More than just football?

This is a little tricky.  Back from socialising and confined to the bedroom for fear of falling off my crutches as I'm now alone in the house for the evening.  So I'm watching the Germany/Australia game on my laptop.  This tvcatchup is working pretty well as a compromise option - but makes it a bit tricky to do the blog at the same time in a separate window and not miss any of the action.

Unexpectedly I got to watch the England game yesterday, but so far this evening's match looks a whole lot more interesting.  2 goals to Germany already and a lot more energy and passion.  From my position of total ignorance, I'd say the quality of the football was heaps better too. 

Disappointing yesterday after such a great start.  Who was that commentator who after Gerrard's goal couldn't do any better than "this might be fun"?  And what's with those dull grey suits and ties for the manager and Beckham? This is football, and S Africa, not a working day in London.  I know it's the England team so we have to behave "British" but why ties, why grey?  The Germans had a better idea, t-shirts, jackets and blue.

Anyway, another draw in the England-USA game (yawn) - but if you use the stats, England would have won (marginally anyway, according to the ones I've seen).  And talking about stats, 6 yellow cards in that game (3 each), many more than in the other games up to that point.  What does that mean?  More passion?  Less care? Dirty play? Stricter refereeing?  Didn't make for a better game anyway.

I do feel sorry for Rob Green though.  Disastrous mistake, I know, and such a school-boy error but goalie's are so conspicuous aren't they, and the impact of their mistakes can be so much more crucial - or it seems that way to me.  Last time I saw him he was in the pulpit of a London church.  Yes, the same Rob Green.  It was at a charity Carol Service for two charities doing fantastic work in Africa - FARM-Africa and AMREF  .  Rob Green was talking about the latter and his support for them, including his climb of Kilimanjaro.  The work these charities do is so valuable, helping the Africans to help themselves.  He seemed a nice guy.  I hope he gets a chance to redeem himself.

And where was Rooney?  I thought he was supposed to be a superstar but he didn't seem to be doing much, particularly in the first half.  Perhaps he's saving himself.  I thought the person who had the best games was the USA goalie.  He seemed to do a good job.

 ......

The Germany./Australia game has just finished 4-0. One of the goals scored by Cacau less than 2 minutes after he came on, and lots of energy and interest.  That was more like a real game of football, wasn't it? But what about the 6 yellow cards and a surprising red card (against Australia) - did the referee do a good job or go over the top?  Did it help the game? Seems it's his usual style anyway.  Is he a respected referee?

While I was reading up about yesterday's games I discovered how much peripheral stuff there is linked to the main tournament, and how much absolute rubbish is churned out in its name as well.  Ridiculous quote of yesterday comes from "The Times" leader:  "If sport was fair, and championships were decided according to need rather than skill, who should we want to win the World Cup."  Yes, really.  That's a definition of "fair" that's new to me.

But more than anything else I've stumbled across so far I want to mention ‘Scoring for Africa – An Alternative Guide to the World Cup’, published by Kofi Annan (former UN Secretary-General and Chair of the Africa Progress Panel) and Didier Drogba (United Nations Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador and football star). It's a guide with a development perspective that takes the spirit of the World Cup beyond football and highlights some of the issues that unite and differentiate the countries represented.  I haven't read it all yet - there's a lot in there - but I will.  It is really interesting stuff and I'd recommend you to have a look.

Last words today are those of Kofi Annan himself:  

"What football shows is that if people get a lucky break, a chance to fulfil their potential, they score, they shine....  We all gain if we have open minds and hearts. This doesn’t just apply to football...."