Sepp did Nothing Wrong

20/11/22
Today happens to be
my birthday. I’ve never had a World Cup on my birthday.  Thanks FIFA.

When I was a kid, one of my earliest memories was watching the World Cup Final
in 1974 when I wanted the team in orange to win but the team in white won in
the end. That team in White was of course Franz Beckenbauer’s West Germany and
Johan Cruyff‘s Dutch artists came second. 
I’ve enjoyed every World Cup since, to varying degrees.

1978 for the spectacle, the ticker tape and Archie Gemmill.  I was too young to understand that you have
to hate everything about Scotland and was of course too young to understand the
significance of the tournament, regarding the Military Junta in Argentina who,
some said, were using to tournament to ‘Sportswash’ all the human rights abuses
going on in the host country at the time. 
It’s a good job that 44 years later, we’ve all moved on from that kind
of thing.

1982 in Spain was my first World Cup with England involved – Southampton’s
Kevin Keegan was injured and missed the group stages and then somehow contrived
to miss a header from 5 yards which ultimately meant we got knocked out.  That World Cup had the amazing Brazil team of
Zico, Socrates, Falcao, Junior and Eder but the Italians and Paolo Rossi gave
me my first real lesson in that it doesn’t matter how good your attack is, if
your defence is dreadful.  I was not
happy that Italy knocked out Brazil but come the final, Rossi, Marco Tardelli
and the rest were beating that team in white, so all was good.  

1986 with Gary Lineker and Diego the shit bag, Hand of God and all that.  England were crap, then Bobby Robson stumbled
upon a good line-up and we were suddenly decent until we came up against
Maradona who came as close to winning the World Cup on his own as it’s possible
to do.  I never forgave him, though it should
have done us a favour and told Bobby Robson that Peter Shilton couldn’t jump
anymore.

1990 against that team in white and the penalty shoot-out in the semi-final,
remembered for the misses by Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle but equally by me
for the folly of having a 40-year-old goalkeeper who couldn’t jump.  The fact that the football wasn’t the best in
this World Cup has kind of been forgotten what with the penalty defeat and
Gazza’s tears.  The team in White of
course won the final in a sensational match-up between Argentinian thuggery and
German diving about, led by Jurgen Klinsmann, who then moved to Spurs and almost
single-handedly, introduced diving to the English league game.  Argentina got to the final despite losing
their first game of the tournament to Cameroon, who basically kicked the fuck
out of them.  The tackle by Benjamin
Massing on Claudio Caniggia is still one of the funniest football moments I’ve
ever seen.

1994, no England thanks to Graham Taylor and ‘Do I Not Like That’. The
tournament was pretty boring with Brazil winning on penalties after a 0-0 draw
kind of summing the whole thing up. 
Roberto Baggio had a shit haircut and took a shit penalty in the good ol’
U, S of A.

1998 and England were managed by Glenn Hoddle, with Matt Le Tissier and less
importantly, Paul Gascoigne left out of the squad and another penalty defeat,
this time to Argentina after David Beckham decided to kick Diego Simeone up the
arse, forcing us to play with 10. France eventually won it 3-0 against Brazil
in the final, with Zidane scoring two identical headers. Before the game there
was a bit of controversy with the real Ronaldo who apparently had some sort of
seizure but was forced into playing because of pressures from the sponsor.

2002 and the first tournament wasted by Sven-Göran Eriksson as we were 2-1 down
against Brazil and they had 10-men but we did absolutely nothing for the last
half an hour whilst Sven just stood there pondering which FA Executive he could
shag next.  This was our Golden
Generation, apart from Danny Mills, obviously.

2006 and another penalty exit to Portugal with a certain spoilt little bastard
being the centre of attention for them and he’s still there now which is fair
play to him for longevity but he’s still a sport little bastard who hasn’t
grown up at all in 16 years. This tournament was held in the home country of
that team in white, so their defeat to Italy in the semi-final was one of my
all-time favourite World Cup matches. The Italians of course went on to beat
France in the final where the story was all about Zidane’s head-butt on
Materazzi. Zidane was indisputably the reason that France lost the World Cup Final
but the French treated him as a hero and blamed the Italian for getting
head-butted. Strange brunch.

2010 was a complete shambles for Capello’s England. Getting hammered 4-1 by
that team in white, and the tournament will be mainly remembered for Spain
beating the Dutch in the final when the Dutch horrified the memories of 1974
and 1978 by basically just trying to kick the shit out of them like a shit pub
team.  Nigel de Jong kicking Xabi Alonso
in the throat should have seen him sent off after about 5 minutes of the Final..

2014 in Brazil was supposed to be their ‘football’s coming home’ moment but
they got annihilated 7-1 by that team in White in the semi-finals. England were
beyond fucking dreadful under Roy Hodgson as we lost our first two games and
were the first team in the entire tournament to be knocked out. We still gave
him another tournament though because that’s what we do.  The German’s won it because that’s what they
do.

2018 saw England use the most favourable or favourable draws to make it to the
semi-final where they basically shit the bed against Croatia and having gone
one up early, just sat back and allowed Croatia to play and do what they liked
until they won. The tournament itself saw the overbearing presence of Vladimir
Putin and to see him handing out the medals was a bit of a jarring moment, even
in 2018.  The French didn’t implode and
were the best team at the tournament by a mile and deserved winners. Putin sent
some blokes to Salisbury and invaded Ukraine.

What all of these tournaments had in common was that they were played in
fucking June and July.