The World Is Over

If I have anything to show for the last six weeks its a wall covered with newspaper cuttings of men. A debris that decorates my living room, providing fragments of a lost world.  As a tribute to my obsession like a stalker paying homage to his dead muses...

So its gone! Leaving the promise it might reappear in four years. Where do I go from here? Life has been on hold. Some may have noticed the gradual lessening of posts in the last week, a  clear sign that reality has been seeping into my football bubble and now its burst... The final question has to be asked, what did we learn?

In Football Terms...

• Confirmation that Germany are the best team in the World. In the Euros and the last World Cup Germany's team were the most pleasing on the eye but they looked like they had forgotten their football ancestry! Losing in the semi finals of both tournaments. Efficient defending had been replaced by irresponsible attack. This World Cup, the German's smugness (from winning the Champions League titles to domestic league titles and cups) clearly demonstrated they were not short of confidence. The victories in the knock out stages dispelled question of their calmness under pressure and the semi final victory over Brazil was their coronation despite it being five days before the final.  Germany had matured within the tournament, into a team that felt scarily modern, dare I say efficient. 

• If you have a well regulated domestic league you will benefit internationally; Germany are the clear winners of this methodology  (but this is also true of Holland, Argentina and Belgium). In contrast England and Brazil both have poor record of nurturing the best players within their domestic leagues. Brazil is a football brain drain to the rest of Europe, being one of football's biggest exporters of teenagers. In contrast, England are one of biggest importers of footballers with no national representation quota for the team's line ups, no laws stopping top clubs being foreign owned, or being bought with debt and having very few English players playing first team football at the top level. It would sadden any Brazilian to hear Englishman compare their national sides problems to Brazil but really they are that bad.

• Brazil 2014 had the best group stages in any World Cup  I have watched. Great to see so many teams attack the so called bigger sides, instead of trying to play for a tactical draw. I would say three of the games from the Group stages  were better than any game in the knock out stages (Ghana Germany, England Italy, Portugal USA) as these matches were more an open contest and far less cagey and defensive. A reversal to the international norm.

• One person cannot win their team the World Cup. Maybe it was different in 86 but regardless of how much better Messi is  better in comparison to Madonna, the world of football has become more professional than in it was in the past. James Rodriguez was the best player of the tournament because his side played such great attacking football, similarly Messi was not the attacking force everyone wanted him to be in the knock out stages because of the defensive nature of his team. Christiano Ronaldo realized this fact after drawing with the United States, even when they could still qualify out of the group stages he told the World Press that everyone in his team was simply not good enough to win the World Cup.

In Life terms...

• My health has suffered: too much fine ale, late night smoking, screaming and shouting, general embarrassment, posting inappropriate and inane thoughts in attempt to create cohesion to a fractured consciousness, substituting sport over news, lost in stupid statistics, going to bed alone, dirt, dust, hangover, good food, bad food , too much food, forgetting to wash, forgetting to wake up, forgetting, neglecting the protruding forest of facial hair that covers my face, back, bum, watching rather than living, participating in conduit conversations, neglecting friends, family, life,  no sunshine after 5pm, no life after 5PM, nothing but football after 5PM, just the transient joy of the beautiful game and the over use of adjectives. My physical and mental health have suffered but only now in its come down state not at the time when I was ridding high off all those goals. I will not be thirty again and I will not have opportunity to slobber over football again. I am misty eyed with nostalgia and its only been three days. A new structure to my life is needed or at least a structure where I don't start drinking at 5PM.

• Football really does bring people together! So many people who don't care about league football wanted to talk to me about the World Cup. Living in London it actually created the illusion of living within a community coupled with the comfort of anonymity. A purity surrounds international football regardless how much FIFA are corrupt we all still engage, everyone can let the inanity flow.

• Between the posts, matches, beers,  I have had the opportunity to actually spend time with my beloved Charlie. A woman who is so forgiving if she would only shut up about it! Not that she actually says anything! She just has to give me that look! That look, that words cannot express. No one knows that look as it's especially for me but I hope your lucky enough to have a person who can look at you in a similar way. That look combines irritation and acceptance and makes me feel lucky in the knowledge that I have someone who loves me despite my many faults, i.e. a six week football obsession.

• Finally I have learned that the offside trap is not dead, possession football won't win you the World up but defensive rubbish football will get you to the final, only start running in the second half, Americans are nicer as the underdog, never cry during the national anthem, never hold your country's federation to ransom and especially don't kiss the money as you will only score an own goal, there is no morality in football, al jazeera is not a country, if its not in and then it goes in then its still in, Germans get better the more you mock them and protests will never upset a country as losing 7-1 at home.

I measure my life by World Cups but I feel you should only measure in retrospection. Memory will condense the 64 matches or 5,760 minutes  (not including extra time) into moments but the measure of the World Cup will be decided in the journey to the next. So this narrative's end is merely another's beginning.

The Final!

I am at wedding and surely their is no better way than to celebrate two wonderful people's love with a World Cup final. I will post my thoughts and attempt to make sense of the last six weeks but realistically all I can say is enjoy the game as the world ends..

How To Sell The World Cup

After sharing / venting / ranting about the relationship between advertisement and the World Cup I though it's important that I attempt to sell the World Cup. Clearly I think the World Cup sells itself but there is nothing wrong with ancillary encouragement. 

1. When Local Becomes Global: Daniel Sturridge, Subway and Pele 

I concede that Subway is no athlete's diet, their sandwiches taste disgusting and Pele is the oldest football whore in the planet, however this advert has a cheapness, a sense of humor and Daniel Sturridge. If you had told Daniel Sturridge at the end of last season that he would star for England at the World Cup and also a World Cup Subway advert he would have laughed. Now  Subway is below him in the fast food chain and he will be looking to cement himself as the Premier League's best striker and a lucrative three year deal with McDonalds.

2. The International Advert with No Pretensions: Hyndai - Get In

This advert is so unashamedly uncool and  so cheap despite selling a luxury car you have to love it. Advertising is so slick these days made by St Martins and Goldsmith students, using alternative forms of music and culture, but the World Cup offers the opportunity to bring advertisement back to basics. Unlike the the International Football blockbusters that features 30 minutes of footballers fighting aliens and directed by known Hollywood stars this advert is only 59 seconds. Clearly its designed to play anywhere in the World working off the trans-language premise everyone wants to get in fast car and go to the World Cup.

3. Expanding The World Through Football Hoardings: A Hamby Meat Mystery.

Advertisement is not meant to teach you anything but sell you a product, however international football hoardings do teach us about the global economy. For example I never new Johnson Baby Oil is multi-billion international brand till this World Cup, that baby must produce a lot of oil. Often you find a brand that intrigues you as you are unsure who / what / where it is. Hamby: Quality Meat had me intrigued as it populated the majority of stadiums but did not specifies the type of meat it was selling. Maybe horse! Maybe a meze of meats combined or a genetically modified animal free meat grown from a Petri dish.Sadly none of my guesses were as boring as the answer, its a type of sliced beef to go in a Uruguayan sandwich, a cross between a thin sliced steak being eaten like a hamburger. Preferred not knowing as the intrigue made me survive Greece against Japan.

4. When Football Goes Viral: Americans Created Advertising

The most heart warming advert campaign was team USA, they put in some great performances against Ghana, Portugal, Belgium and won themselves a lot of fans. The fans themselves were like a growing flash mob of fancy dress, that if seen on YouTube it would make me despair for the future of humanity, but in the context of a football stadium, they made my heart pound with hope for the future of football. When fans become their own marketers you know you are on to a winner. 

5  But all best advertisement is improvised...

Social media has been all over the World Cup and it creates the illusion of living in the now when actually a huge amount of celebrities, footballers, companies orchestrate their tweets and Facebook profile. I am not one for constantly online chatting during a match but its definitely for the majority of fans fused with the live experience of watching football. The constant rolling media I feel take me away from the now but their is no denying that access to record and document the World Cup has not enhanced my enjoyment. For example I would never been able to enjoy this....

