Category: Library

Categories
Sport

If you think it's all over

Well. That’s a bit cliché really and I am not the kind of person to gloat over the losses of most teams (Argentina, Inter and Roma most years being the glaring exceptions) so this is not really intended as a sort of lemon-full post for Enger-land supporters. I could have easily bet a few quid on the three lions going all the way this year right before the world cup started.

The jerky knees they showed during the group round should have been enough to dampen any serious hopes for Capello’s troupe of WAG-less enthusiasts and although the press egged them on for the Germany match as though the freedom of Western Europe depended on it they would not have scared a toddler in a mad house. And so to this afternoon’s match. They played they were seriously ouwitted by the mainsschaft of youngsters and immigrant imports and they are on the next plane to London.

Two questions for the England fans:

1) It is rumoured that Capello promised the players a night with the WAGs should they overcome the Huns. How motivating can that be for all the team bar Terry ? I mean – letting the WAGs loose with Terry around – do you think the rest of the team would lock him in the cupboard till their better halves are back out of sight?

2) And now a more serious question. I am sure many of you are calling for the introduction of the Eagle Eye and Replay – replays during the match that would have pointed out to the referee that that rebound on the free kick was almost 50cm beyond the line. But if, unlike Blatter, you would like to review the game with hindsight what should stop us? What stops us from a “moralist” revision of past matches? Imagine this one – England’s non-goal today is allowed IF (and only IF) they accept that the 1966 goal was NOT a goal and the match is to be replayed. Would you accept that? Would you be willing to risk  relinquishing a world cup won on a phantom goal to be able to kick off both games (1966 & 2010) again at 2-2? Guess not.

Here’s a dedication to England football fans from their Scottish cousins.

Categories
Sport

Gufi on Record

Seeing how we have been taken to task on our objective reporting of superstitious elements we will set the record state. We will grant that Intercettati were Champions in 1938 before Mussolini‘s XI lifted the cup. (Mussolini’s XI won both 1934 and 1938 so Inter and Juve get an ex aequo in the not too sporty pre-war editions).

1930 – Inter (3) – DNQ

1934 – Juventus (6) – Campione

1938 – Inter (4) – Campione

1950 – Juventus (8) – 1o turno (superga)

1954 – Inter (7) – 1° turno

1958 – Juventus (10 *) – DNQ

1962 – Milan (8) – 1° turno

1966 – Inter (10 *) – 1° turno

1970 – Cagliari (1) – Finalista

1974 – Lazio (1) – 1° turno

1978 – Juventus (18) – 4° posto

1982 – Juventus (20 **) – Campione

1986 – Juventus (22) – Ottavi

1990 – Napoli (2) – 3o posto

1994 – Milan (14) – Finalista

1998 – Juventus (25) – Quarti

2002 – Juventus (26) – Ottavi

2006 – Juventus (29) – Campione

2010 – Inter (17) – 1o turno

The Record.

With Juventus as champions (9 times) Italy performed as follows: 3 times winners, 1 time fourth place, 1 time quarter-finalist, 2 times eighth-finalist, 1 time exited first round, 1 time DNQ.

With Inter-cettati as champions (5 times) Italy performed thusly: 1 time winners, 3 times 1st round exit, 1 time DNQ.

Other teams have too low a record to compare probabilities. The only other team who won more than one time before a WC is Milan and their record is still too low for probability: 2 times champions before WC and 1 time exit first round, 1 time finalist. A 50% chance of a good WC I’d say (or of a bad one if you saw it from the Intercettati point of view.

The facts are clear. Try as they might Intercettati will attempt to wriggle away the 2006 campionato claiming it as their own. While we still await the further developments on Moratti & il Defunto’s phonefest we will simply remind them that Italy’s 2006 world championship team was built on the team that won the campionato on the pitch. It is a glaring inconsistency to wave the flag for Italy singing Seven Nation Army one minute then claiming that that very same team would not easily have won the campionato without much help.

