Football

Greg Dyke was right with that throat-slitting gesture, when England’s world cup group was announced. Seeing the quality in some of the other groups gives you an indication of how much harder we have it. Which isn’t to say we’d have breezed through, mind. But I suspect we would have beaten Russia and South Korea, who played like two mid table Championship sides. Which is pretty much what the Koreans are, really. Incidentally, my wife remarked of the Koreans, as the teams lined up, “they’re not lookers, are they?” So: tomorrow. What do we do with Mr Potato Head? Put him in the centre or leave him out altogether? I’m

So – Nigeria versus Iran, then. I wonder who Boko Haram were cheering for, surrounded by their infidel abductees in some sand-blown, bilharzia riven hellhole. I was cheering for our new allies, Iran. We are told every year – since about 1986 – that African teams will take world football by storm. And they never do. They’re as useless as were Zaire in 1974. But that won’t stop the BBC spending our licence fee money on the African Cup of Nations, for political reasons. And then earlier, an enormous pleasure to watch Portugal’s pouting moppets, each of them seemingly named after a seaside donkey, thoroughly thrashed by good ol’ dependable

It takes quite a lot for me to feel even mildly sympathetic towards the French, but they had my support against the semi-reformed death squad of Honduras. One should not put too much store by the character of a country’s football team – but watching the way in which the Central Americans set about France, much as they had previously set about England, it did not wholly surprise one that the benighted mosquito-ravaged country has the highest murder rate in the world. Yes, including Iraq. Its murder rate is not far off double the next contenders (all of whom come from the Caribbean, natch). I’m writing this before Argentina’s game

You see – that’s the trouble. You write off the World Cup for moral reasons because of FIFA sleaze (and that opening game). And then Spain are magnificently humiliated, cheering me up more than I could have thought possible. Undoubtedly talented, Spain have nonetheless been boring us rigid for too long, with that self-regarding, tippy tappy, stifling of what the game should really be about. The Netherlands taught them that, with great glee. I haven’t been so pleased about a world cup result for ages – well, not since the French fell to bits against Mexico and South Africa. You sort of hope this is the end of an era,

Suspicions that FIFA is an organisation given, occasionally, to a bit of corruption will not have been allayed by the first match of the 2014 World Cup. Brazil won with two goals from a player who should have been sent off, including a penalty which clearly wasn’t a penalty, while Croatia had a perfectly good goal disallowed and were denied a rather more clear cut penalty themselves. Incidentally, I say “Brazil” – and so do ITV. So do FIFA. And so does the OED, Wikipedia and Google. But not the BBC. The BBC says “Brasil”. Of course it does.

I suppose the appalling shock to the soul that was occasioned by the allegation that Qatar bribed its way to hosting the 2022 World Cup was exceeded only by the startling suggestion that it was Fifa’s African delegates who trousered nearly all of the illicit money on offer. Who’d have thought, huh? The money was doled out by the Qatari crook Mohammed Bin Hammam, according to leaked emails obtained by the Sunday Times. Mo did not find bribing the Africans terribly difficult, it would seem. My favourite of the various requests for money from these venal and grasping and not terribly bright Third World panjandrums was that of a chap

Alex Salmond is a deft political player, but perhaps he’s best kept on the political pitch, rather than one involving footballs. Here’s what happened when he came into contact with the latter today:

Summer is a difficult time for serious investments — it’s hard to be rational when hot — so why not try betting on the football world cup instead? Thanks to technology, sports gambling can feel a lot like investing these days. Internet betting exchanges are not bookmakers, but trading platforms. Any adult can buy or sell a bet — or position, if you prefer — and ‘trade out’ at a profit or loss before the match, race, or tournament even begins. Which means you are gambling less against sporting chance, more against the human whims of the market. Let me give you an example. If you had taken the advice of,

There is, you know, quite a bit to be said for having a personal email account for getting stuff off your chest, such as comparing a former girlfriend to a double-decker (don’t ask) and talking about big-titted broads. Any work inbox that your secretary automatically is privy to is, well, not quite the same as one that’s all yours. I’ve taken soundings on this sensitive subject from a friend of mine who is a really good PA, mixes with the mighty and all the rest of it, and she tells me that it’s actually difficult to do the job from her point of view if you don’t have access to

It’s hard to love Saracens rugby club — their centre is called Bosch, a word that also describes their bulldozing style of play — but you have to admire the demolition job they did on Clermont Auvergne in the semi-finals of the Heineken Cup. The flamboyant French side, free-runners to a man, had 68 per cent of possession, 64 per cent of territory and yet were tackled into impotence. Clermont limped off the Twickenham turf, stuffed 46–6. The English club play Toulon, the defending champions, in the final in Cardiff on 24 May and again I will be supporting the French team, not just  because this will be the last

One of football’s many beauties is in encouraging us to forsake unfortunate strictures of accepted behaviour; as long as it’s at the game, we can sing, swear, cuddle strangers, and even care about stuff without fear of ridicule. And, perhaps best of all, we’re entitled to rejoice in the dastardly; it’s entirely justifiable to drool over the respective oeuvres of Roy Keane, Thierry Henry and Sergio Busquets, if they so tickle you. The game can also serve as a masking agent for off-pitch indiscretions, and remind people that personal matters are precisely that. Kenny Dalglish somehow wore links to the Clerkenwell crime syndicate, and though plenty of people dislike Wayne Rooney,

Praise where it’s due. This opening to Russell Brand’s Guardian column about David Moyes is very good: “(His) face has now experienced the fate for which it looks like it was designed. The deep grooves of grief in his brow, his sunken, woeful eyes and dry parched lips, a perspicacious sculpture carved in anticipation of this slap of indignity.” Very nice. I’ve written about the Moyes business this week for the magazine. I do think it is hilarious the speed with which all the football writers have moved from describing the bloke as the best young manager this country has ever seen to “disastrous” and “not up to the job”