The Archive

A World Cup post-mortem full of recrimination, sulking, blame and self-doubt. Sound familiar? Mike Ticher reports

Picking over the World Cup carcass in Australia is still a fairly new experience, but after the excitement of competing in South Africa the questions remain wearyingly familiar. What are our realistic ambitions? How can we reconcile the interests of the national team with those of overseas-based players and a weak domestic league? What country should the coach come from? And how is Harry’s groin?

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Simon Hart discusses the history behind 2010's most unique pre-season friendly: Everton v Everton

Forget the money-spinning Emirates Cup, it was Goodison Park that hosted the summer’s most meaningful pre-season friendly, Everton v Everton, as the Merseyside club faced their Chilean namesakes for the first time on August 4. The unique occasion drew a 25,934 crowd – more than the annual pre-season fundraiser for the club’s former players’ foundation usually attracts. Those present witnessed some wonderful quirks, not least the sight of the Park End scoreboard reading Everton 0, Everton 0, at least until the home team’s two unanswered second-half goals.

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Sean Marihooks explains how large amounts of money has only thwarted the development of league football in the Gulf

Dubai is famous as a hideaway for Premier League footballers and for running up the odd multibillion dollar debt. The UAE’s football league has barely registered internationally, however, until this summer when the top club Al Ahli signed Fabio Cannavaro and then appointed David O’Leary as coach. But the fanfare off the pitch may not be
followed by anything special on it. 

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Al Needham attempted to fulfil a long-term ambition again this summer. He didn't manage it but doesn't really mind

Doing the Sixty-Four – watching every single game in a World Cup, as they happen – has been a tantalising yet impossible dream, but, like a solar eclipse, all the celestial forces appeared to click into alignment for me in 2010. I was old enough to live away from my parents (so no dad saying: “Get this bleddy rammell off, Taggart’s on” – West Germany v Uruguay, 1986) and mature enough not to go on dates when games were on (England v West Germany, 1990 – yeah, I know). The hosts were in a decent time zone – so no missing games due to Sunday morning lie-ins (South Africa v Paraguay, 2002) or conking out on the settee at stupid o’clock (most of USA 94).

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Relive four weeks of statements of the obvious from the pundits, daily complaints about the wobbly ball and over-emphatic pronunciations of Brazilian names

June 11
South Africa 1 Mexico 1
“It’s in Africa where humanity began and it is to Africa humanity now returns,” says Peter Drury who you feel would be available for film trailer voiceover work when it’s quieter next summer. Mexico dominate and have a goal disallowed when the flapping Itumeleng Khune inadvertently plays Carlos Vela offside. ITV establish that it was the right decision: “Where’s that linesman from, that football hotbed Uzbekistan?” asks Gareth Southgate who had previously seemed like a nice man. "What a moment in the history of sport… A goal for all Africa,” says Drury after Siphiwe Tshabalala crashes in the opener. We cut to Tshbalala’s home township – “they’ve only just got electricity” – where the game is being watched on a big screen which Jim Beglin thinks is a sheet. Cuauhtémoc Blanco looks about as athletic as a crab but nonetheless has a role in Mexico’s goal, his badly mishit pass being crossed for Rafael Márquez to score thanks to a woeful lack of marking. The hosts nearly get an undeserved winner a minute from time when Katlego Mphela hits the post. Óscar Pérez is described as “a personality goalkeeper” as if that is a tactical term like an attacking midfielder. Drury says “Bafana Bafana” so often it’s like he’s doing a Red Nose event where he earns a pound for an irrigation scheme in the Sudan every time he manages to fit it in.

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