More views from ex-pat and Wolves fan, 'Hartfordwolf', from across the pond...
Well, that was absolutely no fun while it lasted! Wish I'd booked to go away on holiday two days before the match like a certain "star" player I'm not going to mention! Still, I guess he was distracted having his new film come out - in 3D no less.........
Still, I'm not here to bang on (exclusively!) about the England v Germany game - my focus in these blogs has, after all, been to share the perspective of an England fan here in the US and on that front I have to say I couldn't be in a better place on the whole planet. It seemed like the natives were getting pretty excited about the World Cup but normal service has now been resumed. Amongst the few rare gems I have discovered here known as "soccer" fans they're not in the mood to take the Michael. It appears that they had been sold the dream of a true Yankee breakthrough at this tournament and so now they are gutted to have gone out for the second "World Series" in a row to a country smaller than Michigan. I tried to make them feel better by telling them that they have actually done brilliantly - they fought with heart and spirit - were "plucky" even, but at the end of the day their players aren't actually that good. Honestly, where do these inflationary delusions of a nation's footballing prowess come from, I ask you??
Of course, the other bugbear over here has been the refereeing. The Americans, being the advanced race that they are, embraced "technology" in their sports long ago - probably around the time they ate their first pumpkin pie. So they are a little perplexed as to why "soccer", like our former esteemed leader in his bunker, stubbornly refuses to see reason and instead lets the footballing equivalent of Gillian Duffy happen again and again...... and again. So far Sepp Blatter, has said that he may reconsider "goal-line technology" in matches, at which point my nacho-crunching neighbours got terribly excited, imagining something akin to ice hockey with flashing lights and an air horn sounding every time the ball crosses the line. However, I then rained on their ticker-tape parade by indicating that this still wouldn't have changed anything regarding the two disallowed Team USA goals, at which point they started talking about the Fourth of July and switched over to the baseball.
England's exit, of course, has left its fans with a real quandary for the quarter finals - who do you want to win? Argentina or Germany? Having to make this choice at all is, of course, as unsavoury as a Maradona man-hug but to me this time round it's a no-brainer. The singular achievement of England's "pride and glory" display against Germany was that after the game, I for once felt no animosity towards the German team. Normally there's that feeling of being robbed - we may have lost but we gained the moral victory. But despite the disallowed goal, I don't for a second think we were going to win that game. They were better than us - they fought harder, were more skilful, more potent up front, more secure at the back and all without the customary Teutonic arrogance and diving. On the Argentina side however, the thought of Maradona possibly getting his pudgy little goal-scoring hands on the Jules Rimet again is too much to bear. That's why I shall be hoping the Germans prevail on Saturday and that they do it by Miroslav Klose punching the ball into the net!