So Netherlands play Brazil tonight in the third place runner up competition and nobody cares! Anyone who has been reading the blog will know they have been my two least favorite teams but after Brazil's recent tragedy I hope they can find some pride to beat the dutch and somehow wipe that smug smile of Van Gaal's Man U face. 

How Not To Sell The World Cup

When I tell people I am taking four weeks off work to watch the World Cup, most people look at me with a pleasantly surprised face and contemplate how I can afford to travel to Brazil and enjoy the World Cup with so many tourists. Quickly I correct them, stating I am simply taking the days off to watch every match from the comfort of my sofa. Surprise  turns to shock as they realize that this "hipster / nerd / nerdster" is not using the World Cup as a reason to travel the world but actually loves football and wants to watch every kick. You see I do not fit the cliche World Cup demographic,despite my claims that everyone does. So many of us who watch the World Cup fall short of this globalized mass consuming brand and hate the associations that are cast over our love for the game (TM Nike). 

So in the spirit of defiance let me highlight this World Cup's worse advertising offenders as I present "How not To Sell The World Cup."

1.All Advertisement is Propaganda:  Vauxhall Football #StandTogether TV Advert

My God this is a terrifying advert! England fans literally appear off a Vauxhall conveyor belt, in accordance to the most overblown voice over in living memory, offset by a dirge of sentimental violins, fitting for a state funeral. The advert has a distinct lack of sarcasm and irony that often saves most patriotic adverts but instead we are treated to a corporate call to arms. Vauxhall even mocks my favorite national treasure, cynicism, in favor of totalitarianism. The irony being that nobody looks like they are standing together due to all the air brushing, not even the England players look like they spent the same day in the studio. This is Cameron's Britain after he gets rid of Scotland, all united in royal tax avoiding corporatedom!

2. Curse of being A Celebrity: Steven Gerrard and Lucozade Sport 

First, Benedict Cumberbatch should not being doing voice overs for Lucozade - all highly paid actors should leave that work for real jobbing actors. Stop being greedy Sherlock! As for Stevie G.... this advert feels like a curse. The director appears inspired by Gerrard's famous slip at Ainfield that lost Liverpool the title this year and killed all momentum for the national side. We watch his physical body slip away into a puddle only to come to be resurrected through the manna of sponsorship  known as Lucozade. This advert does not inspire instead it tempts fate! The voice over goads the natural elements of Manaus, its corporate idols facing off against the ancient gods of nature. You did not need to watch England Italy to know what was going to happen just read the Bible.

3. Football Global Blockbuster: Ronaldo, Messi and Roony Fight Aliens for Samsung

Be warned this is an exstremely long advert and I will feel guilty if you watch it from start to finish...

And that is only part one. I think their is at least half an hour's worth of footage of Ronaldo and Messi fighting aliens through football. The match episode features dead eyed virtual avatars of  said players competing against giant animatronic aliens making you feel your playing a computer game without a control pad. This type of blockbuster advert no longer exists in television, the cost is too high to show the complete 5 minutes let alone the half hour opus. Thanks to the Internet this advert exists and television will only get 30 second incomprehensible snippet of Ronaldo and Messi dressed as space batmen. To be fair the entire five minutes has serious continuity issues so at least 30 seconds reduces the embarrassment. The blockbuster football advert was pioneered by Nike and Adidas but we have now reached new lows with world's greatest players attempting to sell you a phone through a tired SciFi blockbuster narrative. Again all the humor seems to have been air brushed out of the production with no dialogue spoken for fear of culturally alienating a potential consumer. Ironic that the lack of humor and identity makes the farcical venture into an  alienating experience for everyone watching. The advert is such a ridiculous waste of money, it calls into question who is the advert aimed towards, and the answer is no one, which means in "global billionaire marketing speak", everyone. 

