Excuse me, can I see your diver's licence?

The hot topic today is diving ('simulation') in football.  Following Dutch star Arjen Robben's confession that he "took a dive" (ie. fell over on purpose) during the Netherlands' Last 16 game against Mexico yesterday, discussions have raged about whether players should be punished retrospectively for these actions with a suspension from playing the next match.

I don't condone diving (not that it would matter if I did); it is, quite simply, a form of cheating - of gaining an unfair advantage - and should be punished with a straight Red Card.  However, some of the comments about Robben - both from the general public and professional pundits - strike me as ludicrous.

A bad tackle is a bad tackle - the reaction of the player on the receiving end shouldn't come into that.  If a defender goes sliding in with a dangerous, reckless challenge, what does it matter whether the player with the ball tries hard to stay on his feet or collapses in a instant like he's just been stabbed in the back of the leg?  The defender's play was still dangerous, and still deserves to be punished - by the awarding a free-kick or a penalty.

Even more importantly, a players 'reputation' shouldn't come into things either.  Each appeal for a penalty or a free-kick should be judged on its own merit, not through the prism of 'past form'.  Whether Arjen Robben did or didn't dive (or 'exaggerate') when the Dutch were awarded the penalty which won them the game, there was more than one occasion earlier in the game when Robben quite clearly should have been given a penalty and wasn't, because of his reputation as a diver - that is just as great a miscarriage of justice as a penalty being spuriously awarded following a dive.

#WorldCup knockouts

With the sixteen best teams of the tournament so far moving into the knockout stages of the World Cup, things are getting pretty interesting now.  So, which team is going to go the furthest?  Here are my thoughts on who to watch…

I sadly wasn't able to watch every single group match (with the kickoff times being in the evenings, I've often found I'm working when the games begin), but I have seen as many as I possibly can, and tried to catch up on other matches later, either by recording them or watching online.  The four sides which impressed me the most during the group stages were: Germany, Chile, France and the Netherlands.

Germany have been tipped to go far in this competition already.  They have a wealth of talent in all areas of the pitch, and some very technically gifted players; the one area in which they might be said to be lacking is in central attack, often lining up without a bona fide centre forward - but in veteran striker Miroslav Klose, they have a forward player already proven time and time again at the highest level available to bring on, should they need him.

The Germans' dismantling of Portugal 4-0 in their opening group game was a statement of intent from them, and they definitely have the quality in their squad to back that up.

Chile are maybe not the team that springs immediately to mind when one thinks of South American football, but they have been hugely impressive throughout their World Cup campaign so far.  The Chileans play an intensely high-tempo style of football with passion and fervour - current world Champions Spain looked worn out and punch-drunk after barely half-an-hour in their recent game against Chile, playing with an air of wearied resignation instead of their usual incisive passing game.

Tirelessly hardworking, Chile look utterly fearless both with and within the ball, refusing to be intimidated even by such illustrious opponents as Spain - but they have real quality, too.  Barcelona forward Alexis Sánchez is always a threat in front of goal, whilst Eduardo Vargas' goal against Spain to put Chile 1-0 up has, for me, been one of the highlights of the entire tournament, so far.  A Round Of 16 clash against hosts Brazil this afternoon will be a stern test, but I don't expect Chile to be daunted by this prospect at all.

France are an unusual choice, perhaps.  They may have had a relatively 'easy' group out of which to get, but they way they have set about that has left no one in any doubt that this is a squad who can really play.  I think lots of people wondered how they would fare without star midfielders Franck Ribery of Bayern Munich (injured before the World Cup) and Manchester City's Samir Nasri (controversially left out by manager Didier Deschamps), but the French have really gelled as a team, and look very much at ease on the ball, working as a single unit to cut teams open as they push forward.

In Karim Benzema and Olivier Giroud, France have strong attacking talent in their squad, and with players like Mathieu Valbueno and Yohan Cabaye in midfield, they won't be short of service either.  I don't think France are anybody's favourite to win the tournament, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them reach the semi-finals, and their relatively young squad will undoubtedly be a force to reckon with in years to come.

Having provided the first (and still, so far, the largest) upset of this World Cup in coming from behind to beat holders Spain 5-1, the Netherlands established themselves as the tournament's official "dark horses" pretty early on.  Their fast, counter-attacking style of play has been hugely effective for them - but they've also shown themselves capable of hunting down a game when they go behind, and having the resilience to get themselves back into contention.

In Arjen Robben, the Dutch have a very special player indeed - someone with pace and technique, but also with the intuition and awareness of the game to be able to create something out of nothing.  Robben seems able to find space where there seemingly is none, and when the ball falls to him in the box, you feel something exciting is bound to happen.  A Round Of 16 match against Mexico is no easy task, but I expect the Netherlands to rise to the challenge, as they have done each time so far.

So, is the overall winner of this World Cup going to be one of these four teams, then?  Well, they all have a chance, for sure…  But, as is so often the way, things aren't quite that simple!

Plenty of discussion in the run up to this tournament centred around the fact that European teams don't win World Cups held in South America - and yet, three of the four teams I have picked are European sides!  Something doesn't add up here.  Well, whilst they may not have stunned us to quite the same extent during the group matches, only a fool would write off South American giants Brazil and Argentina at this juncture.

