Ten Things You Expect To See At This Year’s World Cup

by Brian Kennedy

(first published in the June 2010 Mervue United match programme)

1. ENGLAND WILL GO OUT ON PENALTIES – Like night follows day, rivers run into seas and toast falling on the buttered side, you just know our loveable neighbours are always good for clinching defeat from the jaws of victory courtesy of the most reliable strikers of a ball in England. You’d put your mortgage on Gerrard, Lampard & Co from the spot in the Premiership - however throw them into a penalty shoot-out at the World Cup and a one-legged Stevie Wonder would be more effective.

2. PERVY CAMERAMEN – You know the type, the ones who scan the crowds looking for some hot exotic females from south of the equator. When you’re waiting to see will that French centre-half recover from being chopped in half by the Uruguayan the camera is frantically scanning  80,000 fans for a shot of breast or will linger a little too long on that Brazilian student bending over to pick up her vuvuzela.

3. A SODDING WEDDING – An absolute certainty. You’ll be asked to attend a friend’s wedding exactly when New Zealand are taking on Paraguay. Those uncaring tramps! Don’t they know it’s a game you have been gearing yourself up for for years? Anyone planning any big occasions during the World Cup period has got a screw loose. Just wait until after July 11th or perhaps postpone to next summer when nothing of any interest is happening. However in this day and age you could always sit at the back of the church with your iPhone, I’m sure everyone would understand.

4. DIEGO MARADONA WILL DO SOMETHING CRAZY – The Argentine manager has had more than his fair share of controversy both as a player and manager, his demented ranting following qualification for the finals being perhaps the most insane of all. Either Diego will make some crazed substitution or rant about how the press should suck on his extremities. Already his “go back to the museum Pele” remark has had the press rolling in the aisles. Think how funny it’ll be if they actually win the thing with a manager nobody rates. Either way expect a plethora of cameras to be aimed in the direction of the chubby former playing legend.

5. SOME STRANGER IN A PUB TALKS CRAP – You can’t blame people for being interested in the World Cup even though they have little or no interest in the game of football itself. You will find yourself irritated by the one guy who follows GAA, hates the “foreign sport” and is disappointed you only get yellow cards in soccer for tripping someone up – dismemberment or the need for an ambulance would only suffice in his sport. Yet he makes one attempt to understand the game and makes some ill-informed comment which is bound to include jargon that has no place in a football based conversation. Because you are Irish you will not correct the person talking to you, you will simply nod, smile and move away from said individual.

6. JIM BEGLIN & ITV… Will make watching the World Cup as depressing as a winter’s day in Woodstown. Whereas RTE have excellent coverage, the insane Eamon Dunphy and a 127-year-old Bill O’Herlihy, ITV pay £6 million for a new presenter, Kevin Keegan in shirts Travolta would have been proud of, and go to adverts when people are about to score goals. But by far the worst is listening to Jim “back in my day, Phil Neal and me would have cleared that, Lawro was immense, me and Hansen were magic” Beglin unfortunately adding his commentary to a game.

7.  THE GODFORSAKEN VUVUZELAS! - Make them stop! One of the charms of soccer is actually being able to sing at a game regardless of the score. But this has been made impossible of course because the clown in charge of FIFA gives a World Cup to a country whose most effective weapon is certainly not the laughable eleven on the field but those sodding vuvuzelas in the crowd. My god, they should take them into the mountainous caves region of Pakistan and play them until Osama bin Laden comes running out, screaming, “OK, OK! I give up!”

8. GOALKEEPER’S GLOVES - Why give your country’s main shot-stopper gloves that are so big that Roger Rabbit won’t ask for them back for quite some time. Part of the problem this year has been put down to the ball when in actual fact it’s much simpler than the aerodynamics of a round object. If the ball goes through your goalkeeper’s gloves it’s because half his hand is missing half-way down a glove so big you could beat Mike Tyson to death with it.

9. GERMANY WON’T MISS A PENALTY – Unless your name is Lucas Podolski.

And number 10 – and most important…
FRANCE WILL BE HUMILIATED (hopefully!!!)