EnGerLand to try again, Espana to cruise

 

EnGerLand, My EnGerLand,

“Ever the faith endures, take and break us we are yours, when shall we rejoice again, such a breed of mighty men”.

These are lines from a poem written by William Ernest Henley towards the end of the Victorian Era when the empire was at its zenith, before the beginning of the slow decline which sees EnGerLand and especially its football team where it is today.

There comes a point in the blog, when I mention that I was five months old the last time EnGerLand won a trophy, and every time the number of years goes up by two and we have now reached fifty-eight. The way EnGerLand have played in their first three games, it does not look like the trophy drought is about to end.

What is wrong with EnGerLand? a rather mediocre Irish footballer with known Republican tendencies, was recently on a panel of pundits on TV when he said, “Who are EnGerLand anyway, they have only ever won one world cup and have not won the Euros, yet the press, not only in EnGerLand, build them up before every tournament as one of the favourites to win.” Whilst his comment came from an intense dislike of anything English, he does have a point.

Believe it or not, EnGerLand are the current bookies favourites to win the whole thing, ahead of Espana who have looked the best team to date, Les Escargots, that have the best players but seem to have gone into their shells, and the Shermans with their home field advantage.

Now of course this could just be a cunning plan by the bookies to take your money, but the odds setters usually do have an idea of what is going on.  The trouble is, that on paper, EnGerLand technically have an easier path to the final, with most of the heavyweights being in the other half of the draw, due to the surprise results in the group stages.

So basically, if they can remember how to play, they may yet go far, and everyone will forget the awful start.

Now the Slovaks on the other hand are much more interesting, technically, they have a partial trophy in the Euros, as Czechoslovakia won the Euros in 1976 beating the then West Shermans 5-3 on penalties with the winning attempt becoming famous and the name of a new type of penalty kick, the Panenka.

I remember watching this game, everyone wanted the Czechs to win, it was only eight years since the Russkies had invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 crushing the Prague Spring. The West Shermans, had won the World Cup in 1974, Bayern Munchen had just won their third consecutive European cup (including their infamous victory in Paris over Leeds in 1975, when the referee had been bribed to make sure they won) and the arrogance of the West Shermans was soul destroying, Uber Alles and all that.

Today Slovakia is a nation with a population of around five and a half million residents, in football terms they are ranked 45^th in the world compared to EnGerLand who are 5^th. On Paper EnGerLand should win this if not comfortably but within ninety minutes, the Slovaks will hope to take it to extra time and then penalties.

Two to watch out for:

 

Another goal for Schranz?

 

Another goal for Schranz?

can Cole Palmer get a tune out of EnGerLand?

 

 

I was looking for something in common for the next two teams and came up with dancing, so the second game today is a lopsided matchup between the flamenco dancers from the Iberian Peninsula and the Georgian Kartuli wheelers from the Caucasus’s. Both these nations are known for their toughness, I suppose it must be something to do with being rather mountainous areas with extremes of weather, heat in Espana and cold in Georgia.

They are also both quite diminutive in stature and are what used to be known as rather swarthy before the days of political correctness. In football terms, Georgia are the lowest ranked team in the competition, they had never qualified for any finals until now and in their last game stunned the other team from the Iberian Peninsula, the aptly name corks from Portugal who definitely bottled that one.

La Roja, on the other hand have been one of the better teams in the world over the last 15 years being World and European champions from 2010 until 2014. Georgia have had their fun and no one can take away the pain they caused CR7 and the joy that brought to millions around the world to see the whinger, whining like the baby he is as they lost 2-0. However, Espana will be a bridge to far and they can go home with their heads held high

 

Two to look out for: 

Yamal only turns 17 next month

Mikautadze has scored in every game so far.

 

 

I was two for two with my predictions on Saturday, so we now know that the Cowbell ringers await the winner of the EnGerLand game and The Shermans await the winner of the Matadors game.

Tomorrow we will preview The Gallic derby and the Cork boys from Porto versus one of the former components of Yugoslavia in Slovenia, definitely one of the surprise packages of the tournament so far. enjoy.

 

The Knockout Stage Begins

Welcome back, the dust has settled on what has been a frenetic group stage, the tournament has been surprisingly good to date, and we shall start with a short summary to get us ready for the knockout games.

In simple terms, the traditional powerhouses of European football have been, apart from the exception of the Matadors, underwhelming to say the least, the Froggies, Shermans, Orange boys, Spaghetti munchers and the team which is Christiano Ronaldo and 10 others to mention a few.

The next grade is downright poor, this group includes the Northern Gallic tribes of Belgium who eat chips (French fries for our readers across the pond) with mayonnaise, is it any wonder they have been heavy? The Pils swilling Czechs from the republic, and the Croats from Kings landing country to name just some. 

Then, there is EnGerLand, the words to describe their performances are not suitable to be published in this august blog, suffice to say you would not want to step on it as you walk along the pavement. Remarkably however, the dross fare EnGerLand have served up has been enough for them to win their group.

They are in a remarkably strong position to advance deep into the tournament if they can remember that they are supposed to be footballers and not a bunch of crabs who move sideways very slowly.

On the positive side, we have been treated to fine performances from the minnows (small fish) of European football who mainly hail from the Eastern half of the continent. Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Georgia have all progressed along with Turkey and Austria, with Romania and Austria, actually winning their groups to turn the draw for the next round upside down and make the tournament more intriguing than ever.

To end the summation of the first stage, we cannot finish without a special mention for Wee Bonnie Scotland.  The Jocks do melancholy in such a special way, they build up the anticipation only to be left floundering and crying with their deep disappointment, but still maintaining the love of all around them, with the ridicule of the EnGerLand fans ringing in their ears. From the 5-1 demolition they suffered at the hands of the Shermans in the opening game, to conceding a 100th minute goal in their last game, to finally be eliminated, they brought joy to all for so many different reasons. There is nothing a football fan loves more than another team’s despair.

We start off with two games featuring four of the more established sides, the usual suspects so to speak, in what could be termed “derby” games. A Derby is a game involving two local rivals usually from the same city, for example the Merseyside derby between the Scousers and the toffees or the Milan derby between Inter and AC or the Subway Series in New York between the Mets and the Yankees, just to show it is not exclusive to football.

However, the term can also apply to teams from the same area geographically, such as Yorkshire derbies between Leeds and any other team in Yorkshire. 

Just a line on a map

A mountainous divide

As you can see from the maps there is not much separating Schleswig Holstein form their Danish Neighbours. The famous Holstein cows surely don’t know when they are eating Sherman or Danish grass.

The same can be said for the barber shop boys of Northern Italy to the yodelers of Southern Switzerland, same neighborhood, just a different way of singing.

 

The cowbell ringers were very close to beating the Shermans in their group game with only a injury time equalizer from the superbly named Sherman striker Fullkrug saving the Shermans blushes. The fondue lovers will feel they have a fantastic opportunity to knock out the reigning champions of Europe, who as mentioned above have been underwhelming so far.

The Gondoliers needed a 98th minute punt to avoid being eliminated by the Croats.  Do not be surprised if the Swiss Cheese ends up on top of the Italian Ice cream in this one.  

Two to watch out for

 

Xhaka, the Albanian born Swiss captain

Chiesa, hoping the Swiss won't fill the holes

 

The second game on Saturday will see, as I said, the Shermans against the Vikings, The Shermans have home field advantage, the Vikings have managed three draws so far scoring only two goals, not very scintillating as I’m sure you would all agree.

The Shermans are heavy favourites for this one, but as we have seen in the past, you never know in a knockout game what could happen. In 1992, the Vikings only played in the tournament due to the expulsion of the imploding Republic of Yugoslavia and they went on to win it against all the odds. The fact that Die Mannschaft have not been running as smoothly as we would expect from a Sherman engineered machine, means anything is possible.