So back to the issue of objective reporting. First of all we never claim to be (objective). But even if for a second we tried to be so, the facts as shown above are obvious. With Juventus Champions 7 times out of 9 Italy obtained a decent result for a team of its stature. With Inter Champions that same nation got a decent result 1 time out of 5.

We said it once. We say it again.

Inter – Gufi d’Italia.

La realtà dei fatti è che quando la Juventus vinceva, la Nazionale volava. L’ultima volta, appunto, nel 2006. Oggi, che la Juventus ha fatto uno dei campionati peggiori di tutta la sua storia, la Nazionale esce quasi in silenzio, quasi dalla porta di servizio, quasi senza dignità. E forse il “quasi” andrebbe tolto.

I politici del calcio hanno voluto distruggere la Juventus e innalzare l’Inter a bandiera nazionale; l’Inter ha ripagato i politici del calcio perseverando nella sua politica esterofila, e abbandonando i suoi benefattori al loro destino. C’è della giustizia, in tutto questo; la Juventus non ha mai tradito l’Italia. Vinceva e proponeva blocchi vincenti. Però si sa che tutti i nodi, prima o poi, vengono al pettine, e oggi, con la questione Calciopoli 2, c’è la possibilità di ricostruire la storia, prima di svegliarsi un mattino e scoprirsi irrimediabilmente calvi.

Quella odierna, difatti, è solo l’ultima delle umiliazioni subite; quelle precedenti sono storia recente. Se dico “Blatter e la Coppa del Mondo 2006”, se dico “Europei 2016”, se dico “coppa del mondo restituita da un giocatore francese” penso che possa bastare.

source

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Categories
Rubriques Travel

Last Kiss (snapshots)

On our first walkabout in NY still fresh from the transatlantic flight led us straight to the glimmering lights of Times Square at around four in the afternoon.  The sun was out in all its splendour and the square was readying for an invasion of the “Beautiful Game” with many of the lit screens and panels illuminated with details of forthcoming matches and other details of the football festival. We walked gently to what we thought would be the central point of the square and then just stood back and took it all in. The long queues of crowds searching for the bargain Broadway tickets criss-crossed trigger happy tourists capturing this or that moment on SLRs.

A makeshift football stand had been set up in the middle of the square and when you climbed to the top you could absorb all the atmosphere around you from a bird’s eye view. Just before going up the temporary structure we came across a wedding photoshoot. Bride and groom in full wedding regalia were posing against the magnificent metropolitan backdrop when all of a sudden they were joined by an unusual character. A promoter of the Cage aux Folles spectacle had pranced onto the “stage” intent on getting his photo moment with the happy couple while promoting his spectacle. I caught two great shots of the next few moments and had been playing around with them with the new photoshopping program (Lightroom) when I came across this news item.

Apparently one of the two protagonists of an historic snapshot taken in Times Square on 14th August 1945 had just passed away. The photo snapped by Alfred Eisenstaed pictures a sailor embracing and kissing a lovely damsel right in the middle of New York’s most famous crossroads. Edith Shain, the damsel in question, passed away last Sunday aged 91. I found the similarities between my two treasured shots and the context of this historic photo curiously coincidental. Go figure.

The Original Photo
Promoter Walks On
Promises Promises

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Categories
Sport

Inter – Gufi d'Italia

It’s the words we like so much at J’accuse (the Banana Republic)… “We told you so”. Do you remember this post way back on the 6th of May? We warned the superstitious among you that Italy might be in for a bad time. The only two previous world cup tournaments in which Italy walked out at the first hurdle were 1954 and 1966. The league winners in the pre-WC season? Internazionale FC (now known as Inter-cettati).

Four years ago Inter fans were among those celebrating the Campioni del Mondo charade at the same moment that the World Champion team were “relegated” to serie B. This year they celebrated their Champions league “triumph” and other victories they have enjoyed thanks to their having escaped the long arm of the law (until now). Somehow, somewhere there is a little bit of poetic justice. They hang on to the reputation of eternal losers and harbingers of bad luck for the national team. Italy is out of the World Cup in another Inter campionato year. Who knows… maybe Moratti will buy Vittek now.

This is the original 6th May post entitled Superstition:

If you’re an England supporter and ever so slightly superstitious then you should be rooting for Labour. The general election of March 1966 elected Harold Wilson‘s Labour vindicating his early call in order to increase his then slender majority of seats. Four months later England’s football team would lift the world cup for the first and only time.

There’s all sorts of superstitions or quirks related to elections. One has to do with rain. Apparently Labour voters are supposed to be more likely deterred by bad weather – though this theory has been rubbished in practice.

For Italy supporters there’s another interesting coincidence. Three times out of four the team winning the campionato before an Italy world cup success has been Juventus: 1934, 1982, 2006. The odd one out has been Bologna (1938). Inter won a pre-WC league in 1954 and 1966. In 1954 Italy were eliminated in the first round by Switzerland (4-1 in playoff). In 1966 they also failed to pass the first round hurdle when they were eliminated by the memorable Pak Doo Ik goal (North Korea).

I’d hate to be an Italy supporter this year!

Harold Wilson
Image by rofanator via Flickr
Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Categories
Politics Rubriques

Democracy on Hold

The Banana Republic Files. In today’s Times we find the report that “At the start of yesterday evening’s sitting of Parliament, the Speaker gave a written answer to a question by Nationalist MP Franco Debono on progress in talks on the financing of political parties, which he considered urgent.”

Well, thanks to Labour’s recent walk out and tantrum this is the current situation: “The House Select Committee on the Strengthening of Democracy had advanced its discussions on the topic. A period of public consultation on the electoral process and system had expired on December 18, 2009. The Speaker expressed the hope that the current situation, wherein the select committee was not meeting, would be temporary and the committee would soon be able to continue its work.”

Notwithstanding all the Speaker’s high hopes the bottom line is: democracy is on hold.

Earlier this week the Green Party filed a judicial protest over the electoral law. The legal challenge to article 52 of the Constitution was filed in Court as another direct result of the Labour abandoning of the process for “Strengthening of Democracy”.

No way forward for rules on party funding. No way forward on electoral reform. The future is dull. The future is a Banana Republic.

Categories
Admin Travel

The Banana Republic

FAA diagram for John F. Kennedy International ...
Image via Wikipedia

Ten days (and a bit) out of action meant a good deal of recovery. By recovery I mean refocusing and redefining the perspectives. It helps to take a step back from the daily grind and there is no place like the US of A to hit you hard with the hammer of ginormous perspective. Heavy dinners, long long treks and an immersion into the hustle and bustle of the world’s great metropolis all served to recharge the J’accuse mental and physical batteries. Back on the island of milk, honey and power cuts we only had time to notice that MediaToday have a snazzy new portal for their main paper that promises to cut huge inroads on the Times monopoly of the online MSM fora. We like both the online version (well done Matthew) as well as the pay-per-view version of the paper from the stands. The theme for the next few months of summer posting will be “The Banana Republic” – viewed from a global, social networking scale and hopefully from outside the tiny box. Stuck (delayed) in JFK airport I browsed the bookstands at Barnes & Noble  and I was sorely tempted to buy a copy of D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (screw the librarian and buy it now for 1.99)- if only to cook a snook at the imbecility I had left back at home. I opted not to – because some actions can be as useful as punching the wall when angry. Instead I bought an extremely engaging book called “Soccernomics” that has not let down my expectations until now. Yes we did visit an Apple store while in the Big Apple and I walked away without spending a penny. Discipline? Maybe. But I might be saving up for a bit of the iPhone OS4. I have not been brainwashed – only slightly readjusted the fulcrum of my mental perspectives. Which is why I cheered when Dempsey (of the 4-0 Fulham rout fame) scored the last minute goal for the US to pull through (ahead of the Old Enemy/Ally) and why I do believe there may be some truth in the American Dream.

Good night and good luck from j’accuse:thebananarepublic.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta