Three and in – not just another football blog

At half time in the France v Mexico game last night the BBC interviewed some players about superstitions they might have. Most of them were the usual run of the mill stuff (pray, jump up and down three times, sacrifice an orphan before smearing the blood all over one’s nipples), but Slovakian striker Stanislav Sestak’s superstition caught my attention. Video below.

He says “I hide it in what you might call a ‘secret place’ …”.

Now, I have to admit the first thing I thought of was Papillon. Those of you who don’t know what I mean, the second paragraph of the synopsis here, and the description of the charger, should put you right.

It’s hard to imagine that’s what he really does but why didn’t he just say ‘I put it in my locker’ or ‘I hide in my shoe’. Referring to a ‘special place’ makes the mind tick over and go to places it probably shouldn’t – but I suppose if he’s happy with that then we can’t really complain.

I mean, who are we to come between a man and his ring peace?

Nigeria have a goalkeeper called Vincent Enyeama.  Colin Murray doesn’t care.

Today, he mistook Enyeama for the unholy offspring of the Hapoel Tel Aviv stopper and USA centre-back Oguchi Onyewu, christening him: Onyemu.  Welcome to Onyemu.

No Colin, I think you’ll find you’re the star. Not content with the mistake in its own right, he did it again.

This was made all the better by Murray’s shit-eating grin.  And the fact that none of the pundits on show bothered to pick him up on it.

Perhaps the BBC can no longer afford the rights to the actual names of the players, so have to come up with dodgy alternatives like on the old PES games.

Hurry back, Lineker.  Gary Lineker, that is.  Not Lineker Melo.

No insight from us this time other than to point you in the direction of a brilliant article by Tom English for The Scotsman. He deals with BBC and ITV’s coverage of the World Cup thus far.

Adrian Chiles is flavour of the month on ITV, but his popularity is not what it was. His introduction to England’s game against the Americans was mortifying. Wielding a baseball bat and sending a message to America, he said, “Just stick to your sports, why don’t you?” Chiles was also seen patting a burger, adding: “We really love Americans, just wouldn’t eat a whole one.” He made himself look like a clown.

He covers the BBC, Adebayor’s phone, the commentary sidekicks and much more, and it’s all just spot on. The expert punditry is anything but. The belief from English television producers that a high profile former player is enough to satisfy the viewers is misplaced. It’s worth listening to French journalist Philippe Auclair speak to Arseblog about this very subject in a podcast published after the injury to Aaron Ramsey (interview starts at 14’41)

In Britain, almost every single pundit or analyst of the game, is a former player. As if, having been a horse you can be a jockey.

And we’ve had to deal with nothing but the banal, trite and downright ignorant since this tournament began. It’s particularly interesting as the interest in football blogs like Zonal Marking, which deal with the tactical side of the game, grow in popularity.

It’s no longer acceptable to provide the ‘He’s hit it and it’s gone in the back of the net’ analysis of the game, if you can even call it that. Viewers are more intelligent and expect better. They want more. Drawing a few circles here and pointing a few arrows there is simply not good enough.

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And for a fun look at football coverage, with an Irish slant, check out Danger Here and follow their Twitter for live updates of the kind of commentary that makes our toes curl.

It is with a heavy heart that we have to announce the sudden closure of  Bobby’s Box Office Ltd.

Md, CEO and Marketing Officer Bobby ‘Golden Seats’ Earle was unavailable for comment when our reporter pushed his way past Serious Fraud Squad Officers and knocked at his caravan office door earlier this afternoon.

“Following claims by FIFA that official 2010 World Cup tickets may have been used for ambush marketing, ITV has reviewed its entire ticket allocation for the tournament.

“Immediate investigations indicated that a block of ITV tickets would appear to have been used for unauthorised purposes during the Holland v Denmark match.

“Further enquiries have revealed that a substantial number of tickets allocated to Robbie Earle for family and friends have been passed to a third party in breach of FIFA rules.

“As a result, Robbie Earle’s contract with ITV has been terminated with immediate effect.”

I’ve always had my doubts about Emmanuel Adebayor’s suitability as a BBC pundit. To the list of qualities that include unqualified and incomprehensible we can now add ‘forgetful’.

I particularly like the way he tries to deal with it under the table, like a schoolboy.

Only one place to start, and end, today. ITV HD. From the BBC (who must be loving this):

ITV has apologised to its HD channel viewers after a “transmission problem” caused them to miss England’s first World Cup goal.

Less than four minutes into England’s World Cup opener, they went to an ad break. In that time Steven Gerrard scored. Footage below.

It would unfair to label it amateurish because even an amateur wouldn’t make that kind of mistake. For a national broadcaster to do that is the very height of incompetence.

Heads will roll, no doubt, but let’s remember it’s not exactly like ITV are treading new ground here. From The Guardian in February 09:

ITV has apologised to football fans for showing adverts during the only goal in the Merseyside derby. Millions of football fans were left in the dark over the 19-year-old Dan Gosling’s winning goal in last night’s match after ITV again dropped the ball during its £275m FA Cup coverage.

Gosling hit an 118th-minute goal to take Everton into the fifth round, but after viewers had sat through nearly two goalless hours ITV had already cut to a scheduled ad break moments before the winning goal.

Good to see they’ve learned their lessons then. And good to see Adrian Chiles is intent on giving Peter Drury a run for his money when it comes to toe-curling commentary. Speaking of Robert Green’s error which gave the USA a point in last night’s game, he said:

If there’s anyone we feel sorry for as much as Rob Green, it’s our boys in Afghanistan, forced to watch this with American soldiers

There aren’t enough words for vomit to pass comment on that. The football hasn’t been brilliant so far in this World Cup, thank the Gods for ITV though. They’re keeping us entertained.

Remember, if you see or hear any commentary or pundit classics, please let us know.

I watched the opening game of the World Cup on ITV yesterday. I had started on RTE but when the commentary is about two seconds ahead of the picture it gets tiresome very quickly. Not as tiresome as the vuvuzelas, but still.

Master of pomp and bluster for the day was Peter Drury, ably supported by Jim Beglin. The highlight, and by highlight I clearly mean lowlight, of their commentary came a few short minutes after South Africa’s wonderful opener. We had gone beyond Drury’s toe-curling shriek of ‘Bafana! Bafana!’ and the stomach churning ‘A goal for all Africa!”, when inset footage showed a group of people watching the game and their reaction to the goal.

Drury explained how ramshackle and downtrodden these people were.

“They only got electricity last week”, he said, as we watched them watch the game projected onto a big screen.

“That’s not even a TV!”, chimed Beglin, “that’s a sheet!”

Drury, the raw emotion of first world privilege barely under control, managed to exclaim, “Football is for people”, before getting on with the live coverage of the game.

“Football is for people”. Amazing insight. Will there be a more banal piece of commentary between now and the end of the World Cup? There certainly won’t be a more patronising one, that’s for sure.

And if you hear anything from ITV, BBC, RTE or wherever you have to live, please get in touch and let us know. There’s a whole world of terrible commentary out there, it would be wrong not to share it with fellow football fans.

The message from the players at the World Cup has become familiar.  In one voice, they are saying: the time for talking is over.  How wrong they are.

Tomorrow, the real battle begins. Far from the pitch, behind the glass windows of their insulated media booths, the punishing punditry schedule kicks off.  The Beeb and ITV have named their squads – now it’s all down to the individuals.  The World Cup is where pundits can become legends – I have a sneaking suspicion that Martin O’Neill is still making a career as a manager largely of the back of a particularly perceptive spell at the BBC.

For readers not based in the UK, the following could get quite boring quite quickly.  However, I do promise to make at least one disparaging remark about Mark Lawrenson, and if that can’t unite a global audience then I don’t know what can.

The big talking point is the last-minute defection of Adrian Chiles from BBC to ITV. Not only has he consigned the satanically-faced Jim Rosenthal back to whatever Hell he came from, but he’s due to provide the Beeb’s Gary Lineker with some genuine competition in the critical ‘anchor’ role. It’s Gary’s smarm versus Chiles’ charm. I have to say I have a particular fondness for Lineker’s combination of polish and puns, rather than the much-lauded ‘everyman’ quality that Chiles possesses. Also, I find the fact that Chiles is half-Croatian so surprising that it makes me question everything else about him.

There were some nailed-on picks. Guys who were on the plane before the qualifying campaign even began. BBC have the dour miserable trio of Hansen, Lawrenson and Shearer, whilst ITV will lean precariously on the duo of Robbie Earle and Andy Townsend.  Townsend and Lawrenson will both infuriate any viewer with a memory as they attempt to erase history by talking about England as if they didn’t defect to the Republic of Ireland during their playing careers.

Hansen and Lawrenson will be delighted by the arrival on the couch of another self-confessed Liverpool fan: highlights presenter Colin Murray.  The BBC will be hoping his jaunty demeanour and regional accent will make up for Chiles’ absence.  For ITV, the eloquent Matt Smith takes up supporting duties, denied a central role by the badger-faced Croat’s surprise switch.

These pundits represent the spine of each respective teams.  But the flair comes with the surprise appointments.  Here, the two sides have matched each other almost pundit for pundit.  ITV appointed an English manager known to have built his limited success upon some exorbitant transfer spending: Kevin Keegan.  The BBC answered with Harry Redknapp.  BBC plumped for the energetic but often incomprehensible Emmanuel Adebayor.  “Touché”, responded the ITV execs, hiring their own excitable but occasionally unintelligible African, Marcel Desailly.  Both sides have a former dreadlocked Dutch international: Edgar Davids is with ITV, whilst Clarence Seedorf is with BBC.

The commercial station have gone with the most surprising pick: former rugby player Francois Pienaar.  Yes, that’s right, the man recently portrayed by Matt Damon will be taking his place alongside Townsend and Southgate.  You can see what they were thinking: “It’s a World Cup, it’s in South Africa, and it’s football.  He knows about two out of three, so it’ll be fine”.

My tip for Pundit of the Tournament?  The BBC’s Roy Hodgson.  Yes, he sounds like a North London cab driver, but he is an intelligent, articulate man who knows global football inside out.  I’m actually looking forward to hearing his analysis, which is more than I can say for most of these folk.  I’ll be popping out for half-time cups of tea and flicking over to Wimbledon.

Robbie Savage is one of those footballers it’s easy to hate. His hair, his nose, his face, his entire torso and limbs, his hair, his annoying playing style, did I mention his hair?

It’s little wonder that this YouTube video of Robbie Savage being hit in the face, repeatedly, was voted ‘Best YouTube video of all time’*

So the news that he is take over as the presenter of BBC radio’s iconic 606 phone-in show should really have been met with a chorus of disapproval. An amateur broadcaster and one of the most annoying characters football has ever produced should have the placard wavers out in force. He’ll co-present the show with John Lennon’s murderer, Mark Chapman, and at yesterday’s announcement he said:

It’s an honour and a privilege to be presenting the show. I’ll be edgy but fair and I’ll definitely have opinions. I’m delighted to have this opportunity.

So why isn’t there more outrage? Simple. It’s because Robbie Savage, for all his faults, is about a billion less annoying than the man he’s taking over from, Alan Green. The Liverpool supporting Norn Irelander is without question one of the most ignorant, bumptious, shrill broadcasters ever. If ever a man loved the sound of his own voice it is him – he clearly can’t hear the annoying twang to his accent.

Alan Green is so utterly awful that he made me agree with a Daily Mail article. There are certain things in life you never want to admit in public, agreeing with the Daily Mail is one of them (along with an admiration for the films of Adam Sandler, the music of Ace of Base and a predilection for pre-pubescent children). Yet I would proudly tattoo ‘I love the Daily Mail’ on my face rather than listen to one second of Alan Green.

So while Savage might well be a love-to-hate kind of figure he, at least, doesn’t take himself even remotely seriously. He might have an opinion but I’m sure he’ll differ from Green who believed that there was only one point of view worth anything – his own.

It’s a brave move by the BBC to throw a rookie in at the deep end like this, but getting shot of the ghastly Green is the best they’ve done in ages. And just because Savage is the commentary box doesn’t mean his talent for being hit in the face will diminish any.

* voted by me in a wide ranging poll of 1