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.

The Inevitability of Greatness

The inevitability of greatness that hangs over the later stages of the World Cup can suffocate the football. The occasion can overpower the less reputable and younger teams, Columbia and France, so the high decorated and experience teams, Germany and Brazil, win without even playing well but predictably keeping calm under pressure. The first two quarter finals felt like a well rehearsed play fulfilling the narrative for all the teams but like spectacular free kicks you can still appreciate a well practiced routine, even if it does not unexpectedly deviate from the set text.

Match of A Sentence: Germany 1 France 0

Germany score an early goal to kick off an exciting end to end game or they just slowly play out the game as a one nil  victory in a cliched efficient style,  leaving the French team to contemplate next seasons hairdo. 

Match Of A Sentence: Brazil 2 Colombians 1

Brazil bully a goal out of the Colombians who spend the first half shell shocked, only for their late flourishes to be extinguished by a spectacular free kick from the resident clown.

Don't Give Up Being All things Vile..... Thomas Muller

Dear Thomas,
Before you win the World Cup in the smuggest way possible and pick up the golden boot for the second time can you please pause and remember to keep up the good work of being a feral weasel,  having the most unlikable of faces, being the embodiment of a poor winner, appearing as a German Ken doll, the most loathed man in football, an athlete that no one aspires to be and everyone's favorite hate figure. Please remember it would be a duller World Cup without you and all the hate we have for you. 

Yours Sincerely

Joachim Low 
On behalf of all Germans

Man Crush Neymar: RIP

Here lies a man I did not think I cared about  but only now he is gone do I realize that all my misplaced  energy in hating him was fueled by an unconscious love and desire. I should have seen past the notorious bad hair styles, the sly grin and the arrogant strutting. Neymar is a special player, for example only a few players can dress like the king of rock n roll and look so adorably innocent.

Elvis Has Left The Tournament

World Cup Value Predictor

If money ruled the world then football would be this boring...

Belgium VS Argentina 

Argentina is massive in size and provides the world with soya beans, wheat, corn and a little bit of oil in contrast to Belgium which is tiny and its biggest exports are oil, pharmaceuticals and bureaucracy. Turns out bureaucracy pays  better than food. Put in a simple economic equation.Take Belgium's GDP per capita of 43,426 US dollars + Argentina GDP per capita of  11,573.06 US dollars = Belgium 3 Argentina 1

Costa Rica VS Netherlands

Lets not waste time with speculation, economics is just pure Maths! Take Netherlands superior GDP per capita of 43,426 US dollars + Costa Rica's inferior GDP per capita  of 9386.30 US dollars = Netherlands 4 Costa Rica 0

Forget that Costa Rica are one of the most environmentally friendly counties in the world and have the highest life expectancy rate in Latin America because really they haven't got any money to show for it.

So we have had Neymar's shock injury, vital to any third act World Cup narrative and now its time for an unlikely player to save the tournament, as unlikely as Lionel Messi.

Money Makes The World Cup Turn

I have currently predicted the World Cup matches through random statistics, fact based moral prejudice and xenophobia. Surely its time to get real and actually judge the countries through a more serious quantifiable measure i.e. Money. If FIFA have taught us anything about football its that money makes the World Cup turn.....

World Cup Value Predictor

France VS Germany 

Germany 4th largest economy in the world with a GDP of 42,624.75 US dollars per capita. Since the beginning of history the French maybe resistant with GDP of  39,771.84 US dollars per capita but they still will always be Germany's bitch. 

Germany 2 France 1

Brazil Vs Columbia

Its good to know that all that deforestation, pacification and corruption has paid off. Brazil is first letter of infamous BRICS (Russia, India and China) so they must be the most important  with a GDP per capita of 11,339.52 US dollars. Poor Columbia! They should stop concentrating on football and dance routines because their GDP per capita is only 7,747.84  US dollars. My advice to any budding Colombian football fan ignore the protesters and get out their and cut down all your trees, campaign for low wages and sta pushing people out of their own homes

Brazil 3 Columbia 0

If you do want to know what the financial world think really of the world cup besides its being a good place to network then visit this site. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/world-cup/#0,0,-1

I think they did a little more research. 

Anyway forget the money its all about the foootballl!!!!!

World Cup Sobriety

So the hands have stopped shaking, the head aches have passed and I am no longer hugging the toilet because of the prospect of two mouth watering World Cup Quarter Finals.  The curse of football sobriety is your mind is left thinking constantly about football and the most productive but utterly pointless outlet for this addiction is to form lists. Every football nerd loves a list, because a list brings structure and significance to the last three weeks. So here is my validation....

Teams I Want To Win The World Cup, Who Still can, And Why (love a elongated title)

1. Columbia: Even if Columbia play three bad matches and win the World Cup in the most underwhelming manner they have already played four outstanding matches.

2. Germany: The best international team of the last four years have still not won a trophy. They deserve the confirmation that this is a great team that plays a very distinctive brand of football: a mix of Spanish styled possession with a high pressing physicality of their own. 

3. France: Despite the over use of hair products these fair weather travellers (yet to play in a hot climate) have been surprisingly good. You could complain they have not played anyone good but the style of their victories cannot be ignored. 

4. Argentina: They have not played well, seriously they have been awful, but they have the best player of his generation. If he is to win a World Cup to crown his greatness I would love him to do it in Brazil. 

5. Belgium: Another functional disappointment! They have only played well in the last game despite never losing. Full of players who could be great but are currently not.You could say they are in good Kompany.

6. Netherlands: They may be the smuggest team in the tournament with the most brilliantly arrogant manager but they have contributed to the most exciting games. If they win I will have to cover my eyes from their shit eating grins and self-congratulatory hugs.

7. Brazil: It's taken one controversial tournament for Brazil to lose all the love they have built up over sixty years with the neutrals across the world. They play like a bunch of weeping giants led by a boy king with a terrible hair cut. As soon as they win, as I think they will I will run away. 

8.Costa Rica: Everyone loves Cost Rica but their best performance came in their first two matches and I just feel the whole tournament will be cheapened if they won. Let the hate mail start flowing. 

Best Games From The Group Stages

1. GHANA 2 GERMANY 2: One of the best forty five minutes of my life! Forget first halves as long as all games finish like this. Germany did not play badly, Ghana were simply really good. It had dancing, literally blood sweat and tears, and technically it was the best match of halve of the tournament.

2. NETHERLANDS  AUSTRALIA 3
This game was so good I was cheering Australians! A team that everyone expected to lose every game and be the whipping boys of the tournament actually did lose every game but played some of the best high tempo football of the tournament. Netherlands and especially Arjen Robben played the come back villains, rubbing off Tim Cahil's swan song wonder strike. Forget the Dutch's glamour victory against the Spanish in the second half, this was a real contest.

3. PORTUGAL 2 USA 2
Ronaldo desperately tries to pull his team through the game with an amazing dance routine against the collective brilliance of the United States. 

4. GHANA 1 USA 2
Clearly Group D lived up to the hype as the group of death and this game had an incredible ending with two teams again waking up in the second half to bring form an amazing climax. I may have awoken my neighbours at midnight but it was worth it. 

5. ENGLAND 1 ITALY 2: Tactically we should have played for a draw and not exerted our selves in the heat but did'nt we play well. If you look at the stats both teams had a high level of pass completion which proved that this was technically a great game as well as a drama. From the heart break opening goal, to Sturridge's well deserved equaliser, England narrowly not taking advantage, Balotelli living up to his own hype and everyone (even when we were losing) purred over Pirlo's free kick. Both teams never played better and were out of the tournament within a week.

TOP FIVE LIST I HAVE NOT GOT TIME TO WRITE

1. Co-commentators who sound like Post Man Pat Characters: Clarke Caryle is Postman Pat (seriously close your eyes durring the match), Ted Glenn is Mark Lawrenson (they look similar) and Robbie Savage is Jess the cat (just so he shuts the fuck up). 

2. Players with accidentally Offensive Names: Shatoff, DJerkoff and that's just Russia.

3. Most Pun-able Player:  I personally love the cleverest player of the tournament, Jonathan Mensah.

4. Best Hug of the Tournament: Been a huge amount of love in this tournament and its good to log this male appreciation to prove all the macho types wrong. 

5. Things I should of Done With The Last Three weeks: No regrets. Really!