Posts by Peter Darlington
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God hates Guays.
Isn't there an Onion piece on football declaring itself to be 'guay'?
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Actually, you're right, it wasn't cocaine - it was ephedrine.
He truly was a renaissance man.
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The Hand of God became, to me, a fun player having fun.
The HoG also restored some pride & joy to a population who'd been through the ringer from their own govt dictatorship and Thatcher's criminal militarism. It was seen as helping (in a small way) to right a wrong, a little bit like a certain disallowed goal yesterday...
He's still absolutely hated by most England fans of course.
I still think Pele is the G.o.a.T. but Maradona is 2nd, a genius crazy man that no amount of money or professionalism can straighten out.
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Roddy Doyle agrees with you:
Heh, brilliant!
I completely agree, Maradona is fast becoming a world football treasure. I realised the other day he's been involved in World Cups for pretty much my entire adult life. He was a 17yr old on the bench in 1978, a genius in '82 & '86, on the decline in '90 & '94. He had a couple of lost tournaments in 1998 and 2002 before popping up again as a fan in the stands (looking like a drunken hobo and having the time of his life) in 2006, and now he's running the team with a chance of emulating Beckenbauer as a player and manager winner. I would love it to happen, and I'll be extremely sad when the World Cup finally loses him. Damn, there was a blogpost in there somehwere!
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Not to win, no, but I think they were counted upon to make the semifinal. They were the form team in the qualifications, and gave the impression of having a solid defence behind one of the talents of the tournament in Rooney. That's often a recipe for going quite deep. They must rate as a major disappoinment.
Agreed, and the question is, what the hell happened between the qualifying rounds and the finals? Where did it crap out so badly? How did they get from the Walcott hat-trick to a Jamie Carragher recall FFS?
Personally, I blame John Terry, but that's my answer for everything in life.
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But arrogance before the game. Remember Rooney's cocky remark that England's B team could beat Algeria even on a bad day?
At least David James was right yesterday when he said there was no way the game was going to go to penalties.
y support was with the Germans -- cool, sharp, attacking play -- a delight to watch every time they had the ball.
I know, it wasn't like watching a German team at all.
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Don't forget, before today the last World Cup meeting between England & Germany was 1990. And the one before that was 1970 (a pattern!), so there aren't exactly a lot of precedents to obsess upon. Sure there's a the Euro's and a bit of history there but still.
I don't fully buy the line that the rivalry's not important to the Germans either. They've never fully accepted the '66 win and there'll be mad rejoicing tonight, especially about the disallowed goal which will be seen as pure karma for the unjust (in their eyes) Hurst goal.
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Phew, that game made my musings on England vs Germany work quite nicely. Even a cross-bar travesty that will have German hearts round the world singing, a wrong finally righted in their eyes.
As for that German side, wow! I watched the Spain-Germany Euro Championship final while holidaying in Liguria 2 years ago and the German side today is unrecognisable from that one. It's the obvious message for England, a refresh is badly needed, but sadly I don't think they have the youth. My prediction is that England will struggle to qualify for the next finals.
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And here's his third. Lovely stuff;
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Here's Hursty's 2nd goal, the line ball one as mentioned in the blog: