Well it's nearly over! Soon I will be able to get to my bed without worrying about extra time and penalty kicks keeping me awake. Last night Spain reached the final of this tournament by beating the Russians by three goals to nil, and well deserved it in the end. Hopefully the somewhat boring, but effective, Germans will be trounced by the fast moving Spanish. Most folks appear to agree that Spain produces the best league in the world, the best players in the world and the best failures in the world! For far too long this country has failed to succeed in such tournaments, at times making Scotland's achievement look great! Now however they have an excellent opportunity to bring home a trophy that such a footballing nation deserves. Few will begrudge them their success.
Euro 2008 has so far been a rousing success. The attitudes have on the whole been very good. Most sides have attempted to play football and not just win at all costs. The refs have been far better than in previous tournaments, and there has been some exciting and dramatic results. Turkey winning by three goals to two after being two down must be one of those! Altogether there can be few complaints about the tournament as a whole.
It is a shame that the same cannot be said for the commentary inflicted on the UK populace. In any contest between ITV and BBC it is inevitable that the Beeb will come out on top. So much so that this Sunday ITV have decided not to show the game live! An admission that the vast majority of football fans will be watching BBC. The question here is will ITV therefore improve their football offerings? I doubt it. The same bland muppets in the studio, the same advert dominated coverage, the same appalling Clive Tyldesley. It would not take much to improve this but they seem happy with tabloid coverage and small audience following. After the last World Cup it was clear they were well behind the BBC and Tyldesley was one of the major reasons for this. He is still here, are they mad or on a suicide mission? Only John Diamond and David Pleat showed any understanding of either the game being watched or the folks tuning in. Well done to them.
The BBC are indeed much more professional. Fair to say they do not have the constant breaks for bad adverts, but they have now inserted trailers for their own 'upcoming' coverage of sporting events which are just as irritating and needless. However the stuffed dummies in the studio are far better than those provided, at great expense, by ITV. Hansen, in spite of being a 'Tomb Tabard' has covered the games reasonably well. Even Alan Shearer, a man with all the personality drained out of him, has almost made a joke on occasion, and the much derided Linekar has never seemed to fail in my eyes. 'The boy done good' as they say.
However there is one real cause for complaint throughout the tournament. England! From the first John Motson has attempted to bring 'England' into everything. The Turkish winger, brought u in Leytonstone, was mentioned so often because he had an English connection. Any excuse, the club an individual played for, any link to a Premiership club in the tabloids, the place he bought his shirts, anything was used constantly to bring England into the tournament the failed dismally to reach. The fact that Russia and Croatia had made it through to the next round showed that 'England had lost to quality sides.' No England were crap and got stuffed by quality sides John! And as for Clive and his hero worship of Ronaldo, well how many times were Man U mentioned during Portugal's games? More than Portugal were I imagine. Tyldseley only knows two sides, Man U and Engerland, no-one else counts. Now had this been broadcast in England it could be ignored, however this stuff was sent throughout the United Kingdom, so Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish were forced to suffer the insufferable English self praise.
I suppose I could write to the self obsessed 'Equalities' minister Harriet Harman and demand action and ask that in future Scotland, Wales, and Northern Irish connections should be shoved down folks throats also but she will probably be doing her hair or counting the number of women in her department. I wonder, if she finds there are more women than men, more whites than blacks or browns, will she replace them with men, black or otherwise? I suspect not.