Two to watch out for

Erickson back from the death for a last hurrah

Wirtz, the future of the Mannschaft

On Sunday, we shall preview EnGerLand against Slovakia and Viva Espana against Josef Stalin's Georgians, A fascinating prospect.

As ever, please feel free to comment and please share with your friends.

Euro 2024 in a time of flux

Welcome back to my faithful readers and hello to any newbies. I have thought long and hard about whether to write a blog this time round. It has not been an easy period since the events of October 7th, and to be honest, I have found it difficult to feel any excitement about the upcoming football. 

However, I have been very pleasantly surprised by the number of people who have asked me, is the blog coming out?  so that I have decided to go ahead and produce some content. I also know that, as my beloved Leeds United were fighting for promotion (unsuccessfully), that they helped provide a welcome distraction from the events going on around us and I realised how lucky I was to have that distraction, however fleeting it was.

I am going to skip the group stages and will start to blog properly from the knockout games which are scheduled to begin on June 29th, A short introduction to the tournament follows below and then I will see you then.

As ever, this is supposed to be a humorous and not very politically correct view on the tournament, it will also be sprinkled with cultural and literary references and participation via the comments section is welcomed. I will respond to every comment, the more inane the better. 

The European nations tournament of 2024 is due to start tomorrow in Germany, as the Sherman Mannschaft face the Tartan army from Scotland in the opening game in the Fussball Arena in Munchen better known to football fans as the Allianz Arena home to Bayern Munchen. 

The format is the same as last time but just in case you are unfamiliar or new to the game I will explain it here, especially for our followers in the US of A, a coming powerhouse in world football and one of the host nations along with Canada and Mexico for the next World cup due to take place in 2026.

The twenty-four nations taking part have been divided up into six groups of four. So, in a group of four, each team will face the others once in a mini league format, with three points for a win and one for a draw. 

The top two from each group plus the four third placed teams with the best record will qualify for the last 16. The competition then follows the standard knock out format until we are left with two teams to battle it out for the title.

We don't use fancy titles, such as "Sweet 16" or "Elite 8" or "Final four", so as to avoid any confusion, those are known respectively as the last 16, quarterfinals and semi-finals.

I wrote the following words in my introduction to Euro 2020 which took place in 2021 due to Covid and if anything, they are even more accurate today.

An event such as the Euros, where national teams battle it out one against another only adds fuel to all the things that are supposedly not welcome in today's world such as nationalism, jingoism, racial stereotypes, etc.  A lot of average football fans who do not necessarily habit the world of social media actually revel in all the above mentioned and cannot wait to paint their faces in the national colours, get out their flags and revile against all foreigners.

The reality is that the tribal divisions, mistrusts and even hatreds that have riven the European continent for over two and a half thousand years are alive and well and are simmering below a barely civilized veneer. To this potent mix has been added the increase in religious hatred which has exploded across Europe since the last Euros.

We are lucky that today, the battles for the moment are settled by twenty-two men kicking a ball around a field being watched from all over by the baying masses, The Allianz Arena instead of Stalingrad as the battlefield, if you like. It is these divisions and differences that we shall focus on as a background to the football. Football is just a means to an end, thankfully a peaceful one.

Anyway, enough waffling on about serious things, when I come back, it will be to educate the unaware, bring new angles to the informed and above all to try to bring a smile to our faces.

Here is a little amuse bouche to whet the appetite,

As ever the lot of anyone who sets themselves up as a football pundit is fraught with the very likely possibility of looking a complete idiot come the end of the tournament. My heart obviously wants England, it is now 58 years since they last won anything when I was 5 months old, and they do have a chance. 

However, my head is telling me that the runners up in the last world cup, the froggies in bleu are the favourites, it will probably be a different team from either of those, but you have to choose someone.

Let the football begin, see you on the 28th for the first Knock out previews.