World Cup inquests target usual suspects
You almost envy them that too.
It is a glaring gap in our national experience that Euro 2012 threatened to, but couldn’t quite, fill. We have yet to know true, ignominious World Cup finals failure.
Most football nations have been treated to the full, exhilarating three-act drama at least once; build-up, bust, bloodletting.
In reality, honourable failure is the only prize on offer for all but the elite powers and we have successfully claimed the three-in-a-row, even if we were a little kind to ourselves on the middle one.
So we have had no proper World Cup inquest — like the one that energised Belgium in 1998 — only one into our World Cup warm-up. Even then, we tied ourselves in knots arguing the merits of timely isotonic drink arrival versus good manners. There was very little craic in it. And the players certainly didn’t come home to the stocks, though they did have to face Joe Duffy.
For a vicarious fallout experience, we have been able to rely on England to entertain us. After the tournament they’ve had, a full root and branch review, not to mind a root vegetable makeover for the gaffer, should have begun. But they were already in the middle of one and the best they have come up with so far is a fifth division. So they have little appetite for more.
Harry Redknapp did threaten to kick things off, by questioning their patriotism. That sparked Ian Wright into action, with his plan to have every reluctant wearer of the Three Lions phone the parents of a soldier killed in Afghanistan.
That scheme doesn’t appear to have got off the ground; or at least exclusive accounts of the conversations haven’t yet appeared, perhaps because the papers have to be a little more careful, nowadays, with how they source that kind of thing.
So they have, in the main, contented themselves with a few snide remarks alongside photographs of the England lads enjoying their holidays, and largely knuckled down to the more pressing business of Premier League transfer rumours. There is a need, then, to look a little further afield, this time, to see what can be learned.
The most striking imagery has been provided by the poor, winless South Koreans, lining up at Incheon Airport to be pelted with toffees by disappointed fans. An undignified yet relatively benign assault that perhaps symbolises their lack of attacking threat. It will hardly revive fortunes like the bombardment with rotten tomatoes in 1966 that got Italy back in gear.
No rotten fruit thrown at the Azzurri this time, though they quickly identified the rotten apple in their barrel; by complete coincidence, the only black man. They have some human issues to address.
In Russia, Fabio Capello is to be summoned before parliament, presumably for a top job, after one of them called him a thief for banking big bucks at the country’s expense. Though things have since soured when another politician accused him of dressing and looking like a schoolteacher.
Others have bemoaned the scourge of individualism, something we’ve never had to worry about. Ex-Sporting coach Manuel Jose fumed that Portugal carried Ronaldo “like a diamond ring we couldn’t afford”, while Greek gaffer Fernando Santos blamed the Costa Rica exit on “two or three players more interested in being remembered as the man to score a historic goal.”
In turn, the Santos sceptics suggest the players were simply giddy at being allowed a brief spell in search of any goal.
It’s not all gloom.
The Mexicans and Yaya Toure went home blaming the referee, which is the ideal way to leave things. The Spanish are taking this one on the chin, as well they might. While there is no real inquest in America, where they have claimed our kind of glory, and also minted a fresh superhero, courtesy of Belgian tendency to scuff chances at Tim Howard.
But they are throwing serious shapes in Africa, where the Ghanaian sports minister has been sacked and the Cameroon president wants a report on his desk within the month.
Mind you, there are dissenting voices. Cameroonian politician Ndansi Elvis would prefer the government focused on “Boko Haram, corruption, unemployment, poverty, HIV/AIDS and malaria, flooding and malnutrition in the north, and thousands of women who still die after birth due to postpartum haemorrhage”.
That’s a lot to deal with before you get round to Alex Song.
A little depressingly, the bigger picture isn’t necessarily the priority in the large, disappointed powers like England, Italy and Russia, where some of the early discussion has skirted self-improvement and targeted Carlos Kickaball. The old theme; limit foreigners, lock the border, protect your own.
For exporters of footballers like ourselves, it’s a shame that the game’s great global celebration tends to make everyone a little more parochial.
We have become fairly accustomed now to the convention that a GAA team never gets more media coverage than in the weeks after they apply a media ban.
And so it was this week, as many commentators tried to tease out the gripes behind Paul Grimley’s boycott.
In the dog-eat-dog world of Ulster football, where nobody concedes an inch, it was no surprise that Monaghan would inevitably claim a fair share of the publicity with their own solemn silence.
It’s all a far cry from the way things used to be done, when newspapers gave tight lips a cold shoulder.
A root through the archives to September 1968. Day before the hurling decider, two big stories: “Wexford spend eve of final at home.” “Wexford have no late changes for tomorrow’s All-Ireland senior hurling final.”
No word at all of their opponents Tipp, who had a media ban in place since The Irish Press published a front page picture of some flaking in the league final win over Kilkenny.
Who won that standoff, in the end?
Nobody, except Wexford.
You have to wish the Romanians well, ever since Genoa. Especially since we not only mugged them, but Eamon Dunphy publicly diagnosed their goalkeeper Silviu Lung with the debilitating condition Saint Vitus’ Dance, just because he went early on the penalties.
A pity then, that Simona Halep went out in the Wimbledon semi-finals, not least because she is already Romania’s fourth most popular sportsperson of all time — behind Hagi, Comaneci and Nastase — despite not yet winning a major.
A heavy burden to carry, even if seems a little forgetful of their 1988 Olympic gold medal winners, as well as Lacatus and a few more of the Steaua lads.
But then, when more of them had a chance to make names for themselves at France ‘98, they disappeared into a crowd of bleached heads.
Overall, it does seem a slim crop of heroes for a proud sporting nation, albeit one with regimes that have inflicted fractious, resource-draining sideshows such as rugby.
The Silent Sideline initiative, for underage games, promises a more golden silence than the media bans.
If anything can get Tipp people and more behind Kilkenny Sunday it is this outrage. We must all stand shoulder to shoulder with our country brethren as the Jacks deny us our spiritual figurehead.
