World XI

For those of you interested in football:

My flatmate and I handpicked a unique world XI to challenge any that you can come up with. The stipulations are as follows: the players have to be talented, lazy, and dislikable. They can be deficient in one area provided they make up for it in another. See if you can improve our team or even handpick a whole different 11.

.................................................Dida..................................................

Lucas Neill...........Younes Kaboul.........William Gallas*.......Winston Bogarde

........David Bentley......................Guti......................................Robinho........

........Adebayor........................Ibrahimovic................Berbatov.................

* Just can't think of someone better at the moment

We originally had Barthez in goal, but took him out because he's retired. We were going to do the same with Bogarde, but decided it would be quite fitting for a retired Bogarde to be still in contention. After his shenanigans at Chelsea the man is almost immortal. We have Assou-Ekotto waiting on the sideline just in case.

Guti is our man to pull the strings in midfield, always ready to find the penetrating runs of the forwards with a killer pass. Should Guti prove unsuccessful, however, there is a plan B already in place. Bentley may not have Berbatov's pace, but his crosses from deep will cause any defence problems, especially with Ibrahimovic's raised foot lurking in and around the penalty area. On the other wing, Robinho is there to provide some much needed flair.

The strikers speak for themselves really. All there on merit. They will pluck balls out of the sky with the deftest touch all day. They'll be economical with their energy, sure, and they may not do much scoring. But you can be sure that when one of them does find the net, it will be one of the all-time great goals.

Some near misses were Mauro Camaronesi, Kevin Prince-Boateng, and the aforementioned Assou-Ekkota.

Managing the team is David O'Leary, who will be assisted by the vastly experienced Terry Venables, who flew in from Costa Del Sol as soon as he heard about the project we've started. We're also proud to announce that we've secured Sven Goran Eriksson as director of football.

A Religious Experience

Sometimes life and football combine to form a religious experience; a moment of sheer transcendent beauty that makes you conclude that there is after all a God...and right now, he is a Barcelona fan.

In May of 2009 I had one such moment, and thanks to YouTube I can relive it again and again and again.

There is so much to enjoy from this minute and a half that I don't know where to start. In real time I was resigned to Barcelona's fate. Alves hit a rare decent cross into the box, but Terry seemed to have extinguished the threat. Then, through a combination of luck and carelessness, the ball was at Messi's feet just outside the Chelsea box. Chelsea fans in Stamford Bridge could immediately be heard inhaling nervously; Barcelona fans edged out of there seats. At least I did anyway. Finally, in a scene reminiscent of the one in Mighty Ducks D2 where Mendoza passes the puck back to the goaltender of all people, Messi strokes the ball towards the unassuming Iniesta. The rest is very much history.

I rarely get demonstrably excited, but this had me bouncing up and down on the couch and hugging my friend beside me. Of course that was nothing compared to Barcelona's celebrations. Iniesta removed his shirt and started swinging it around awkwardly. Most of his teammates jumped on top of him near the corner flag, many of whom had run from the Barcelona bench. Then the camera cuts to Ashley Cole looking utterly dejected, which brings things to a whole new level.

The focus shifts to Pep Guardiola, who is scampering back towards his own bench (we see why in a few seconds) frantically gesturing towards whatever substitutes weren't lying on top of Don Andres at that particular moment. Andy Grey sums it all up for us as a replay of the goal is shown:

"No wonder this is the sport we love."

Indeed, Andy. All eyes move to the reaction of the Barcelona bench as the goal is scored. We witness Pep running down the touchline with arms flailing and eyes looking to the heavens, no doubt with a mix of disbelief and gratitude.

Unbelievable. Unscripted drama at its very best. This is the sport I love. This video tells you why I love it.

The Job Will Not Save You

If the status updates of my Facebook friends is representative of Ireland’s collective psyche, then we were a nation in mourning last night. The word “gutted” was used by not a few, as the general air of gloom and doom loomed large. My initial -- and rather cynical -- reaction to all of this was, “These people obviously haven’t seen Ireland’s other qualification games, otherwise they’d be used to the post-match depression that inevitably follows”. The away fixture against Cyprus springs to mind. There’s an old saying in football - When Cyprus have more possession than you, then WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THAT!?

But I digress. Last night’s match was no Nicosian nightmare. For large swathes of the game, Ireland were the better football team. Our goal was one of real quality; and one of the utmost rarity, with Zinedine Kilbane providing the penetrating through-ball which unlocked the French defense. It was a pass that the onlooking (and let’s face it, cool looking) Zinedine Zidane would have been proud of.

And there were chances after that. Oh there were chances. Damien Duff managed to make a horlicks of a one-on-one. You could argue that he is not a right-footer, but that is no excuse. You’re a professional football player who gets paid thousands of pounds per week to kick a ball. The least you can do is be able to kick it with both of your feet. Robbie Keane managed to out-do Duff by missing an even more glorious opportunity to bury the French once and for all. With only the keeper to beat, he decided the best way to do so was to take it around him. What he didn’t seem to factor in was that he had almost no space in which to accomplish said task, and he simply ran the ball over the end line. What Robbie attempted -- taking it ‘round the keeper -- was indeed possible, but he needed to shift the ball onto his left foot quickly rather then merely let the ball run and hope to catch up with it. If you want to see how it should have been done, click here.

With those two chances spurned, you couldn’t help but feel that it “wasn’t our night”. The circumstances surrounding France’s winner confirmed as much. It could have been disallowed on roughly three accounts, but it wasn’t. Our sense of injustice was tingled. We became the righteous sufferers who bore the wrath of FIFA. We were its sacrificial lamb, who took the punishment of no World Cup trip upon itself. We were the scape-goat the was banished to the wilderness of a quiet summer outside of South Africa. And we were not one bit happy about it.

Thierry Henry has been branded a cheat. Go 6 minutes 41 seconds into this clip, and you’ll hear the sentiments of a million Irish people. I’ve never been a fan of the former Gooner, and so as with Rawls and McNulty, if Henry was a big cheat then I’d be the first to say it. But what he did was simply act human. It was instinctive, and something I wouldn’t put past any of the Irish players.

Cast your mind back to Ireland’s ridiculous penalty to equalise against Georgia. Nobody knew what it was for, and yet Kevin Doyle had his hand up appealing for it. Why? Because he’s a big cheat? Maybe, but there’s also the possibility that he was so desperate for Ireland to score that he would instinctively brand something legitimate “illegitimate” in order to influence the referee. There was no handball, or whatever, by any Georgian player, and yet Ireland got a penalty and secured a much needed result.

Henry handled the ball, but it was not deemed a foul. A Georgian player didn’t handle the ball, and yet Kevin Doyle got the penalty he so badly craved. I wonder what the Georgian reaction to that was on Facebook. Something about FIFA favouring the more established nations, perhaps.

Of course it’s perfectly okay to be upset about this injustice (we wouldn't be human if we weren't), but I think that taking our anger out on Henry for his handball is misguided, as is branding him a “cheat”. There are plenty of other reasons to dislike the Barcelona forward -- he’s arrogant, he’s French (there’s two to get the ball rolling) -- but to call him a cheat is to go too far. It is to misunderstand the game of football. Think of Eduardo of Arsenal getting booed for his dive against Celtic. Is he a big cheat? Not exactly. He simply did what almost most all footballers do in that situation. If you want to boo him then you are free to do so, but on that principle you had better be prepared to boo almost every football player that walks out onto a pitch. And while you’re at it, remember to boo those people who surf the internet during work hours, or who take an extra fifteen minutes for their lunch break.

Ireland lost, and we can all be upset about the way it happened. We can even be “gutted”, because our group of hard-working players deserved to be rewarded for their noble efforts. But right after the game, my brother put all of our collective misery into perspective. Four young women died in a car on their way to do some Christmas shopping a couple of days ago. There are greater injustices in the world than Henry’s illegal use of his left arm. Think also of Robert Enke, the German goalkeeper who recently took his own life after a long battle with depression. How did we let this happen? Could anything have been done to prevent it?