4. Football is Stalking You -All or Nothing: Adidas Bus Campaign

For the last six weeks I  and the majority of Londoners have been followed by black buses decorated with the faces of brooding/bored footballers making opaque threats like "fear or be feared," "now or never," "hunt or be hunted,""all in or nothing." I have seen people get on and get off these buses and I no longer trust them as branded indoctrinated masses. If you look closely at Danny Alves or Mesut Ozil's face and you will notice he has new brand of digital tattooed leprosy. When branding becomes tattooing we can't be that far from liquidation. Seriously! People are paranoid enough in London they don't need Luis Saurez face lurking on some street corner with menacing computer generated disease over his face, it won't sell any trainers it will just keep children awake at night.

 

5. "You Footballing on The Bet,"- Digital Betting on Your Mobile

It's not the stomach turning laddy advert campaign of Ladbrooks, the smugness of William Hill or even the virtual room of Ray Winstons giving me the odds at half time that upsets me. Its not  placing a bet on a match and being financially invested in  supporting a team and reaping a cash award. Its the bloody betting during the match I hate. Betting used to be romantic! Making your pledge before the game, signing away your allegiance to a team, a real commitment. Now you can get married and divorced five times over 90 minutes. Switching your bets through an accumulator you can not only can support the other team but can change the bet entirely, betting on the number of corners or if someone is going to be sent off. Using digital technology to bet is an endlessly speculative entertainment thoughout match; I am sure it will contribute to the next global financial meltdown. Sadly this new form of betting has got people watching the World Cup who would not and I don't want to ostracize a new audience. I simply just want to put them in a room together to watch the game so they can talk betting and I can watch the match in peace, safe in the knowledge that I have locked the doors, thrown away the key and started a small fire just outside the only exit. 

Everyone knows marketing is the 8th sin but I will make a vein attempt tomorrow to readdress the balance by writing How To Sell World Cup. 

No One Wants Penalties

I did plan to write in the usual structure, reduce a two hour game and penalties into a sentence, compare Argentina's manager Alejandro Sabella to a poddling from the 80s kids classic,The Dark Crystal, and talk about my new found love for Ron Vlaar (the best lobotomized footballer in the world). However I have started to bore myself and last night's match was typically dominated by one cliche statement.

NO ONE WANTS PENALTIES!

No one wants penalties. Really! I mean it looked to me that the twenty-two cowards on the pitch wanted penalties. No one wants penalties because its a lottery, so goes the cliche but when players are scared to make a mistake and become vilified by their respective countries maybe a lottery does not seem like such a bad option. No one wants penalties because its a lottery and their must be a better way to decide the game, except both managers who can blame their World Cup exit on penalties and be morally absolved. The No one wants penalties  mantra used by so many commentators over so many a World Cup is a total lie. Everyone loves a penalty shoot out! 

Your friend who has half watched a two hour game and talked incessantly throughout the match will shut up and watch a penalty shoot out. The family member who just walks into a living room after watching none of the match will instinctively know to be silent and watch the penalty shoot out. The casual viewer who would flick over to another channel if the players were actually playing football will stop and watch the penalty shoot out. People tune into a penalty shoot outs for the simple reason a penalty shoot out guarantees drama and commentators love guaranteed drama as it makes their lives easier.

All commentators want a penalty shoot out to provide meaning to the last two hours of their life. Especially if the game was a dull nil nil and you have over used the classic lines "this game's  tactical masterclass (in not scoring), it's like a game of chess out there (it never is), the game is teetering on the edge (of being interesting), the game's simmering (not boiling that would be too interesting), the game is like watching white paint dry on white walls while being painted by men dressed in pure white (I made that one up but its a more accurate description)"  Seriously commentators are massive hypocrites because penalties create an easy narrative. International penalties are like a murder in a soap opera, its a lazy conclusion but its most dramatic story arch  and  it only happens every two to four years. 

