Scene and heard

I honestly think that this has improved in the 8 years since I last watched a World Cup here. Then, in disgust at the inanity and complete lack of knowledge – two commentators had no idea why a goal scored directly from an indirect free kick was disallowed (there’s a clue in the words ‘Indirect Free Kick’) – that I watched the rest of the tournament on a Spanish channel, understanding little to nothing of what was being said, but loving the passion it was being said with.

This time around, there was a former US player, I can’t remember who, saying that the Netherlands v Serbia and Montenegro match should provide good lessons for the USA team to beat Czech Republic – forgetting the two problems in his logic. Czeck are considerably better than S & M, and apart from the FIFA ranking committee, everyone knows that Netherlands have a much better team than the USA. I then heard Alexi Lalas calling Kasey Keller the best goalkeeper in the world! Anyone reading this in England just choked on their tea! And they just constantly prattle on about anything and nothing throughout the entire match, often clueless to the proceedings on the field. When Germany were down 1-0 to Argentina: “The Germans are going to have to do something to stay in the game.” Yeah, like score a goal! When it was 1-1: “It will take a spectacular goal to win this one!” Excuse me!! So if it dribbles over the line, that won’t count?

Generally, I was reminded of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I paraphrase: ‘Humans have to keep talking in order to avoid thinking’.