My lucky pants are to blame, Sven

13 April 2012

It's interesting how football fans will often create the information they want to hear. For days before the Nigeria game, I'd been hearing rumours from fans that the Nigerian camp had abandoned training, that crates of beer had been seen arriving for their players - the ones who weren't out shopping, of course - and presumably that slave girls had been bussed in to feed them grapes while they lounged on chaise longues rather in the fashion of the Spartan team after they too have lost the chance of winning anything in Asterix At The Olympic Games.

The fans telling me these rumours, were, surprisingly, mainly ones wearing white or red shirts. It wasn't entirely clear to me how much these days of luxuriousness had affected the Super Eagles performance on Wednesday afternoon. To be honest, it looked like both teams had hardly bothered to get off their chaise longues. But, midway through the second-half, it got replaced by another rumour anyway: that England were deliberately playing for a draw because they wanted to avoid meeting Senegal in Oita, because the heat there would favour the Africans.

Now, this seems to be quite a lot of information to be disseminated almost telepathically through the team in the middle of play. It's also open to some debate anyway. Having received the message, you'd expect at least one player, Danny Mills, for example, to stop what he's doing and say: "But hold on - that means we're more than likely to meet Brazil in the quarter-finals, whereas if we actually play to win the group, we've got a far easier passage."

There was a point, as it happens, when Mills had the ball on the edge of the Nigerian penalty area and did, in fact, completely stop what he was doing, so I can only imagine the instruction had just been beamed into his head.

Pity the poor South African manager, Jomo Sono, though. He had somehow to beam into all his players' heads, towards the end of their game with Spain, the words "if Spain score another, then we are going to have to draw lots with Paraguay - although if Paraguay score, they will go through on goals scored - although if we score and then Spain score again it's back to lots - so stop playing so deep ". It's amazing his head didn't explode.

I was in a bar in Osaka with a number of England fans on Wednesday night watching the South Africa-Spain game, and we redirected our celebratory mood - it seemed a little difficult to big up the celebrations overmuch: "Hooray! Nil-nil! We've come second!" - by becoming fervent supporters of Lots. Not of his wife, of course - there's too much salt in the food out here already - but of the possibility that South Africa and Paraguay would become the first teams to have to draw lots since 1990.

We realised that we had very little idea of exactly what was involved in the drawing of lots, but speculated that probably a big velvet bag and Ted Croker were involved, and that it would be a laugh to watch. Eventually, we managed to get the Japanese clientele in the bar to join us in a chant of "Lots! Lots! Lots!", although obviously that meant they were actually shouting "Rots! Rots! Rots!" and England fans passing by must have thought "I'm not going in there - sounds like the woodworm's out of control.

(I don't want to bang on about this well-trodden aspect of Japanese enunciation, but I simply must tell you about a true thing that I saw last night in Nick Hancock's hotel room: a laundry bill totted up at the bottom with the phrase - printed, on the bill - GLAND TOTAL. One wonders how much it would cost Anna Nicole Smith to stay in Japan.)

They'd have been mistaken, though, those fans. That bar had one extraordinary plus: a toilet with a TV encased in the floor in front of it. I kid you not. A TV, in a lovely glass frame, surrounded by beautiful Japanese fairy lights, showing football on a continuous loop, that you can watch while you're on the job. I thought I'd died and gone to the toilet in heaven. It would have been a fantastic place to watch the last 20 minutes of the Argentina game, though.

Talking of which, the main chant on the way out of the Nigeria game was: "They're going home, they're going home - Argies going home." I might have felt sorry seeing Gabriel Batistuta's tears, were it not for an interview he gave over here in which he said that they deserved to win against England, because they were the better side and England had done nothing except score the goal. Clearly, his headband must have slipped over his eyes when Michael Owen hit the post, Paul Scholes volleyed from 30 yards and Teddy Sheringham from 25.

Similarly, coach Marcelo Bielsa has been quoted as saying of their entire campaign: "We were unlucky, it was just a penalty kick and a free-kick."

Right. So presumably Bielsa thinks that the World Cup is played according to the rules of Fancy Kicks - only headers and volleys count. They're not good losers, Argentina; don't cry for them - do you know I have a feeling you weren't anyway.

From a fans' point of view - as well as arguably from a football one - it's a great thing all these big countries tumbling at the first hurdle. Well, from the point of view of the smaller countries' fans, that is. I know of one French fan who, in a bar full of Irish fans, decided to stand up and join in with La Marseilles before the France-Denmark game, booming it out like that scene in Casablanca, except this time, without the rest of the bar joining in.

Having drawn so much attention to himself, he then had to suffer the Irish fans, towards the end of game, coming up to him one by one and saying: "Let me get this right - so you haven't scored a single goal in the entire tournament?" and "I'm sorry, sir, but I gotta check me facts here - that'll be the most expensive forward line in the world: and not the one goal at all?" until eventually he stood up again and shouted: "Shut up! Shut up! All of you shut up!" and stormed out.

Many England fans here are starting to make noises about this being England's World Cup, about us never having a better chance - I don't know. At the time of writing, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Portugal - and most disturbingly, Germany, how the f**k do they do it? - are still in the competition (Germany only have to beat Paraguay in the next round, which should be no problem considering the South Americans' long record of helping them out - some of the players may even be related).

And besides, we have to beat Denmark, the sort of team we rarely do well against in important matches. It makes no sense - Denmark are about as good as Everton, none of their players would make the England team - but I doubt most Greek players would make the squad and they still nearly beat us on our way here.

The question remains: why can't England play two good games in a row? Admittedly, the defence played well again - Rio Ferdinand, in particular, was majestic - but coming forward, we'd lost much of the fluidity and accuracy of our passing against Argentina. Some will tell you that it's because we can't play well against teams that play deep against us; but those of you with real football nous will know that it was because I had lost my lucky pants.

Regular readers of this column - I know you're both out there - will be aware that, to the Argentina game, I wore a pair of pants given to me, by the Football Association, with the cross of St George emblazoned on each buttock. I looked in vain for these on Wednesday morning before realising I'd left them in Sapporo.

Stupid of me: I remember putting them in a special drawer in the hotel room, thinking I'll put these in a special drawer, because they're my lucky pants, then I won't forgot them, and of course if I had just strewn them on the floor with all my other pants, they wouldn't still be lying in that special drawer right now. To try to make amends, I drew two flags in red felt-tip marker pen on the back of an old pair of Y-fronts and wore those instead. These flags were shapeless and messy and so was much of England's play on Wednesday. I rest my case.

By the way, in case you're wondering why I haven't mentioned meeting Zoe and Norman - well, I did bump into them at the game: they took my number and said let's meet up for a celebratory drink later. I said okay, and, after I'd shown off about it a bit in the bar, they didn't bloody call.

I looked a right twat. Have they forgotten? It was the other bloke at the Brits.

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My lucky pants are to blame, Sven

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