What an extremely decent day of football that was! The World Cup, yet again, was immaculate. A supposed upset, followed by a flogging, then completed with an emotional, even sentimental win. It was probably just about the most perfect day so far for the neutral, which is what I am. Yeah, pretty perfect. Saturday being Saturday, meant that interspersed amongst all this was some local football too. Coaching in the morning and a couple...
Read More
I’m surprisingly indifferent about England’s fate in this World Cup. As my surname would suggest, I can trace a significant part of my ancestry back to old Blighty. The team I’ve followed for all but about a decade of my life plays in England’s top league. I identify with England. But their loss to Uruguay? Meh. The 2-1 defeat to Uruguay, or more accurately Luis Suarez, this morning probably wasn’t...
Read More
Gooooooone! A week in and we’ve lost our first teams. You would have expected it of Australia and Cameroon, but Spain? Spain?! After two games and two defeats the strongest international footballing dynasty of the last decade is gooooooone. All three teams exited in slightly different ways. The Aussies were a little unlucky to lose to the Dutch, as they were against Chile, but maybe their play is just a tiny bit immature to...
Read More
Today was the day many of us were waiting for. We finally got the opportunity to have a good look at Belgium. Are they genuine contenders? Yes and no would be the answer. Today’s performance was certainly dominant in terms of possession but they were both anaemic (1st half) and cutting (2nd half) in attack. That has got to be concerning. This article (a really good analysis) was spot on with it’s pre-tournament assessment...
Read More
After the euphoria of the opening few days at the World Cup we’re now into a solid routine of early starts and working on the laptop in front of the telly. It’s a good routine to have. I didn’t post yesterday as I actually spent much of it away from my laptop. After getting up for the France/Honduras game, school drop-offs and then the Argentina/Bosnia-Herz… game I hit the road to the Bombays for a meeting with...
Read More
Every Sunday should be like this. Wake up. Football. Shower. Football (upset result). Breakfast. Football. Football. Lunch. Football. Write DB’s Diary. Football highlights. Dinner. Football preview for tomorrow. Bed. Perfect. While it’s way too early to be sure, it appears this World Cup may well go down as one of the best. I know. Three days in and all that. It’s certainly got off, without a doubt, to one of the...
Read More
Well, I didn’t see that coming. Nathan got grumpy when Theo got a player of the day certificate and he didn’t. Oh yeah, and the Netherlands beating Holland 5-1. Didn’t see that happening either. I love the first couple of weeks of any World Cup. There are loads of games on every day and some of them are pretty good, too. It’s before we get to the business end and teams are generally playing to win rather than...
Read More
Brazil 3-1 Croatia Day 1 of the 2014 FIFA World Cup was a typical, almost clichéd, Waikato day for me. Yes, I watched the opening ceremony and game, while helping get the kids sorted for kindy and school. Yeah, I pretty much agree with what everyone has said about the ref, Brazil’s defending, Croatia’s bad luck, and the result being good for the tournament. Fred’s flop (new US basketball term making the crossover to...
Read More
I was lucky enough to attend the last two FIFA World Cups and, while there, I wrote a series of articles for my local rag, the Matamata Chronicle. (Germany here and South Africa here, if you’re interested.) These articles became known as DB’s World Cup Diary. DB’s World Cup Diary won’t be back this year, at least not in it’s traditional form. As the World Cup in Brazil is about to kick off I’m sat...
Read More
From time to time I’ll rummage through my recently liberated box of old Soccer Express issues and post a few morsels that will help us all remember how the game once was. This time I managed to dig out the ANZAC Day issue from 1990 with a headline that screams out “Reds Back In Europe”. This is somewhat apt, given the aforementioned reds (Liverpool) are back in the Champions League after a little while out of the...
Read More