So the World Cup winners will be either the Netherlands or Spain.
Colin Randall considers tonight’s semi-final result a fair one, but needs to make swift contact with a warm, witty or wise supporter of each finalist …
My heart just wasn’t in this match. I sensed it would be tight, with none of the swashbuckling thrust of Germany’s earlier performances and Spanish flair struggling to break down Teutonic resilience.
One great day out ruined, Arsenal at home turned into a logistical nightmare for away fans, another excuse for avoiding Chelsea – all, says a remarkably understanding
Pete Sixsmith , in a day’s work for the TV folk whose job it is to undo the Premier League fixture list …
A colleague, who is also of the Red and White persuasion, performs the valuable task every year of making a copy of the fixtures, laminating them and passing them out to those who are Sunderland fans. Every year, I thank him and I see a pristine fixture list, with games every Saturday – as it used to be and as it should be.
Then along come the TV fixtures……………
At last. Something from French football to cheer about, even if it doesn’t amount to that much more than a row of haricots verts …
It won’t matter whether they are used to listening to medleys of self-composed Andy Reid comeback songs, Charles Aznavour’s greatest hits or a spot of gangster rap.
The most refreshing news from French football in months, if not years, is that in future, players from at least two Ligue 1 clubs – the champions Marseille included – have a new rule to obey.
Have we reached the stage where the art of cheating should be taught to children as no more than a basic technique of football? Examine the differing reactions to Suarez (because he gloated), Neuer (because he denied an Englishman) and Jeremy Robson (because his young lad was the one taking liberties). Is there, Jeremy wonders, just a spot of hypocrisy in our approach to bending the rules? …
Following up on the article from last week about goal line technology, a lot of the debate here on Salut! Sunderland has extended from “righting the wrongs”, resulting from poor officiating, through to a more comprehensive analysis of the problems associated with cheating, which from here on in may be referred to as “Suarezing” or “being Suarezed”.
OK, not everyone is as fascinated as
Colin Randall by the continuing French football crisis. But with time to spare before the World Cup semis, it seems appropriate to dot the odd i and cross a t or two following the condemnation by Liliam Thuram of Patrice Evra …
So Thierry Henry had his meeting with Sarko, and one of the dinosaurs of the French Football Federation, its 75-year-old president Jean-Pierre Escalettes, has fallen on his sword.
Meanwhile Liliam Thuram adopts the role of stern, onlooking head of (a more glorious) history, and Florent Malouda puts in some post-mutiny community service in Haiti.
The rotten face of football part two. In its relentless campaign to show up football cheats for what they are (whoever they play for), Salut! Sunderland has suffered arrogant, whingeing fans of other clubs who believe it happens only to them, never by. But we’ve been consistent, and as ready to condemn such acts by our players as by opponents. And the World Cup has reminded us of most of the forms cynical cheating takes …
To borrow from and adapt the words commonly attributed to Jack London (he was talking about scabs) ….
After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made, for the game of football, the diver/feigner of injury/shirtpuller/bonebreaker and Suarez.
Bill Taylor, pictured on a visit to St Tropez, has probably watched as much World Cup football as most. From out west in Toronto, he’s enthused, criticised and slumbered – whichever response has seemed appropriate – his way through the competition. But some of the downright dishonesty he’s seen has left a nasty taste in the mouth. You can take it as read that this is not the last, but the first, Salut! Sunderand piece that will examine the cheating side of football …
If this World Cup has proved anything, it’s how rotten football has become at international level.
It was an astonishing run, made all the better because Sunderland AFC had not only colours – red and white stripes – but players, Paulo da Silva and Cristian Riveros, so deeply involved.
There comes a time when even Englishmen can forget the island race mentality and show a little European solidarity.
Germany’s trouncing of Argentina not only makes us feel ever so slightly better about having lost by a similar margin – as it was when I started writing; it became greater of course – and with much more by way of grievances to moan about.
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