SPAIN PREVAIL WITH A TIKI-TAKTICAL MASTERCLASS
You catch the Fiver in full-on panic mode, a tea-timely football email at a loss to know what to do with itself as it faces the prospect of not having anything to write about now that Euro 2012 is over, we're in the summer break and the new season doesn't kick off until Big Cup gets under way in the dim and distant future of tomorrow night. With so little to contemplate and such a gaping void to fill, now seems as good a time as any to go all misty-eyed and look back on a Uefa jamboree in which the Spanish tiki-takquisition asked ridiculously difficult questions of their terrified opponents, torturing them into submission with a style of play some heretics continue to traduce by describing it as boring.
Being stuck in traffic is boring. Attempting to place an online order for a new fridge door seal from Hotpoint is boring. Just remembering your attempt to place an online order for a new fridge door seal from Hotpoint is boring. Watching some of the greatest players of this or any other generation repeatedly ping the ball around like bumpers on a pinball machine is not boring, unlike being subjected to those interminable debates on the issue which have raged in the havens of cerebral football chat that are internet discussion forums in recent weeks.
"Everybody has their own point of view and we are not here saying our game is the most beautiful of them all, but this achievement is unique," said player of the tournament Andres Iniesta, addressing a room full of journalists, several of whom were asleep behind Homer Simpson style spectacles with open eyes painted on the glass. "Those people who think we are playing boring, in my opinion, don't understand the game," added Cesc Fabregas, espousing the controversial view that sweaty inadequates who spend too much time in their bedrooms posting anonymous and abusive comments on the internet might not know what they are talking about.
As is customary in the wake of any big international summer kickabout, Uefa today revealed its 23-man squad of the tournament, which featured – among others – a grand total of 10 Spaniards (hang your head Alvaro Arbeloa), one Englishman in $tevie Mbe and ne'er a soul from the Republic O'Ireland, despite Shay Given's heroic number of assists. The Irish can at least console themselves with the knowledge that, presumably in a bid to make FAI chief executive John Delaney leave them alone, Uefa has agreed to present O'Ireland's supporters with an in-no-way patronising Bestest Fans At The Tournament award. An open-top bus parade through the streets of Dublin for the drunk 10,000 is being organised as the Fiver writes.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Notably, when the national anthem was being played, no Spanish player sang it" – Irish pundit Eamon Dunphy claims the unity in Spain's squad is due to both their Catalans and Spaniards refusing to sing the words to the famously lyrics-free Marcha Real.
FOOTBALLERS ON HOLIDAY (AKA FIVER FILLER FOR THE OFF-SEASON VOID)
"Who is the manager pls? LOL" – Benoit Assou-Ekotto on Spurs.
"I ain't put no transfer request in only request I put in just now was for a side of fries with my chicken wrap at the pool #sisu #marbs" – Wolves's Steven Fletcher.
"Just about to start 50 shades of grey. Let's see what all the fuss is about" – oh Titus Bramble.
FIVER LETTERS
"Did anyone else notice Mark Lawrenson say that Spain have 'forgotten that football is about scoring goals and entertaining people' two minutes before the first of Spain's four goals and the second time Spain have scored four this tournament? There is something up with the world when I have to switch over to ITV to get some sanity" – Noble Francis.
"I can reassure Bob (Friday's Fiver letters) that the picture at the top of the live football blog does indeed look like a penguin, more accurately the Erect-crested penguin which is from New Zealand, and that does indeed look like a rugby ball. However I would say that Occam's Razor would suggest that the penguin has not 'failed to save' the rugby ball but is more likely to be part of a dummy scissors attacking manoeuvre and the picture would be better suited at the top of a rugby blog" – Chris Harrison.
"I'd believed it to be a penguin about to be hit on the back of the head with a rugby ball. But then I'm a massive You've Been Framed fan so my visual cortex would be predisposed and hopefully this was the case" – Martha Waters.
"Re 'Patrick Sheehan and 1,056 other MLS-following pedants' (Friday's letters). There are 1,057 pedants, let alone people, who watch MLS?" – Dylan McCullough.
Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver.
WIMBLEDON CHAT OF THE DAY (YEP, MORE FILLER)
John McEnroe: "Have you just come back from the Euros?"
Barry Davies: "No, they haven't let me do football for eight years."
John McEnroe: "That is an outrage."
GET A FREE £25 BET WITH BLUE SQUARE
JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES
We keep trying to point out the utter futility of advertising an online dating service "for interesting people" in the Fiver to the naive folk who run Guardian Soulmates, but they weren't having any of it. So here you go – sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly romantics who would never dream of going out with you.
BITS AND BOBS
Germany's semi-final exit from Euro 2012 has prompted a very English media fallout: criticism for not singing the national anthem. "It is downright shameful that not all our players sing along with our anthem," huffed conservative lawmaker Hans-Peter Uhl. "Ardour must begin before kick-off and singing loudly together helps with that," added Franz Beckenbauer.
Stuart Pearce has named his GB men's football squad for the London 2012 Olympics. Full squad: Butland (Birmingham), Steele (Middlesbrough); Bertrand (Chelsea), Caulker (Tottenham), Dawson (West Brom), Richards (Manchester City), Taylor (Swansea), Tomkins (West Ham); Allen (Swansea), Corinthian Spirit Fiver (Fiver Towers), Cleverley (Manchester United), Cork (Southampton), Giggs (Manchester United), Ramsey (Arsenal), Rose (Tottenham), Sinclair (Swansea); Bellamy (Liverpool), Sordell (Bolton), Sturridge (Chelsea).
Martin O'Neill has baffled opticians the world over by continuing to see something no one else can. The Sunderland manager has signed free agent Carlos Cuellar, having previously signed him for Villa.
With the Euros over, Juventus have elected to make their own entertainment and tabled an £8m bid for Robin van Persie, before presumably laughing uproariously when Arsenal took them seriously and rejected it.
Didier Deschamps has located his hook and slung it, leaving Marseille by what the club call "mutual agreement".
And Fenerbahce president Aziz Yildirim has been sentenced to six years and three months in the clink for rigging matches in Turkey, only to be let out again after the court ruled the year he'd spent doing stir before his trial would suffice.
STILL WANT MORE?
Euro 2012 final tactical analysis.
And Euro 2012: our writers' verdict.
SIGN UP TO THE FIVER
STICK A FORK IN EURO 2012: IT'S DONE
Read More
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.
التعليقات : 0
Post a Comment
أخي الكريم، رجاء قبل وضع أي كود في تعليقك، حوله بهذه الأداة ثم ضع الكود المولد لتجنب اختفاء بعض الوسوم.
الروابط الدعائية ستحذف لكونها تشوش على المتتبعين و تضر بمصداقية التعليقات.