Football is not a matter of life and death, but it tells us a lot about ourselves that we often act like it -- or something similar to it -- is. Life goes on, people. Listen to the wise words of Lester Freamon and pay heed to what he says: the job will not save you.

[Dismounts from high horse.]

There is light at the end of the tunnel, however. The Premier League starts back on Saturday, with Liverpool playing Man City in what could be a pivotal fixture for both clubs. International football was always just a nuisance anyway, wasn’t it?

Kelly Snubs F365

Let's play a game. I'm going to tell you something about myself, and you have to decide if it makes me weird or not. OK, here we go.

I go to the same football website - www.football365.com - EVERY DAY, even though there are no football games being played at the moment, nor will there be any games of note happening until about 3 weeks from now. Go on, you think I'm weird, don't you? Just say it.

But aside from thinking less of me, you may also be wondering why? Why would anyone go to the same football website EVERY DAY (and several times a day at that) when there is apparently nothing happening in the world of football? THAT...would be a very valid question. The answer is not so valid I'm afraid.

I do it because I want to see which players are moving where. More accurately, I do it because I want to see which players are 'reportedly' moving where. You see most of the stuff I read isn't actually true at all, or never comes to fruition.

For example, at the moment there is talk of Riki Kaka moving from AC Milan to Chelsea for an astronomical sum of money. Now this of course will most likely never happen (largely due to the fact that its probably all lies, but if by chance it isn't it, I just can't see Kaka leaving Milan for a club so seedy and unholy as Chelsea), but that doesn't stop me from reading all about it, and worse, getting excited about it.

The question you might be asking, and the question which I probably need to ask myself, is why this information excites me? Even if Kaka really is moving to Chelsea for gillions of pounds, what difference does that make to my life now? I mean do I really need to constantly keep myself updated on these goings on? Can't I just wait until the season actually starts? At least then when Chelsea walk out onto the field I can be like 'Oh cool. There's Kaka. What a pleasant surprise'. Or when Man United walk out onto the field I can say 'Oh look. Ronaldo is still there. What a plonker'.

As David Mitchell wrote concerning this confusing infatuation with football transfers, "Are other sports so hated and inadequate that their actual matches are considered less interesting than football's behind-the-scenes admin?"

That's it in a nutshell really - I'm basically using up large chunks of my time to keep track of employee's contracts. Sounds a bit silly when you think of it like that, doesn't it?

Now don't get me wrong, I love football...clearly. I love playing it, and I love watching it. (Not all of it mind. I watch Champions League, Arsenal matches, and any 'Big Four' clash.) I even love writing about it, so don't be surprised if the topic of football appears again someday.

However, there comes a time when you have to draw a line in the sand. A time when you have to decide what is sane, and what is insane; what is rational, and what is irrational; what is good for you, and what is destroying your life, one grossly misleading transfer gossip column at a time.

That time is now my friends. As Mitchell asked, 'what's next? Reports on clubs' heating bills?' The madness must end. Football365 must no longer be my most frequented site. Not now. Not in the middle of summer.

I think when God talked about broken cisterns in Jeremiah, He had transfer gossip columns at the forefront of His mind...or at least the Hebrew equivalent anyway. (I'll let your mind wander as to what that might have been. Maybe rumours about who's going to replace Moses as head of the Israelites - "The Hebrew Times has just learned that the Israelites have made a late swoop for young Jewish sensation Joshua, who they see as the ideal replacement for long time servant Moses. Joshua, who had previously snubbed a lucrative offer from arch rivals The Amalakites because of their unwillingness to break their rigid wage structure to secure his services, is set to put sharp object to stone tablet in the coming days. Once some minor details like how many camels and wives he receives as a sign-on bonus are sorted out, then the deal will go through.")

But never fear. Change is afoot. From now on, I shall be drawing my water from the fountain of living waters, the fountain that never stops flowing, the fountain that is always there when you need it. And that fountain is Facebook. I mean I have the Daily Bible Verse application on my profile page, and access to instant message conversations with powerful men of God such as Luke Johnson, Jurgen Karwig and Keith Adams at my finger tips. What more spiritual food does a man need?