To be fair, Argentina against the Netherlands was not a bad game but that's because of the threat of penalties. In the context of the knock out stages the Netherlands play was perceived as hard working and unlucky but if this game was in the group stages, they would have been called  unimaginative and talent less. Similarly if you take Argentina's performance and place it in the group stages it  would (and they had been described) as unadventurous  and lacking ideas.Instead Argentina in the knock out stages now look like the most defensively solid team in the tournament (only conceding three goals in six games)  and no longer cursed by the pre-tournament hype of being most exciting attacking team in the world.

Clearly if you asked Brazil now if they could have played for penalties on Tuesday they would say yes. No doubt Brazil's embarrassment may have contributed to both teams caginess, knowing what damnation could await either team if they lost heavily. So how do you resolve the penalty conundrum?  When penalties become a lead or a muzzle to attacking football! I think you call the penalties bluff! Introduce the penalties into all leagues across the world and make every draw in normal time result in penalties. If the lottery is common place then less people will play it especially the team's wealthy in good players. All of sudden penalties would actually not be the easy option and become the dreaded Russian roulette it was intended to be..... To be honest I don't want that. 

Call me a conservative but I like things how they are!  I just don't like the media hypocrisy surrounding them. Its just important to remember that people want penalties, its not actually a lottery, it does actually take a lot of skill to shoot under pressure or make a save and it's not amoral to win at penalties, except if you're German. Basically we should change the mantra to 

The English do not want penalties because they never win the lottery and if they did it would be amoral, (like the Germans), so we would rather lose and be morally vindicated, as in keeping with our tradition to be proud snobs!

To hear such enlightened views I would suggest you press the red button to get CBBC's Hacker T Dog's World Cup commentary, a much improvement on the twittering of bland and bland commentators.

One day the world will be a better place and the obnoxious jingoism of ITV's Clive Tyldlsy will be replaced by a barking dog.

The Day The Party Ended, Forever!

Brazilian football has flourished despite political corruption, military dictatorships, high poverty, a rampant drug trade, even the whitening of black players in a bygone age. At the start of the World Cup Brazil's halo was bent out of shape with numerous protests around the cost of the tournament, the unrealistic schedule for the teams, the lack of a good Brazilian striker... but football weathered the storm. Until Brazil reached the semi finals and Brazil defensively imploded under the pressure to lose 7 1! The fall from grace. All my life Brazilian football has been viewed as transcendental; from the 98's Brazil Squad's infamous Nike Advert, to the football archive shows highlighting the genius of Pele. No one played like Brazil. Commentators describe them as fearless, playing to party and leaving the defense at home. These myths we have built up about Brazil have clearly been untrue for many years but last night will be remembered as the day Brazil fell to earth and were exposed to be as fragile as any other football team. I wonder when I read this in thirty years time if i will have forgotten everything we used to admire about Brazil as all achievements will have been eclipsed by just one game...

Match in A Sentence: Germany 7 Brazil 1

Thomas Muller 13th minute, Miroslav Klose 23rd minute, Toni Kroos 24th and 26th minute, Sami Khedira 29th minute, Andre Schurrle 69th and 79th minute, not forgetting Oscar 90th minute, don't think any other incident is worth mentioning.

Don't Give Up the Language.... Juninho is Confused Unich

At half time the BBC cut from the studio to interview retired Brazilian footballer and once Middlesbrough legend, Juninho from inside the stadium. Brazil conceding five goals in the space of sixteen minutes did mean Juninho could not be his arrogantly assured self. Often Juninho does appear disinterested but its laughed off due to his football heritage. Now Juninho had been neutered, had all his footballs put in a box, with an expression of a man who has just discovered he is a eunuch. Juninho's poor English has been compared to that of Fabio Cannavaro on ITV, who once said at half time of  a Croatian defender  "he should of gone somewhere but ended up nowhere." However Cannavarro  can  make incomprehensible English sentences sound poetic due to his football stature, Italian accent and soft manner. In contrast poor Juninho could not put into words, even in his mother tongue, how he was feeling about the historic score let alone translate them into English. His eyes were intensely concentrating  on understanding the interviewer but at the same time he appeared completely lost. So lost you wanted the BBC to make an announcement over the stadium Tannoy stating "can any parent who has lost a Brazilian eunuch please come to the front desk...he needs to be taken home immediately."

Man Crush of The Day: Manuel Neuer

Its a love that dare not speak its name! The love for a German goalkeeper. I have had many an embarrassing crush in the past; Oliver Kahn, Jens Lehman and now Manuel Neuer. Neuer even means Newer when translated into English so its destined to be. To be honest Neuer seems to be redefining the goal keeper roll with his electric runs outside the area,  leading German commentators to call him the best sweeper since Franz Beckenbauer. Maybe our love will be allowed to blossom out in the open as Neuer creates a newer position on the field, the goal sweeper, tactically redefining how footballer's defend and escape from the stigma of the goalkeeper. Under this new footballing guise we can marry and apply for British citizenship so my friends and family will finally accept us or he could just win the World Cup and then no one's complaining. 

So we are done with the World Cup Predictor, no needless statistics, moral judgement or ill informed opinion. The final three games are historic by definition so we don't need some alternative angle to stimulate my intellect.So after such a momentous game last night we can only hope for a contest tonight. Personally I would love a Germany VS Messi final but not as much as i would love someone to wipe off the smug faces that populate the Dutch side and their butt head of a manager. Anyone undecided on Van Gaal please see below..

The World Cup is drama regardless of quality of the football

It does not matter how bad a game of football is when the game is in the knock out stages of the World Cup. World Cup knock out grantees drama. So let's not dwell on the poor quality of the quarter finals and the predictable results since we entered the knock out stages. Instead let's appreciate the soap operatic narrative, from the foul fest of Brazil Columbia to Louis Van Gal's Kruel narrative twist on Saturday night's penalty shoot out. The World Cup is drama regardless of quality of the football and that's why everyone watches it, its bigger than football.


Match of A Sentence: Belgium 0 Argentina 1
Belgium players try to play footsy with Messi and Couteois does some impressive fist pumps but Argentina only need to turn up to seven to see off the over rated generation.

Match of A Sentence: Costa Rica 0 Netherlands 0 (Netherlands win on penalties)
Like a Hollywood epic the game begun with a dauntingly boring first hour but as more time expired the final half hour reached a spin tingling climax.

Don't Give Up Being a Butthead... Louis Van Gaal

Van Gaal has a face you want to hate. The high hair line and protruding chin elongates his often smug and self congratulatory persona. For the first time in Premier League history Mourinho may well have met his match when it comes to which manger has larger ego. Van Gaal likes to refer to himself in the third person, a quality only he and Mourinho share. However Mourinho is undoubtedly good looking, his arrogance has a Mediterranean charm that makes him the casanova of the Premier League. In contrast  Van Gaal's appearance exudes the self assurance of a bond villain. No lovable rogue quality just a horrible stench of success, an ideal fit for everyone's most hated club, Man U.

Man Crush of The Day: Keylor Navas

Its been a World Cup for goal keepers, Ochoa performance against Brazil, Neuer becoming a sweeper for Germany, M'Bohli against Germany. Tim Kruel will no doubt get all the plaudits for coming on and saving Costa Ricca's penalties but the best keeper of the tournament was actually his opposite number. Keylor Navas has only conceded two goals the entire tournament, playing in all five matches. Against Greece and Holland he twice had one of those games. My only image I have of him is his muscular frame stretched horizontal in the air. This image is so embed in my memory that I don't think I would recognize him if he was vertically starring at me face to face. In a constant aerial glide he effortlessly imposed himself on the games and did it without the macho swagger you see from the majority of keepers. Tim Kruel could learn a lot!

So no upsets since the knock out stages. Every team running of the same script (with the exception of Neymar injury) but if this World Cup is to be remembered as one of the greatest then we are now due a classic.