"As the countdown to the World Cup in Brazil 2014 begins, I've created a handful of illustrative portraits of the legends of the tournament. These are the players who lit up the world with the performances at football's biggest stage.
Whether or not Group G was this World Cup's Group of Death, it appears to have taken place in
1966, at Goodison Park, with Eusebio scoring every goal. The game Lineker and co. are expecting is
taking place in some fantasy world far from the realities of the group table. No-one is saying
Brazil v Portugal is destined to be as bad as it turns out.
Game two then, and after all the discussion of squad selections and line-ups, we've already had
a look at ITV's opening performance and it's time to see what the BBC's much-vaunted team can do.
Given all the hype that accompanies even a Europa Cup Group phase game these days, or a game to
decide who finishes fourth in the league, Lineker's opening gambit here was an endearingly BBC-ish
understatement: "The World Cup.
It is up to Arsene Wenger what players he picks for Arsenal, I suppose, but his decision to rest a number of first team players while the Gunners face possibly the toughest game of the season against Bayern in Munich is strange to say the least. With Jack Wilshere, Lukas Podolski and Bacary Sagna already out through injury, Wenger has chosen to rest Theo Walcott, Santi Cazorla, Wojciech Szczesny and Per Mertesacker, according to the Daily Mail.
Saturday Sundae: Billy Sharp's standing ovation plus mirror images
Tractor Boys applaud opposition striker's goal; miss of the day contests; historical symmetry;
and Wes Brown MOMENT OF THE DAY Ipswich fans giving Doncaster's Billy Sharp a standing ovation
after he scored against them, days after the death of his son.
Just over a week ago I made an attempt to document all the complaints against Arsenal in a
comprehensive list of weaknesses. As I'd mentioned at that time, I did not agree with many items on
the list but was compiling it for the sake of having a reference point.
Today I want to compare the English national team against that collection of gripes.
- Jealous that their team-mates were getting their fair share of physically-bothersome advances
whilst on tour, MCFC's Edin Dzeko and Alecks Kolarov decided it was time to ditch their shirts once
and for all (during their club's beach party in L.
Yesterday I had the great pleasure of describing my path to the Light, and my close encounter
with The Dark Side. Today is an opportunity to reflect upon past games against The Stratford-Bound
Spurs (please Mr Levy take them there you will be lauded forever in the anals of history deliberate
spelling )
Usually I don't agree with Mr. Collymore, whose outspoken and brusque views are often
ill-considered and unsupported by valid evidence, but on this occasion I can see where he's coming
from.
As normal during the international break there's not much going on at club level so discussions
on message boards tend to slide towards formations, tactics, dream signings and occasionally
pornography. We're lucky that we managed to sign Van der Vaart at the last minute, not only on the
playing side of things but he's given us plenty to talk about, not excluding whether his wife is
now the best looking WaG at the club.
Summing up the midweek Champions League action for Al Jazeera we'll say that again, AL JAZEERA host Gary Lineker was suddenly struck by the compulsion to refer to Montpellier pairKarim Ait-Fana and Younes Belhanda's Muslim prayer goal celebration made popular over here by the likes of Demba Ba as 'eating grass'.
Gary Lineker has caused outrage after using his broadcasting slot on Al Jazeera's Champions League coverage to compare a Muslim prayer goal celebration to eating grass. Way to play to the Al Jazeera crowd, Gary. Lineker was commentating on highlights of Karim Ait-Fana's goal for Montpellier against Schalke when he said: "A terrific effort from [.
In the aftermath of England's 1-0 win against Ukraine at Euro 2012, Match of the Day's
back-slapping, in-joking gaggle of pundits were analysing the Three Lions' lucky win when all of a
sudden, Alan Shearer butts in when Lee Dixon is still speaking. Cue a rather pissed off response
from the former Arsenal man (around 35 seconds).
I don't mind admitting it absolutely galled me that the sycophantic tools on the Match of the
Day sofa just flat-out refused to acknowledge and/or call-out Wayne Rooney's petulant slash at a
prone Fabricio Coloccini last night, despite watching replay after replay of the United meathead
poorly masking his errant boot as an attempt to prise the ball out from underneath the Newcastle
centre-half.
