World Cup blog: Europe looks flat
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One thing a lot of teams struggle with is consistency. Not France! Yesterday, their coach refused to shake his counterpart’s hand after his team lost again. The French circus has left town and I for one won’t miss them. But the bad news is... they aren’t the only Europeans flying home early.
France crashed out of the tournament yesterday, with a 2-1 loss to hosts South Africa. Their World Cup experience has been dominated by player rebellion, in-fighting, sackings, resignations, tears and tantrums. And yesterday, French Manager Raymond Domenech showed he leads by example, when he refused to shake the South African Manager’s hand after the game. Professional to the very end!
The Greeks are also on the next flight home after their disappointing performance against Maradona’s Argentina. I was initially routing for my European friends - who lets face it need a break after the year they’ve had - but the football fan in me ended up cheering the Argentineans by the second half.
I’m sorry but trying to support the defensive, boring, non-adventurous Greeks against the Argentines was the equivalent of routing for Darth Vader against Luke Skywalker, Dr. Evil over Austin Powers, that big veiny Russian bloke against Rocky …ok, I’ll leave it there!
While Argentina were championing the cause of sexy football last night, the Greeks looked intent on ruining the spectacle. So in the interests of the beautiful game, it’s for the best that Greece too are heading home.
Euro-crisis
But what about our other European hopefuls? England and Slovenia lock horns today in a make or break game. It’s mathematically possible that both could qualify… but as there are too many permutations to go through here, you’ll just have to trust me.
Later on in the evening, Serbia and Germany play Australia and Ghana respectively, with both European teams needing a win to guarantee their place in the next round. But there is also the prospect that at least three of the four European teams just mentioned could go crashing out.
South and Central America are currently asserting their dominance over the competition, with Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Chile all topping or qualifying from their respective groups.
Is European football on the brink of collapse? Will I have anything to complain about now that the French team are out? And will my Greek friends still talk to me after reading this? Find out… same place, same time, tomorrow.
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