over a period of days or weeks, gets a few breaks, gets lucky - and at the end of the day is the Champion du Monde.
In the Olympics some strange things can happen. Less so in football. There are only, say, eight teams out for the 32 that can get to the final. Perhaps I favor Deutschland because of where I live.
BUT.......I don’t really care much who wins - AS LONG AS IT IS NOT ITALY.
I hate the Italian Football Team (and so does Lenny)
I hate them because they cheat – a lot. In the last World Cup Australia nearly made it to the Quarter Finals and in the game against Italy held them to a draw.
In the last minute of play an Italian player took a dive to get a penalty - which was awarded - and Italy won the game. The Italian Cheating Diving Team then won the World Cup.
At this stage we were living in Leichhardt in Sydney - which is Sydney’s ‘Little Italy’ and where the shops and restaurants and lots of people are Italian - and where you can walk down the streets and hear both old and young people talking in Italian.
We were watching the games on a big screen in the main street and the crowd went wild. WILD! for ITALY!
It was shocking to realize that your neighbors would FYO to win a game of football - but it is THAT important to them.
Naturally I wrote immediately to the Minister for Immigration and pointed out that we had hordes of traitors amongst us. He did NOTHING! They are all still there.
But now I understand that Italians will always be Italian football fans no matter how long ago they left their homeland. And they will always want their team to win - and it doesn’t matter how.
My research since then has shown that the Italians are probably the worst cheats in world football - but that their fans expect them to cheat - because winning is the ONLY thing that counts.
The statistics from that World Cup show that they were awarded the most number of fouls (i.e. they dived more than anyone else).
Indeed – the former Premier of NSW – Morris Iemma – himself of Italian origins - said that after that particular game he bought a book about why Italians are born to cheat at football. Yes - there are books on this subject. In fact there may be a whole library.
As punishment for what the Italians did to Australia last time I have put a curse on the Azzurri. (I and I am really sorry I have had to do this because I know some lovely Italians).
You may think this is a case of overkill because it will have a dramatic effect on so many Italian footballs fans – but I was REALLY unhappy about what they did to Australia.
The curse involves candles, duck feathers a cork and rubber gloves and I won’t go into too many sordid details but it absolutely guarantees that Italy will not make it past the Quarter Finals. This is a safe bet – you can put money on it.
And incidentally. The prize for most fatuous statement of the month (year?) goes to UN Chief Ban Ki-moon who
‘has hailed the prospect of a first World Cup on African soil as a ''triumph for humanity'' which will generate hope among poorer nations.’
What nonsense. The World Cup is awarded to nations and continents on the basis of how much Sepp Blatter and his immensely corrupt FIFA cronies can screw out of them - either in the form of votes or money.
The UN Chief should focus on what he does best - hand wringing during wars, famines, crises and catastrophes.
Just wanted to point out that it was me, not my friend Parsifal, who requested your views on the World Cup the other day. Thanks for filling the request, anyway. You have my sympathy regarding the Italian penalty incident, that sounds horrendous and just reinforces my view that there should be some kind of instant second referee with access to video of the game. Even cricket does that now and we know how tradition-bound that game is.
ReplyDeleteGood luck to the Socceroos anyway and I will be rooting for them against Germany...
Yes of course it was you. My humble apologies.
ReplyDeleteAh, of course, the World Cup, Africa's great humanitarian triumph. Silly me, I was hoping for the eradication of AIDS or an end to the systematic rape of women and children in Darfur. I see I have much to learn.
ReplyDelete(Not so) amused to see that you confused me for viennesewaltz in a post about football.
ReplyDeleteThat is because I really can rival you for World Cup/football disinterest and distaste. I have no knowledge about the Italian tricks you mentioned, and indeed the only three footballers I can name are David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Maradonna. I wasn't in Vienna at the time of Euro 2008 and that pleased me greatly.
I'm going to behave like Rush Limbaugh for once and pretend that my utter lack of knowledge about football qualifies me to pontificate about its ills. So here goes:
I appreciate that there is some skill to the game, and that while footballing isn't an intellectually challenging activity, not all worthwhile activities have to be. But when Tony Blair said that he didn't care about how much David Beckham earns I retched at his total ignorance. Go into any inner city English primary school and ask the kids what they want to do when they grow up, and 90% of the boys gormlessly stick their hands up at the mention of footballer or David Beckham. That was simply not the case in the days when footballers were paid a professional salary, rather than millions. And that those who dissent get called gay throughout high school - just for daring for think differently from the moronic herd - obviously doesn't seem to bother Mr Blair, whose children were fortunate enough to attend expensive schools where you are taught to understand that there's more to life than earning obscene amounts of money for doing a job that as recently as the 1950s was practically unpaid and not as glamorous as it is now. That Blair professed to not caring about how much Beckham earned is Thatcherite; to pretend that it doesn't have a negative effect on society is moronic.
I hope - though I doubt - that in his private moments Tony Blair takes time to wonder why having ploughed the GDP of a small country into the education budget in his 10 years, his generation of kids are even more fucking thick than Thatcher's children, in whom so little was invested. I would like to think that his mind turns to his government's craven pandering to overpaid footballers, Z-list celebrities, and Britain's Got Special Needs contestants, and the folly of encouraging ambitions based on false hope, vanity and sheer greed.
I just read the sports news.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea how corrupt FIFA are or what machinations went on behind closed doors leading to this World Cup taking place in South Africa. All I know is that this is the WORLD Cup and South Africa is in the world. They have every right to host it, and as far as I can tell they are doing a fine job so far. The stadiums look great, there don't seem to be too many organizational problems... the eyes of the world are on this country and they are proving that they are up to the challenge.
ReplyDeleteI think it's good to have positive messages coming out of Africa every now and then. I don't really see the relevance of Wanderlust bringing AIDS and Darfur into it. Yes these things are happening and are appalling. But they don't need to be brought up in every single mention of Africa on the world stage.
Ahem..we love the idea of an African nation having the World Cup. The point we are making is that nonsensical statements by the head of the UN 'triumph for humanity'? are not going to help solve the real problems.
ReplyDeleteWell I dunno, maybe it really is a triumph for humanity. It's certainly a triumph for Africa that they have managed to get this thing up and running in such style. But complaining about Ban ki-Moon speaking in platitudes is like complaining that your cats have scratched the upholstery again. The bloke's just a figurehead, it's what he does and it's all that can be expected of him. Kofi Annan (whom everyone seems to think was next to God) wouldn't have put it any less fatuously.
ReplyDeleteBut..my dear Richard...we are in full agreement ..but I ALWAYS complain about people speaking in platitudes - it is what I do. But I no longer complain about the cats and the upholstery.
ReplyDeleteJust to put my previous comment into context:
ReplyDeleteI was referring to having read the headline about the results of the Australia vs Germany game. I am sure glad it was not Austria who beat Australia. That would have been way too confusing for the world press! ;-)