da 888casino： Yesterday, I did something quite unheard of. My computer remained off, anything I had been working on remained unworked on and I donned a pair of gloves to keep goal with my friends in a kickabout in a local park. To be honest, it’s not that unheard of, but saying it was made for a much snappier opening than “yesterday I played some football with my friends.” And it wasn’t really a park, either, it was just a football pitch near a road.
da betano casino： Normally, as the goalkeeper, it falls upon me to retrieve the ball on the (incredibly) numerous occasions it goes behind the goal. So you can imagine my delight when the one who was tasked with bringing the ball turned up with a brand spanking new, Adidas Jabulani – the football that has been largely uncontrollable when international football players have been shooting in this year’s World Cup.
We’re not international football players. In fact, to call us players would be an exaggeration, given that we do to football what Lily Allen does to music. Nevertheless, I found myself moving to recover fewer wayward shots than I expected – partly because the ball wasn’t as uncontrollable as expected, but mainly because everyone else was desperate to get it so that they could have a quick ogle of the attractive lady in the low cut top sunbathing on the far side of the field.
Certainly one of them was all too eager to get the ball after shooting wide. In fact, I suspect he may have just been thumping the ball in her direction.
Anyway, I digress – because there is a point to that tale.
After the final whistle was blown at Upton Park on the final day of the football season and I was no longer able to watch my team domestically, my thoughts immediately turned to the World Cup. If I’m being honest, I’m a very cynical man, so I never fell for the big build-up of the tournament and the whole ‘England-might-actually-go-and-bloody-win-this-based-on-no-evidence-again’ vibe. I don’t feel the connection with England that I do with my team, Manchester City, but, while I don’t have flags on my car or hanging out of my window, I’d like England to win as much as the next man.
Equally, I didn’t feel in the depths of despair when we failed to score against Algeria. Call it the blind optimism of being a Manchester City fan, but I never truly felt worried that we wouldn’t qualify from the group.
The thing is, once the football season was over, I was looking forward to enjoying some quality football from the best teams in the world. While there have been some brilliant games, there has been a lot of rubbish, with an extra side-order of crap, served up, too. I can’t begin to offer an explanation for this, but it hasn’t, in my opinion, spoilt the tournament, like several pundits have suggested.
And, according to most teams, coaches, players and managers, it’s the ball that is to blame for this. It bounces too much, it moves a lot in the air and, for some reason, it’s too round. It’s political correctness gone mad. Or something.
The bouncy bit of the argument I can buy – having played with a Jabulani that was actually quite on the flat side, I can confirm that it bounces like Tigger on a pogo stick at a trampoline convention. Although we’re not international players, we can still kick a ball, and it didn’t do too much moving in the air (one shot did go through me, but the sun was in my eyes and it hit a bobble and you can add some more feeble goalkeeper excuses here) and I didn’t find that it was any rounder than any ball I’d played with in the past.
Though I do wear glasses, so the edges of it are slightly fuzzy.
What has annoyed me about this World Cup isn’t that some of the games have been below par. In a month of football, not every game would be an edge of the seat, nail-biting job. What I have found particularly annoying is the regular moans – be it of the ball, the vuvuzelas, the people who moan about the vuvuzelas, the people who moan about the people who moan about the vuvuzelas (and now, by definition, me), and the terrible jokes everybody seems to think are funny based on how the World Cup loosely mirrors the Second World War.
Lord help me if I see another one of those jokes.
Though England’s facing Germany did seem to please the British press, who were able to wheel out the pun writers for their headlines. I can only presume the editors will have their fingers crossed that we beat the Germans and meet Argentina in the next round, just for the punning opportunity again.
The worst thing about this World Cup by far, however, is that hideously cringeworthy, over-the-top, painfully horrific, dreadfully awful nightmare that is that bloody Prin-gooooooals advert. Closely followed by Nicklas Bendtner’s finishing – the reporter for BBC Radio Five Live at Hull vs. Arsenal last season said of Bendtner’s last minute tap in: “He’ll never score an easier goal.”
And he didn’t know how right he was.
I’d also like to put it on record that I don’t particularly mind the sound of the vuvuzela. It might just be me, but I find it quite a happy sound – there’s something of a party atmosphere about a stadium full of people blowing horns. I wouldn’t go as far as suggesting their introduction to the Premier League, but I think a bigger deal has been made of them than is warranted.
However, what I don’t understand is, having had the opportunity to play with the new ball for a short while before the tournament, why have there been constant complaints? The players are all internationals, they all know how it’s been behaving and they’re all playing with the same ball… You’d think they’d do some practise with it.
There is always the possibility, I suppose, that they have been practising, but there’s been an attractive lady sunbathing in a low cut top a long way behind the goal.
Written By David Mooney
How the ball was made:
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