Enda McEvoy: A fond farewell to new World Cup friends
FLEETING: When the World Cup is over, Ecuador’s Enner Valencia, who once played for Everton, may be banging them in by the new time for Fenerbahce, but we’ll have moved on. Pic: Manu Fernandez/AP
Week two in Qatar and the novelty has worn off. We’re in for the long haul. It won’t be all over by Christmas, metaphorically speaking.
In the first few days of a World Cup everything is fresh and exciting. Even vaguely familiar names, half-forgotten or half-remembered, come in new clothing.
So: Enner Valencia, tack-sharp for Ecuador in their opening two outings, once played for Everton? Janey.
(When? “No idea,” reports long-suffering Goodison Park season-ticket holder Feargal McEvoy. “I’ve lost track with the number of players we’ve had in the squad over the past few seasons.”) Or: Lionel Scaloni, the Argentina manager, not only played for West Ham but lined out for them in the 2006 FA Cup final in Cardiff and gave away the throw from which Steven Gerrard bazookaed that famous equaliser for Liverpool? Janey again.
(“Gave the throw-in back,” corrects long-suffering London Stadium season-ticket holder Tim O’Sullivan. “I can’t relive it. You should look it up.”)
Week Two means reality biting. Teams that lost their opening fixture need a point at all costs. Teams that won their opening fixture need to avoid losing the next one. Some absolute pigs of matches ensue, England versus the US chief among them.
It’s not all bad news. Fifa will be making a profit of €7 billion from the tournament, it emerges. Plenty of dosh there for Gianni Infantino to spend on counselling for the myriad traumas he suffered in previous lives as a one-legged redheaded gay female migrant worker.
Talking of migrant workers, it also emerges that between 400 and 500 of them died “on the World Cup project”. The organisers can’t be more precise than that.
Well, quite. What’s the deaths of a few dozen Bangladeshis or Sri Lankans between Gianni, Sepp, Michel, the Emir of Qatar and the other men in the soft seats?
International soccer is never not political. Wednesday brought reports of celebrations in Iran following the previous evening’s encounter with the US. They were singing in the streets of Tehran and elsewhere not because they beat the Great Satan but because they lost to the Great Satan.
Our own dear Mick Wallace, a keen supporter of the Iranian government and trenchant critic of its opponents, must have been gutted. One could not but feel his pain. So many of these ghastly theocratic regimes are so unjustly maligned. Not fair!
Things got worse for the Tehran junta, Allah help them, on Thursday with the sight of an all-female refereeing team officiating at the Germany/Costa Rica game. Outrageous. Mick will doubtless treat the European Parliament to an impassioned outburst on the subject next week.
For supporters of teams in England the second week of a World Cup sharpens perspectives. Chances are a number of representatives from one’s club will be involved with various countries. (Unless your name is Feargal or Tim.) This raises a knotty existential issue. How far does one want one’s boys to go in Qatar?
Do we want a couple of them to go all the way and become World Cup winners because, clearly, this would be nice and you couldn’t but take pleasure in it? It would reflect well on them. It would reflect well on the club. Behold the trailing clouds of glory.
Or, as Jurgen Klopp recently joked while not joking in the slightest, do we want them all on the plane back, safe and uninjured, at the earliest possible opportunity?
Actually this isn’t a knotty existential issue at all. The answer is obvious. We want them back asap. We’d have preferred if they hadn’t gone there in the first place.
For these selfish reasons your columnist spent most of the week hoping an early exit would befall Denmark, Uruguay, South Korea, Croatia and, however improbably, Brazil. (Yes, yes, no, no and very much no. Hey, can’t win ‘em all.) But now the group stage has ended and the time has come to say goodbye to various new friends.
Some players who don’t win World Cups winkle themselves into the public consciousness nonetheless, to be fondly remembered ever afterwards. Josimar in 1986, Schillaci and Roger Milla in 1990, that baldy Bulgarian guy in 1994.
Others are ships in the night. Come January we’ll barely remember what countries were managed by Gustavo Alfaro, Felix Sanchez and Hervé Renard. And Enner Valencia may be banging them in by the new time for Fenerbahce but we’ll have moved on.
It is the way of the World Cup. It’s not you, lads, it’s us.
Some other observations on the few days that were in it.
Cody Gakpo and Mohammed Kudus lived up to the hype. Living up to the hype when they make the inevitable and notoriously difficult move from the Dutch league to England will be another matter.
Luka Modric, the international game’s answer to Tony Browne, proved yet again that class is permanent.
Romelu Lukaku, the international game’s answer to (insert name of bustling but limited intercounty full-forward), proved yet again that lack of class is permanent.
At least Mexico fans won’t have to fret about going out once more in the Round of 16.
Finally, line of the week went to John Kenny, who in tandem with Kenny Cunningham was a lot of fun to listen to on Thursday night.
“Japan and Spain are through – unless Germany score six in the last three minutes!”
Finally finally, the real winners of the past week? Qatar.
The world was convulsed over Japan’s progress and Germany’s exit, Foden’s string-pulling and Messi’s penalty, when basic humanity and common decency said it should have been convulsed over those “400 or 500” migrant workers.
A triumph of sportswashing. Job done.
Some readers of advancing middle age will remember Golden Cygnet. The greatest novice hurdler ever. The new Istabraq even before there was an Istabraq.
Trained by Edward O’Grady and ridden by Niall Madden he won at Cheltenham in 1978 doing handstands. One paper hailed his victory with the headline “This Cygnet Sure to Be Some Swan Next Year”.
He wasn’t. A few weeks later, thrown in with the big boys at Ayr, Golden Cygnet fell at the last in the Scottish Champion Hurdle when running all over the mighty Night Nurse and died. Nevertheless on a mark of 176 he remains in the 10 top-rated hurdlers in Timeform’s history, alongside Bird’s Nest and Bula and Faugheen.
Top of the list is Night Nurse on 182 followed by Istabraq and Monksfield — another legend from hurdling’s golden era in the 1970s — on 180. But closing in rapidly on 177, a wet week out of novice ranks and still improving, is Constitution Hill, who last weekend trotted up in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle.
The Golden Cygnet comparisons were apparent the moment Nicky Henderson’s charge won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham by 22 lengths last March. At Newcastle he had a mere 12 lengths to spare, and in a fast time too.
But down in Waterford there’s a gal called Honeysuckle. For obvious reasons National Hunt horses get injured or go wrong all the time.
Let’s hope for the next three months that these two don’t.
Tyrone footballers: Peter Harte, Mattie Donnelly, and Ronan McNamee sign up for another year. Plenty of All Ireland-winning U20s to come in too.
Galway’s hurling development squad: About to be coached by Eamon O’Shea. Prepare to
ascend to a higher plane of
consciousness, boys.
Greg Norman: Ought to walk away as LIV Golf boss in order to end the animosity with the PGA Tour, Tiger Woods says. Drivers at dawn surely beckon.
William and Kate Windsor: Turned up at the TD Garden for a Boston Celtics game to be greeted by boos and chants of “USA!” What royal flunky thought this would be a good idea? And where is his/her nearest labour exchange?
