Living in London during the World Cup is an interesting experience. England fans represent both the best and worst aspects of football. Some are highly intuitive fans, studying the minutiae of tactics, team selections, substitutions and pass completion rates. These are the guys who I have met in the pubs recently - guys who love football: love watching it, talking about it and don't care who is playing once there's a good game on. Unfortunately, some others are knuckle-dragging retards who should be rounded-up and shot with balls of their own shite. But that's another story.
This last week, once again, England has indulged itself in it's four-yearly bout of hand-wringing, caterwauling, gnashing of teeth and hysterical shrieking about the performance of the England World Cup squad as, yet again, they crashed out in a quarter-final. On penalties.
Gloat? Me?
Now relax, I'm not here to gloat about it. As I said recently, I had rather hoped that England would do well - because I love watching Rooney. Sadly, he and a certain Portugese mate of his have embroiled themselves in a pathetic spat. The nut-stamping incident aside, Rooney did push Ronaldo. Which is a red-card offence. End. Of. Fucking. Story.
What fascinates me most is how England football fans have slipped into their oldest habit after an ignominious World Cup exit: scapegoat-bashing. In this case, the scapegoat is, of course, Cristiano Ronaldo.
In the last five days Ronaldo has been elevated to the status of national Pantomine villian. I'll admit that he's an annoying, diving, preening, whining prat in serious need of a good root up the hole (which many of us assume young Wayne will give him should Ronaldo arrive back at Old Trafford in a few weeks) but he is not the reason why England have crashed out.
*Drum-roll*
Are you ready for this? Okay. Here we go now: England crashed out because they weren't good enough.
I'll say it again: they weren't good enough. The famous stars of the English premiership were sorely lacking in pace, guile and will to win. By contrast, the one player in that squad who plays his football in Germany turned out to be their best player: Owen Hargreaves. He was sensational. In fact, I'll go as far as to pay him the highest compliment that an Irishman can pay to an English player: he played like Roy Keane.
But none of this matters not. As always, The Sun, The Mirror and the other assorted Murdoch owned rags have gone into a vile, xenophobic overdrive with Ronaldo, only stopping short of calling him a paedophile and demanding his head on a spike. And as always, it's pathetic and embarrasing.
Con-artists
If there are any England football fans reading this, I would only say this: crashing out of a World Cup is hard to take. I still shudder when I think about Ireland losing to Spain in 2002. On penalties. But, we were beaten. And that was the end of it.
Lads, stop yer moaning and complaining. You went out because your team was managed by a con-artist, captained by a corporate bitch more concerned with selling aftershaves than scoring, policed by a midfield riven with monumental egos and defended by a guy whose idea of preparation was to host a cringe-inducingly shit TV show that made Jeremy Beadle look like fucking Shaft.
Take it like men. And be honest about why you went out. Because if you don't, you'll be doing exactly the same thing all over again four years from now.
you speak the truth but ronaldo will be roasted alive next season at every away game.Anyway england played badly in every game but survived as long as they did due to one or two brilliant moments. /the problem is that other teams also have those moments.
I you all love!i