Out of Africa

The World Cup quarter finals started in earnest yesterday and for the sake of footballistical quality, as Arsene Wenger would say, England's absence is no bad thing. A.k.a. England are sh*t. Reaction to the 4-1 humiliation at the hands of bitter rivals Germany - I'm not sure the Germans view it in quite the same terms - has been far and wide. Apopletic supporters the land over have since competed over the most emphatic hyperbolic denunciations of England's destitute defending, woeful willpower and managerial maladroitness.

I for one will not enter into such discussions, mostly because I didn't actually see the game. I was, instead, playing the much more elegant, gentlemanly game of cricket, you know, "corking delivery old chap", "had him fishing there", oh, what larks. My current tone is however, heavily tainted by hindsight. At the time, with minutes to go to kick off, roped into a rookie game of cricket, I couldn't have been much more pissed off. Rumours flooded the outfield and the slip cordon of a goal to Germany, then two. A refused plumb lbw had echoes of Lampard's disallowed goal. "It was angling down leg", gestured the ref. "It was a yard over", bellowed right-arm medium-fast, Rooney. "Ask hawkeye!", muttered the cheeky silly-mid-on, stirring a chorus of support from gulley and a wayward third man, quite literally. The third umpire, omnipotent yet powerless, sat silently in the shadows. "We don't believe in technology", stated the Fifa overlord, Blatter, pompously, "but we are genuinely very sorry this has happened".


Sad as it is, I understand there are considerable obstacles to installing video technology into pub cricket. I do not understand why this is the case in professional football. What is perhaps the most frustrating part of this whole debate is the post-mortem response of the Fifa President, Sepp Blatter.

"It is obvious that after the experiences so far at this World Cup it would be a nonsense not to reopen the file on goal-line technology."

Why does any regulation always have to be in reaction to a major incident rather than preempting it? There has been a campaign for goal line technology for years. It would be easy to implement, and unlike freekicks or penalties in open play, would result in a definite answer: goal or no goal. Unless this changes we shall be tormented by zig-zagged goal lines for eternity.

The point still remains that England were awful goal or no goal and inquiries are being made as to why that was, and has so often been, the case. An article by Matt Slater for the BBC and Paul Hayward of the Guardian argue for a new approach following in the footsteps of Germany. Since their disappointing early exit in Euro 2000, the German Football Federation, the FDB, have invested approximately 20m euros per year setting up a network of 366 training centres in collaboration with existing clubs, which trains 14,000 young hopefuls every week. There are an estimated thirteen times as many coaches in Germany as there are in England. The need for serious investment in grassroots football, setting out long term goals is desperately clear. An expensive manager with an impressive CV will not paper over the cracks.

My interest in the World Cup has not waned despite England's exit. The first two quarter finals were brilliant. I enjoyed watching these at home without the sweat and drunkeness of the pub, which tends to drown out any memory of the actual game. Brazil, one of the hot favourites for the tournament, seemed to self-implode after such a domineering first half against the Dutch. I hope Felipe Melo enjoys the next few months of death threats, a la David Beckam, after his tempestuous stamp on Iron Robben.

The match of the tournament however, goes to Uruguay and Ghana. Despite having Forlan in my World Cup fantasy team - score - I felt far greater affinity towards Ghana - just look at that guy, what a character. With just seconds to go of extra time, a fearsome scramble in the area resulted in a deliberate hand ball on the line by Luis Suarez. Asamoah Gyan, whose effort and work rate was immense all night, was left with the responsibility of scoring from the spot. He missed. And although Ghana would have another chance in the shoot out it seemed the football gods had conspired against them. So it proved. I don't really care who goes on to win the World Cup, just that the games can be exciting as that one.

The advertising that has surrounded the World Cup has been largely as expected. The target audience surprise, surprise, has been adult males. During the Uruguay vs Ghana game I can recall adverts for beer, cars, gambling, sony 3D tvs, coca-cola, lucozade sport, pringles, bt and barclays. Based on the soaring profits of ITV for the World Cup month, big companies are forking out huge sums for a spot in the half-time ad-breaks. I'm guessing it must work, but from a personal point of view, I don't feel particularly affected by it - maybe because I'm broke. That said, I did buy a coke the other day but I'm fairly sure it's because I wanted a coke, I like coke, as opposed to the underlying marketing pull. Does it make a difference that it was diet coke with a lime twist? They weren't advertising for that.

My favourite advert, which I've only seen through an article in the Telegraph , of all places, listing the World Cup's best adverts is this adidas one. It's set in one of the Star Wars films - I pretend I don't know, but it's Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977) - and it's got the World's most popular white man, David Beckham, and put him alongside the World's coolest black man, Snoop Doggy Dog. Just in case you thought Snoop wasn't cool enough already they throw a him a light sabre and drop it like it's hot.

The decision to hire ready made 'stars' has been a tactic of the majority of advertisers during the world cup. Nike quite successfully got Rooney, Ronaldo and Ribery in on their commercial, while B.T. went for Colin Twizzle and a load of players not even at the World Cup, Gareth Bale is the only one that jumps to mind. It makes you wonder whether the performance of the advert works in tandem with the performance of the athlete. None of the above have performed well at all at the World Cup in the slightest. Maybe those Nike boots don't have the vorsprung durch technik they promise, or maybe B.T.s broadband is as slow as you always thought it was - Twizzle doesn't exactly strike me as a speedster.

One player that has performed well is Japan's Keisuke Honda. Given that advertising is quite a subconscious, subliminal kind of thing, I wonder if Honda, as in the car company, are licking their lips at the thought of Keisuke becoming the next big thing. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a Honda advert in ages. Maybe they're going for a much longer-term plan of ambush marketing. Phase one: adopt loads of children, name them Honda; Phase two: train them into superstar footballers; Phase three: World domination, every car is a Honda. They tend to put a lot of effort into their adverts generally so I wouldn't put it past them.

I'll leave you with an image of my favourite World Cup t-shirts. Every football fan should have one of these. Genius.

Bye.