It was written in the stickers and it is the line up for the final that I predicted before the tournament started. But not the line up I wanted. Sometimes being right sucks.
My Holland shirts are facing the long trudge to the washing machine (not a moment too soon says Mr TLF) and most of us are wondering why we stayed up for a semi final that kind of choked the life out football. And to think I was fretting about whether I would get to see the map, being committed to an evening work event in Manchester. As it turned out it was all a bit more beautiful game related than I had expected with Manchester City’s in-house counsel being one of the speakers (and no he didn’t bring any cake) and all the attendees for the dinner afterwards being football fans so there was plenty of chat. Most people had to negotiate a journey to get home so it was an early one and I got the whole of the second half.
And the extra time.
And the penalties.
Louis van Gaal was all out of tactics and just a smidgen grumpy. It seems to be everybody’s fault except his that Wrongvlaar (wrong in every sense) took the first Dutch penalty.
Mr TLF has very strong views about penalties. It is as we all know an awful way to end a match but after some quizzing from me he accepted that a quiz, a lottery or a small game of tag would be not better. He does however have a great solution to refresh the penalty brand a bit and also take the pressure off the players. So no goalkeeper for the whole shebang; each penalty taker has to also face a penalty. And the penalties will not be taken by the knackered players but the opposing managers, a commentator from each country, each team’s physio, both mascots and finally (and thank you to Fran and Jo for this refinement) a WAG from each side. Spread the pain a bit.
This idea will shortly be forwarded to FIFA accompanied by the requisite envelope of hard cash. Over to you Sepp.
Di Lost Foxaria
YESTERDAY’S RESULT
Argentina 0 Holland 0 aet Argentina win 4-2 on penalties
WorldCup balls
“He’s looking at the wrist on his watch”
Andy Townsend
Phrase of the day – Vamonos Chicos
You’ll need to watch the Adidas advert…
Webiness – shouldn’t love adverts from major corporates but the Nike and the Adidas ones are great. I’d skip the overblown Dr Dre one myself
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/jun/13/world-cup-tv-ads-nike-mcdonalds-adverts