Just when you thought the Italian tactician and master of success couldn't get any more focused;
England manager Fabio Capello has banned a fans' and players' favorite: the World Cup
song.
Not content with prohibiting WAGs from attending the England base next summer, Capello
is again trying to take the Englishness out of English football by restricting the players'
voices.
It seems that some very upset Arsenal fans have complained to the TV Watchdog Ofcom about a Gary
Lineker impression of Arsene Wenger at the end of one of his editions of Match Of The Day, accusing
him of racism. God knows why this upset some touchy people, but Ofcom were honour-bound to
investigate and [.
It doesn't take much to wind up the average football fan these days. The average football fan
(a long suffering male who enjoys beer and has delusions of grandeur for his team of overpaid
primadonnas) is drawn to controversial issues like a moth to the proverbial flame. There is
little doubt then that the events of the weekend past will have left a lot of fans more than a
little wound up.
A short while back a Spurs fan on Twitter started a survey to find the ultimate Spurs XI of all
time and this got me wondering what my choices would be.
I will start by giving you a brief insight into my Spurs watching history upon which my selections
will be based. Â The first game I watched was when I was about 4 (30 years ago now around 1981) and
obviously a great time to start with all the winning cup runs starting to occur.
As self appointed President of the 'Enjoy it' campaign and the 'This could be the year' Fellowship
I look on with a certain detachment at our new friends in the media who are climbing aboard the
Tottenham bus. Hanson, Lawrenson, even Lee Dixon and of course ex players like Lineker and Ossie
Ardiles who touchingly still refers to Spurs as 'we'.
1994: Mundial de los Estados Unidos;
Estadio Rous Bowll de Los Angeles:
La Selección local elimina sorpresivamente en 1° ronda a Colombia, candidata al tÃtulo hasta
aquel entonces.
The Leicester crisp merchant's wife looks like the Primark version of Zeta Jones, though to be
fair to Mrs Lineker, it's not the best pic of her. That would be this picture, of course:
Nice idea I saw via the England Team wesbite, run by the charity Keep Your On The Ball, who
raise awareness about prostate and testicular cancer.
The odea is that age old one you have to pick your all time England XI. But there are a couple
of caveats. First off it has to be someone who represented England at the World Cup (seemingly
since 1966, so erm not really All Time then), and second if you want to win Gordon Banks shirt, you
have to pick the same starting XI as Terry Venables, who has picked a special secret XI (revealing
only Banks in goal).
We've linked up with a massive Birmingham blog, Joys & Sorrows. One of their readers off their
forum, Nat, wrote a great article in relation to today's game.
In recent times
At the moment, Spurs are enjoying their most productive period since the days of Terry Venables,
Lineker and Gazza.
All this angst and hand-wringing over whether Tottenham will leapfrog over Arsenal if they beat Chelsea on Wednesday is just so much a total wasate of time. In fact we should be extyremely pleased that the Spuds are going to Stamford Bridge to contest their game in hand.
They may only be a Southern Football Premier League side, but the decision by Oxford City to
sack player Lee Steele over homophobic Twitter comments he made will have a significant influence
on the game in general.
In refering to the out-gay Welsh rugby player, Gareth Thomas, and his appearance on Celebrity
Big Brother, Steele Tweeted: "I wouldnt fancy the bed next to Gareth Thomas
#padlockeda**ehole".
Arriva un'email: "Caro Balestri, lei è molto divertente nelle sue critiche, ma appunto è troppo
critico. Possibile che non le vada mai bene niente? Possibile che debba sempre distruggere e mai
costruire? Saluti, Marco, Milano". Approfittiamo di Marco per costruire qualcosa raccontando della
devastante esperienza che abbiamo vissuto a Londra, dove siamo stati per motivi [.
If you're sick of the handwringing, woolgathering, blithering and moralizing about Luis Suarez -
see you tomorrow! I'll have a complete, in-depth preview of the third-place game.
Ha ha! Previewing the third place game. GOD, no, can you imagine? That POS isn't even a tiebreaker
in a bracket contest, is it?
Morning all, welcome to a new week and there are two big, big games on the horizon. For now
though most of the chat seems to still be about Portsmouth.
Clumsy oaf of a falling over his own feet Portsmouth striker, John Utaka, claims that William
Gallas admitted that he'd fouled him on the edge of our box.
