Sevilla · Copa del Rey · Goalkeeper · #1 · Greece · 32 yrs
Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!After much hesitant wallchart-filling, Geopolitics World Cup fans are finally able to feast their eyes on a complete knockout stage and plot their team’s route to a painful penalty shootout exit. Unlike in previous tournaments, there is no rest day for the wicked this time, with the first last-32 tie – a blockbuster tie between Canada and South Africa – taking place 15 hours after the final group reached its dramatic conclusion. Despite what their supporters sing, the GWC party will now continue without Scotland … who will continue without Steve Clarke. The GWC mixed zone’s least popular man has asked himself whether he is best placed to lead the nation into the next major tournament and has accepted the answer (‘no’) with good grace. “Thanks for having me and good luck to my successor,” Clarke sniffed as he backed away from the lectern and headed for the door marked Do One.Re: Mike Towers’ request for potential walking football terms (yesterday’s letters). If two neighbouring Scottish teams play each other, is it known as the ‘infirm derby’?” – Roger Mart.If Mike Towers wanted to sample walking football, he needn’t even have left his house. He could have just watched Cristiano Ronaldo playing for Portugal” – Derek McGee.As we enter the knockout stages of the GWC, I thought it time to put down a marker. On at least four occasions in the last couple of years, you have predicted penalty shootouts to finish 1-0. According to RSSSF, this has happened maybe twice ever in a normal shootout (including Silures’ 1-0 win on penalties against Hafia in the second round of the African Champions’ Cup 1979 are not known). So stop it – I’m on to you” – Neil Rose [never! – Football Daily Ed].Kev the Poet’s suggestion that Odysseas Vlachodimos is a midfielder might explain why he was so bad whenever he played in goal” – Jim Hearson.This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions. Continue reading...
Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!The Geopolitics World Cup has its North Korea 1966, its Cameroon 1990, rank outsiders to revive hearts hardened by relentless cynicism. For Pak Doo-ik and Roger Milla, read Vozinha, and all his Cape Verde teammates, including Pico Lopes, a defender recruited while playing for Shamrock Rovers from the diaspora via LinkedChat. An archipelago nation with a population smaller than Bradford has negotiated a tough group including two former winners in Spain and Uruguay. They will next meet Argentina in Miami, the adopted city of Lionel Messi, where the fairytale likely ends. Though if not, then they would become the greatest World Cup story of all. “We are small but we have big hearts,” sobbed Vozinha following a 0-0 draw with Saudi Arabia and a quick check on the other Group H result from Guadalajara.Having sat through the first group games and fumed at the obvious lack of jeopardy, I decided my GWC experience would be significantly enhanced if I ignored some games and played walking football for the 60-plus generation instead. To my amazement, there is an entire new football language waiting to be discovered by anybody prepared to play the beautiful game at a sedate pace. For example, the walking football term used when a player scores three goals is ‘a gerihat-trick’. Come to think of it, this all isn’t far removed from descriptions of England’s performance against Ghana. Does anybody else have any walking football terms?” – Mike Towers.Re: tournament wording in different languages (Football Daily letters passim). I’d love to be the first of 1,057 Scots to tell you what ‘knockout stage’, ‘quarter-final’, ‘semi-final’, ‘final’ and the like are in our national tongue, but I don’t think any of us knows” – Peter Storch (and no other Scots).Leaving aside the £116m for Elliot Anderson (yesterday’s Beyond The GWC, full email edition), I’m concerned about a midfielder called Odysseas Vlachodimos being mentioned in passing. Is he the kind of player who gets lost in the middle of games, or does he tease the opposition till they lose control?” – Kev The Poet.This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions. Continue reading...
Tap a headline to view metadata and excerpt fields in Sportra, then use the article website button to continue on the original publisher page.