The Morning After
11th June 2006 at 12:00 pm by LauraI write this with a sore head and not a little trepidation in my heart. Yesterday’s match was a weird one. On the one hand we should be ecstatic that we won and that T&T drew with Sweden leaving us in a strong position going forward. On the other hand we didn’t exactly strike the fear of God into the hearts of any future opposition. No one anywhere right now in the whole world is saying anything like “oh fuck, we’re playing England soon”.
And the referee was dodgy as fuck, too. Quite apart from resembling one of those little wooden men out of a subuteo set, he was also quite clearly a tosser of the highest calibre, a fact made abundantly clear merely by looking at his hair. Somewhere in the world there is a brill cream shortage… and it certainly isn’t in Germany.
As I was watching the match, probably shortly after Sven had substituted Downing for Owen, and Hargreaves for Cole, our most creative player on the day, a familiar feeling settled about me. It’s a difficult one to describe, a cocktail of hope and excitement laced with miserable foreboding and a twist of defeatism. Oh, and lets add a dash of hopelessness for good measure.
I shared this feeling with my mates who were biting their fingernails all about me.
“That’s what it feels like to be a Man City fan,” said one of them. “That’s how I feel week in week out.”
And Christ, guys, that’s got to be one hell of a miserable existence!
12th June 2006 at 11:29 am
Playing and winning in the first match in heat to which opponents (and the referee) are accustomed has to be positive. The eccentric referees are endearing features of World Cups, and from this performance we have shown that we have learned how to handle them, although Crouch did protest too much. Joe Cole was on form with some aggressive running and was probably substituted as a precaution. With Gerrard fully fit â?? and let us hope â?? the midfield looks well up to World Cup standard. So let us not preach gloom and doom.
13th June 2006 at 11:01 am
Man, you’re so right about that tosser ref… For a minute I was wondering what the hell Antonio Banderas was doing overseeing a major international tournament!
13th June 2006 at 2:06 pm
Mister Moonlight. I do get where you’re coming from. We aren’t the best at getting behind the boys in this country… but I call it like I see it and I think it was a pretty fair take on the game we all watched on Saturday.
Todd. I kind of wished it was Antonio Banderas… at least he would have been some eye candy for us girls!
14th June 2006 at 12:02 am
What and looking at Crouchy wasn’t eye candy enough for you???