I'm going to have my two cents here and say that I enjoyed the game. While it may not have been a footballing classic, there was plenty of incident, a decent amount of chances for either side (including some inexplicable misses) and if nothing else, the chance to feel sorry for Howard Webb, who increasingly looked like King Canute trying to stem a tide of Dutch bad tackles and Spanish whingers (seriously Sergio Busquets, grow up). I'm glad the Spanish won. Whilst they weren't at their best all tournament (even against Germany) I admire the football that they try to play, and I would take Xavi and Iniesta over any other central midfielders in the world, as long as there's a decent holding midfielder in there with them. I was a bit disappointed that Iniesta was deployed wide so often. On the occasions that he drifted inside in the final his interplay was great. The little flicks he can produce so naturally are the sort that Steven Gerrard can't produce without sending a press release to the national press announcing it several days in advance. The Dutch, for their part, were a bit of a surprise. I at least expected a little subtlety from them in trying to boot the Spanish up in the air, but none was forthcoming. Maybe it was too much to expect from Mark Van Bommel, but he must know his stuff about South African grocery stores on last night's evidence. Still, football is about winning any way that you can, and anyone who doesn't think so is Arsene Wenger, so don't beat up on the Dutch for trying, OK?
As for England, I'm afraid I stopped caring a long time before the tournament started. For me the golden generation is looking a lot like the statue at the end of The Happy Prince, except they kept all the gold leaf for themselves. I thought when they were leaking the final goal against Germany that that might be it, so I was distressed to hear "Lamps" and "Stevie G" pledge their futures to England. Anyway, what was interesting was that Joachim Loew took similar gambles on Klose and Podolski as Capello did on Heskey and Lennon. They had, by all accounts, had dreadful seasons in Germany, but fit in to the system than Loew wanted to play. Could the same have worked for Capeloo with a bit more luck? Probably not, it's Emile Heskey after all. Anyway, I don't know what goes wrong with England at major tournaments, but I'd say it was definitely time that we let somebody else have a shot. At least they might run around a bit, and maybe even control a pass.
As for my own football, I've just been forced by illness to miss out on my own major tournament: the Jinbu Invitational. I completely wore myself out last weekend and the early part of the week, racking up 80km in mountainous bike rides interspersed with some pretty hard football training. What really got me was a trip to the Bangadari spring near Jinbu, to drink some of the mineral water. "It's good for health" they told me. Well, I would have invited "them" to come and inspect what was coming out of me for the rest of the week, and reconsider their opinion. Anyway, I was feeling better on Friday, so headed to Chuncheon for Shannon's birthday meal. We went to Santorini's, which turned out to be pretty good. The food was good, though not outstanding, but the setting and the service was top notch and we had a great time. I should have left it at that, but ended up drinking makoli until the small hours, which pretty much put me back to square one. By Saturday afternoon I was back on the toilet, and suffering jagging pains in the back of my head whenever I stood up. These, you'll be relieved to hear, have now receded, but they didn't in time to play on Sunday. Shame, as I'd just bought some new football boots.
These boots, for the third time in a row, were white. I really don't wear coloured boots. I like black boots. They look normal, sensible, unflashy. A bit like the sort of player I try to be. I try not to draw attention to my feet, as I'm usually using them to fall over the ball. Anyway, through problems with size availability and language barrier, my last three pairs of football boots have all been white. I'm starting to feel like a tart. Still, I could put my white boots and a tutu on, and run out on to the pitch trilling "Climb Every Mountain" and still not be as much of a tart as most Korean footballers. Exhibit A: On Saturday, while shopping for football boots, a shop assistant directed my attention to a pair of boots in lilac and orange. Being a nice person, I politely declined, and didn't try to put on in his nostril, like I probably should have done. Lilac and orange? You deserve to have every single one of your metatarsals smashed into tiny little fragments if you're wearing those. Exhibit B: Ringtones. Sitting on the side at training I was subjected to a perpetual playlist of K-pop tunes from the phones of my team mates, all of whom are men and most of whom are older than I am. Allow me to put this in context: it's the equivalent of hearing Miley Cyrus, B*Withched, Ace of Base and the Jonas Brothers from your team mates' phones. Apart from the Ace of Base guy, you're going to want to have a serious word, right? Exhibit C: The weather. I've already blogged about this, but Koreans: skin is waterproof. It's OK if it rains. Exhibit D: Tactical discipline. Could you just, for a minute, hold your position, or at least put in a little shift to get back? No? OK. We'll just continue to play 3-1-6 then. Cool. Exhibit E: Get up. Someone clipped you. You're not Ronaldo. You're just being a girl. Seriously Korean footballers. Sort. It. Out.
OK, I think that's most of my spleen vented for now. I'm feeling much better today. Nick arrives from England for 9 days tomorrow, and I get my summer vacation. I can't wait, and while there may be a short-term blog post shortage, it will be followed by lots of juicy titbits as soon as I'm back.
Toodle-oo,
A
PS Ooooh, Exhibit F: everyone still picks a footballer to be. You go on the pitch and they say "I'm Villa", "I'm Torres". Course you are son. I'm Alex. Please don't be a berk.
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