I Think They've Got It Now!

Well, well... I actually picked a winner! The team I chose to follow in the absence of Hingerland only went and won the Euro 2008 Championship!!

And what a joy it was to support a team that can PLAY; a team that can PASS; a team that doesn't look as if they only met each other a few hours before the game...

Hmm, it's going to be hard to go back from enjoying Spain to suffering the pain of a Hingerland campaign.

Hinger-land, Hinger-land, Hinger- oh!

So, ladies and gentlemen, the European Footy Thingy starts today and as has been pointed out to me gleefully - nay, gloatingly - by numerous inhabitants of deepest Bavaria, Hinger-land is not taking part.

I have to admit this has left me free to approach this Championship with a relaxed feeling of calm which is wonderful. No frustrated screams of anguish at the TV when the Young English Millionaires show that they still do not understand that the basic principle of passing includes the fact that the ball should go to one of their own team-mates.

I realised that watching England play in one of these competitions is like driving an underpowered car up a steep hill... you clasp the steering wheel tightly and push with all your strength to try and help the struggling, spluttering vehicle make it. After watching England 'play' I would find myself totally knackered from the exertions of attempting to inject some vigour and inventiveness into their tactics from my living room.

Anyhow, for this tournament I have adopted Spain as my team. It should have been Greece but I just can't accept the horrible way they played in the last championships - somehow Otto Rehhagel time-machined the Greeks back to the dour scientific football of the 1970s. It used to be fun watching the Greeks play football and he drilled that out of them - making the team something like football's version of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'.

So, Spain... yeah. I watched them play Peru last week and experienced something I had never felt before watching 'my' team play international football - these lads can play! They really can play!! Good football - good moves - skilful runs down the wing - clever defence-splitting passes - erm, WOW!

So, we are stocking up on papas fritas and cerveza and practising the new chant:
Hespan-yar, Hespan-yar, Hespan-yar...

Application...or Lack of It

There's the medieval version:
Stephen of MacClaren was taken to the Tower of London and beheaded...

And there's the modern version:
Steve McClaren was fired and given two and a half million pounds...

And as for the players, I think it should be compulsory for the next England manager to sign a document in which he or she affirms that he or she is aware of the fact that all the players available for the national team are complete and utter thickheads and that all tactics will be spelled out in tedious detail.

I have already made a start at writing the training manual.

Week 1: Passing the ball

Week 2: Passing the ball to another player

Week 3: Passing the ball to another player IN YOUR TEAM.

Stealing my Ideas Before I Thought of Them...

I am reading Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island just now and lo and behold what do I find but exactly what I was writing about in A Rose by any other Name !! I would sue the bugger except for the awkward fact that he wrote his thing before I wrote mine ... !

Ashes to Crashes

Well, England went and lost the Ashes series... 3-0 so far and two more tests to go. What a bunch of wallies.

In the second test they spent the whole match on top only to throw away a victory near the end and this third one which has just finished they managed to throw away at least twice in the same match!!

Ashes to Ashes

The second test is just about to start in Adelaide... which is a real bummer cos in deepest Bavaria it is 01.20 in the morning.

England got themselves nicely slaughtered in the first test but we somnambulists are all quietly confident that we will show the Aussies a thing or two from now on.

So, it's back to the Guardian's ball-by-ball coverage until such time as I nod off!

By the way, to any of you who have absolutely no idea what I am on about there is probably no point in explaining... but it's cricket, innit?

A test match is an international cricket match and the Ashes is what England and Australia play for...

Now my laptop battery is down to 14%, England are 24 for no wicket which is a tentative but solid start - considering there are another 5 days to go - so it might be time to go and nod off for a while and then come back to find 250 for 2 at tea or 157 for 8... ooh, me nerves like...

Come on, Engla-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz