World Cup - The First Weekend

I missed the first match of the World Cup. I had a dental appointment in Glasgow and had planned to catch the second half of the match in a pub before visiting the Marathon Man. Unfortunately, it took me nearly two hours to travel the 30 miles down the M8 from Livingston. What a stupid place to stick a car park. Anyway, we settled down in the evening to watch the France vs. Uruguay match as a start to our World Cup proper.

The first thing that struck me was the noise. The Vuvuzelas appear to be a major feature of this World Cup and they are certainly dividing opinion. The name comes from a Zulu word meaning "a swarm of bees", or something, and at first I thought there was something wrong with our TV. Part of the emotional attachment to a game of football comes from the ebbing and flowing of the massed crowds - if you have ever watched a game with only a couple of hundred fans it can be an odd experience - however the accumulated noise of the Vuvuzela completely drowns this out. On the other hand, they do give the games a distinctly African flavour compared to the usual European games and it is their World Cup after all.

The noise actually reminded me of an early 1970's Tangerine Dream album, Zeit, in which a cello quartet merges into the electronic drone of the German's sequencers and synthesisers - pretty nothing much else happens for 80 minutes and then the album finishes. In the France vs. Uruguay game this is where it actually picked up as a Uruguay player was sent off for a rather nasty foul and the French burst into some sort of life for the last 10 minutes.

To make things a bit more interesting we had bought in some French beer but, as I had what would be classed as a "bastard hot curry" before the game, I couldn't really taste much. I suppose we should have had some French food as well or, at least, found out what the Uruguayan national dish is but, even after I regained my sense of taste, the beer really didn't taste of much. We opened a bottle of Chardonnay afterwards and that was much better. The French should really stick with what they do best and, in sporting terms, I think this is rugby at the moment. In the morning I noticed that a French friend had sent a text with "Allez les bleus" - they will have to improve on this nil-nil display if they are going to progress.

England vs. USA on Saturday night is the first match that the über-hype has been aimed at. I've actually missed the hyperbole one way and another and even missed the pre-match build up as we were watching Doctor Who on the other side. The beer was easy enough to sort out - a token bottle of American Budweiser which tasted like pish and several bottles of English Real Ale. Half the fun of Real Ale is the names given to the concoctions - with titles along the style of Hell Bastard, Doctor Atomic's Brain Rot or Vicars Arse (I've made these up but they may well exist). However, Nina was also of the opinion that it tasted like Vicar's Arse.

I was unaware, at the time, of the first major talking point of this match. ITV HD screwed up and stuck an advert on when the first goal happened. This is pretty typical for ITV although on the standard Freeview channel (at least STV) this didn't happen. The goal itself was pretty neat but it was clear that the USA were half asleep and after 20 minutes or so it was also clear that this would be no walkover. I also started to appreciate the Vuvuzelas as they drowned out that bloody awful trombone band playing "The Great Escape" and also took my mind off the mindless witterings of the commentators - they were nothing like Motson for irritation factor but they really don't get the concept of TV commentary which is that I can actually see the game on the TV - as long as it isn't in HD.

The second major talking point was the Robert Green goal. In fact it wasn't his goal but it just shows what the game will be remembered for. You have to feel for the lad and, in spite of what the media were saying, it wasn't the worst error by an England goalie. I can recall how inept Ray Clemence could be even though he was a basically sound keeper. In fact, that aside, Green had a great game and I'd be more bothered about why some of the outfield players seemed so asleep - Rooney especially so. Anyway, 1-1 was a fair enough result but this World Cup feels much more ponderous than the last Euro Championships. Whether this is the stadia, climate, the Vuvuzelas or pressure for the teams to perform I suspect that we will see lots of penalty shootouts in the later stages.

Sunday night gave us Germany vs. Australia and the choice of some of the finest beer in the world with an obligatory can of Fosters to cover the antipodean side of the fixture - half of which ended up inside the dog who proceeded to sleep through the game, farting mercilessly. By this point, I started to become irritated by the English commentary teams. I tried to switch over to the German coverage but found that the sound on ZDF had an odd echo effect - so it's not just ITV who mess up.

After England's and Algeria's ineptly conceded goals, Germany have had goalkeeping problems of their own with Adler out through injury and also with the tragic death of Robert Enke. They've gone with Manuel Neuer who I know very little about other than he plays for Schalke and is a highly rated young keeper. In fact they have several players who I know little of so I was wondering how well they would do in this game.

I needn't have worried. Germany were magnificent and gave the first real all-out entertaining game of the tournament. However, I think the Australians had a somewhat ropey understanding of the rules. In fact, many of them appeared to be playing Aussie rules judging by the brutality of the tackling. Moore should have been charged with assault but it was actually Tim Cahill who was sent off for a fairly innocuous tackle - presumably the referee had had enough by then. In fact the standard of refereeing so far has been a real plus point. This game was no exception and aside from the Australian brutality he booked two German players for "simulation" - i.e. diving. Few referees seem to do this and it certainly had an effect as the first player to be booked, Mesut Özil, went on to have a stunner of a game.

So that's the first 3 days. Overall I'd say it hasn't quite lived up to expectations with the exception of the German game but things may start to pick up. The evening games for most of this week don't really appeal to me but there are the first games for The Netherlands and Spain which I will try to catch at work. Fortunately, my employers are quite co-operative over this as they are major sports sponsors and even devise the fixtures for the English and Scottish leagues.