Fozza's Two Cents

I was watching the evening news on SBS last night, the channel that's showing the world cup. They also show the Champion's League and have highlights of the regular seasons from around the world in 'The World Game' so have a couple of lads who are 'the faces' of Aussie football.

Their Gary Lineker (ex-pro turned anchorman) is Craig Foster (who had a brief spell at Palace in the late nineties). Like the mahogany jug-eared crisp seller he's even got the silver fox hairdo going on, though I've no idea if he likes to cheat on his wife (allegedly). Anyway, watching the news and when it's time for the sport they go to "Foz" in South Africa who reads the world cup news from behind a desk, giving out the results of the most recent games, injury updates, and the reactions to Australia's defeat etc

And then he goes totally mental. Goes right off the reservation. He flows straight from reporting the football news into a massive rant about Pim Verbeek and how he should be sacked straight away after Australia's disgraceful performance and choice of tactics against the Germans. Starts ranting on about how if Verbeek wants to keep his job for the next match he should be made to justify his decisions to a panel made up of former Socceroo captains!

Absolute quality. Can you imagine Lineker losing it live on the BBC and demanding that if Capello wants to remain in charge for the Algeria game he must justify picking Rob Green and Heskey to a panel made up of Tony Adams, Emlyn Hughes and David Beckham?! He was dropping in the odd we-hate-foreigners comment as well, like: "it's not his team, it's Australia's team, it's our team, he's not Australian". Brilliant.

He reckons himself as a big authority on the game and has come out with some right whoppers in the past, he also hates Verbeek, despite banging on about the Dutch style of play for donks before they got him in (he's had big rows with Craig Johnston in the past as his theory is that Australia aren't good enough for total football and should play route one).

It cut back to the two main news bods in the Sydney studio and they were sitting there like stunned mullets, spluttering out "Well, err... fighting talk from Foz there, we'll see you again tomorrow night, have a good evening..."

He later did the same thing on a highlights panel show, which has been reported here. Dunno if you'll be able to watch it outside of Australia but the clip is here. (It was much more Kent Brockman,and much better, on the news though).

Not quite as bad as the yanks, but...

...Australia did take defeat to Germany very badly. Fair enough, four nil is a drubbing, but the way they were going on was funny, as if they were one of the 'second tier' clubs (like England?) and that four nil was a humilation, rather than a slightly worse defeat than the one everybody predicted.

It's a bit schizophrenic, because in one sense the Aussies never expect to lose at anything, and if they do they assume it'll be a tight battle. Even when they're playing their fourth sport against one of the world's best teams. On the other hand, with Tim Cahill getting sent off, there's lots of talk about his world cup having finished already if he gets a two game ban. Now, that's obviously true, as one way or another they're going to be without their best player against Ghana, who they have to get at least a point off to keep their hopes alive, but it's weird that they're so stunned to get beat by Germany and yet aren't looking beyond the group stages.

They didn't go potty about the red card either. Like everyone else they thought it was a bit harsh, but they saw that he was roaring in so late that he had ample time to see the ball get passed away, realise he was going to get in trouble for such a late challenge, and start to pull out if it, before finally clattering him with his knees.

My boss is mates with the legendary HG Nelson, and he got him to write this yesterday, which I knocked into shape and stuck on our site (terrible speller). The lads who play Roy and HG (John Patrick Doyle and Greig Pickhaver) were made members of the Order of Australia in the Queen's birthday honors list. Years of great work for charidee mate...

There is a lot of attention on the football though, which has been to rugby league's benefit, as they've had a racism scandal in the run up to the second leg of the State of Origin series, and the detriment of tennis, as Leyton Hewitt beat Federer on grass for the first time in a hundred years.

Andrew Johns, brother of Matty "I love a bun with the lads" Johns, and the lad who got done outside the Church in Kings Cross with pills on him and later coughed to years of drugs whilst a legendary player, is helping coach the NSW origin team and has been liberal in the use of somewhat "old fashioned Alf Garnett-style" language when describing the aboriginal members of the Queensland team. Click the link to see a video of a NSW player who walked out of the team then gave his reasons for doing so on camera.

Once again, Australia feels like it's still in the '70s, and not in a good way. Still, it makes me feel like some liberal progressive man of the world. Which I am, obviously.

MF33

Happy birthday mate, this is the link to the FIFA Fan Fest. It's costing the city buckets of money, but they see it as an investment in the world cup bid. If they get it it's almost nailed on that I'll be back and have to get up in the middle of the night to watch the big games live, much like I'm going to be doing from this weekend onwards...