Maple Lions

Once again, the English marched into Germany, took on the Germans at their national sport, and won a resounding victory:

ENGLAND’s massive army of World Cup fans is drinking Germany dry, it emerged yesterday.

Breweries warned beer could run out before the final because of huge demand from our supporters.

In Nuremberg, organisers revealed 70,000 England fans who flooded the city drank 1.2MILLION pints of beer - an average of 17 pints each.

Astonished bar keeper Herrmann Murr said: “Never have I seen so many drink so much in such little time.”

His bar at a fans’ tent in the city ran out after they drained all 32 of his 50-litre (11 gallon) barrels.

Herr Murr calculated Britons were shifting beer at a staggering rate of 200 pints per minute.

City official Peter Murrmann said: “The English proved themselves world champs. They practically drank us dry.”

Damian P.

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Here’s a recipe for appalling footie journalism:

1. Take one noxious element of the game, diving;
2. Add one writer who has clearly never played the sport;
3. Stir furiously and serve up half-baked to the SLATE readership.

Because, after all, it’s better to look good than to play effectively as an honourable sportsman.

And Americans wonder why their views on football keep being greeted with contempt? Place the blame on the emerging prawn sandwich set on this side of the Atlantic, sadly let loose on the web.

Paul Canniff

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The reliably pompous build-up to the Real Madrid club presidential election sees Arjen Robben and Cristiano Ronaldo caught up in the Bernabeu rumour mills.

One can reasonably assume that little will come of this in either instance.  Truly the Galacticos’ management seem more like a casting call for Inside the Actors Studio than a collection of competent football leaders.

Paul Canniff

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As expected in the wake of the Australia/Croatia Group F match, Graham Poll has been dropped from the roster of World Cup referees.

While Poll has distinguished himself in the EPL and the Champions League, even he cannot deny that he made a number of profound blunders in Germany.

The Beeb item also lists the referees officiating in the quarter-finals.

Paul Canniff

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Germans really, really don’t like Budweiser.  (Yeah, as if Germans are known for brewing good beer.)

The story also makes reference to a German “Purity Law,” but a joke would be way too obvious.

Damian P.

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Juve’s new general manager falls from a window at the club’s headquarters.

Best to think twice about suggestions of a recuperative boat trip out on the lake for some fishing.

Paul Canniff

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According to the Beeb, Sven indeed has a plan, but cunning in his mind alone:

Eriksson was asked point-blank 24 hours before England’s World Cup win against Ecuador in Stuttgart how many formations he had tried in training before settling on Michael Carrick’s return and Wayne Rooney’s lone role up front.

It was a question that was clearly heavily loaded and justifiably prompted by talk that England’s preparations were, to say the least, flexible.

The answer: “One. One.”

In fairness to Sven, there are only so many angles to consider when you have boxed yourself into a corner.

Paul Canniff

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1. While remaining a justifiably bitter critic of his penalty kicking, on this blog I have recognized Becks’ unwavering magic with free kicks.  Yesterday he saved us and I am duly grateful.
2. And thanks as well to Ashley Cole for saving England in the clinch.  A pleasure to see him shine outside the shadow of the Highbury Professor.
3. We need more Aaron Lennon and sooner in the next game.  While his footwork is impressive, his bursts of speed on the pitch are stunning, plain and simple. Opponents facing him will know how a P-51 Mustang pilot felt the first time he encountered an Me-262 jet fighter.
4. Stewart Downing, the Accidental Tourist continues to give me hope.  Clearly, all I have to do is consistently play unremarkable football and I too can get an all-expense paid trip to Germany.
5. While Ecuador made the round of sixteen, their hopes for Oscar glory will go unsated.  I doubt even James Lipton could work up a proper bootlick for this gang of telegraphing whingers.

As for Sven, here it is:  I DARE him to play Theo Walcott against Portugal. My patience is exhausted with what increasingly appears to be Eriksson’s pathetic attempt to flip the bird to the FA by engaging in a ludicrous global spectacle of video dating.  England is suffering from a lack of striking power through injury and managerial incompetence.  This cannot hold.

After Ecuador there is no hope of scraping through by extracting pedestrian one-point wins. Either the kid wows us or makes a right shambles of it, but Rooney needs a real strike partner either upfront or from a close-by midfield feed. Clear the air, Sven.

Paul Canniff 

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Sven switches to a 4-5-1 formation for England’s Sunday match against Ecuador, seeing Michael Carrick join the midfield while Rooney guns upfront, undistracted by the flailing Shambolictron 3000.

It’s a solid response to the loss of Owen and the high risk of elimination. But if we lose Rooney as well, let’s just break out the NyQuil and crisps and sleep soundly through the next two weeks.

Paul Canniff 

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Henry Kissinger dissects the realpolitik of World Cup playing styles:

Note the three primary playing styles — but also the way globalization is homogenizing them. Dr. Kissinger separates the approaches to the game into three broad types: English, European continental and Latin. The traditional English style focuses on winning through athleticism — kicking the ball deep and long and then outrunning the opponent, with defenders and attackers well-defined. With the European style, six players typically move forward and pass skillfully and four players remain back. That said, they often shift positions so that defenders can become attackers.

His favorite is the Latin approach, which is about style as much as substance. “When a Brazilian team is in good form, it looks like a ballet coming down the field. There are two troubles with the Brazilians: One is they get so infatuated with their dancing and acrobatics that they sometimes forget to shoot goals. The other is they often don’t have a good goalkeeper. My explanation is that he doesn’t like staying back and not joining the fun.”

Somehow the good doctor overlooked Italy’s new fusion of catenaccio with Cosa Nostra, where all eleven players eventually sit in the docket. Not at all beautiful and fun only for those of us who savour every last spicy morsel of schadenfreude.

H/T The Rebel Sell

Paul Canniff

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