Brazil have world-famous footballing pedigree, and plenty of talent in their squad - including Barcelona forward Neymar, and Paris Saint-Germain defender Thiago Silva.  Perhaps even more significantly, though, they are playing on their home turf, in the universally recognised home of football, in front of their own adoring fans.  You can never discount Brazil, and even if they may not have the same strength of squad as, say, Germany, they are still an extremely good side - and spurred on by a passionate and exuberant home crowd, you can't say it would exactly be a surprise to see them still there or thereabouts as we move towards the business end of the tournament.

Argentina are another South American team with a proud history - but also another who didn't exactly set the world alight during their group games.  In their opening game against Bosnia and Herzegovina, had it not been for a very unfortunate Bosnian own-goal in the opening few minutes of the game, the first half would've been entirely dominated by the Bosnians, with Argentina on the ropes for large spells of the play.

However, Argentina can always rely on the truly remarkable Lionel Messi to dig them out of a hole - as he has done already, on a couple of occasions.  The rest of the Argentinian squad are hardly Sunday League players, but so far it has only Messi been who's really shone at this tournament; his mercurial touch may well be the difference for Argentina this time around - and like Brazil, it will hardly be surprising to see them progressing further and further through the World Cup.

So, there we have it.  Based on what I have seen so far, it is my belief that the winners of the 2014 World Cup will come from one of the six teams I have listed above.  However, these are purely my own thoughts and feelings about the matches I have watched, and should not be taken as anything more; please don't remortgage your house in order to place the entire value as a bet on one of these teams, just because of what I have written!  I can take no responsibility for any losses incurred as a consequence of such folly.

England Expects? Far too much

So, England are out of the World Cup.  Following Costa Rica's 1-0 over Italy this afternoon, England are no longer able to qualify from the group stages - not even mathematically.  FA Chairman Greg Dyke's much-criticised "throat-cutting" gesture at the group draw last December now looks oddly prophetic.

Is anyone surprised?  I'm not.  I'm disappointed, obviously - gutted, in fact.  But not surprised.  Once again, the nation's football supporters - whipped up by an ever-hysterical media - have been expecting far too much of a group of players who are, at best, fairly decent.  The arrogance with which pundits and fans dismissed Costa Rica as "no-hopers" has come home to roost, as they top the group with two wins from two games, leaving Italy and Uruguay to battle it out over the other available place in the last sixteen.

In a poll on Twitter, BBC Sport found that 61% of England fans felt the team had "underperformed" at this year's World Cup.

We asked you earlier whether if England go out at the group stage have they underperformed? 61% of you said yes. #ENG pic.twitter.com/bF6QcMvqLJ
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) June 19, 2014

I don't know what planet these people are on; England are bottom of Group D, and they are there on merit.  England have been the fourth-best team in the group, and the table reflects that.  It's time to recognise that England just aren't that good.  We have some players who are good, but not great - and plenty who are inexperienced.

But what of Costa Rica?  How many of their players would you classify as "greats"?  How have they achieved qualification with a squad containing no "big name" star players?

One thing which was clear from watching Costa Rica is that they had turned up with a plan, and they stuck to their plan.  England, all too often, had grand ambitions, but seemed flustered and lacking in composure.  The difference between Costa Rica's effective smothering of the threat of Italy's Andrea Pirlo and the way England let him dictate play for large parts of their game against Italy on Saturday was stark.  The most marked quality Costa Rica have had is the way they have worked together, as a single unit, to break down opposition teams.  England, by contrast, have displayed moments of individual brilliance but have not seemed to gel properly as a team.

For many of the players in the England squad, this is their first international tournament.  They don't have the experience of having trained together and played together for years.  They are still young, they are still learning, and they are still getting to know each other as colleagues and teammates.

It is important we don't overreact to England's elimination from the World Cup.  England have not been a power in world football for some time now.  We can't make excuses.  Yes, Diego Godín should've been sent off for Uruguay during the first half of their game with England; a lot of people talk about "foreign players" in the Premier League affecting England (which is utter, utter nonsense, of course - a complete straw man of an argument).  These details may distract us from the pain of elimination, and provide pub bores with things to bang on about to anyone who'll listen - but ultimately, we have to face up to the fact that we just weren't good enough.

We need to lose the delusions of grandeur, resist the urge to cast desperately around for scapegoats, and stick with this new generation of young players to try and build a squad with the capability maybe to spring a surprise at the Euro Championships in 2016, or at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Oh, and now that we're out of the World Cup, can we at least no longer show chirpy television adverts "starring" the forced, wooden acting of England football players?  I think we should make that a rule, from now on - no more adverts featuring England players once we're knocked out.

Blogging? It's just stabbing at a computer keyboard with your fingers!

Richard Ayoade as 'Moss' and Chris O'Dowd as 'Roy' in 'The IT Crowd'.

The image and quotation above are taken from cult comedy series The IT Crowd.  I am a big fan of the show, and of this episode - but the way this picture is being spread around the internet at the moment irritates me no end.

Of course, in the middle of the World Cup (the biggest footballing event in the world), we might expect the usual detractors of the beautiful game - those who take a certain amount of glee in describing football as "just twenty-two overpaid neanderthals chasing a leather bag of air up and down a field" (or something similar) - to shout louder than ever.  And isn't that just intensely annoying?

There's nothing wrong with not liking football, of course.  Every individual is free to like or dislike whatever he or she wishes - and that's as it should be.  There's not even anything wrong with saying you don't like football.  Or even saying so over and over again (although that can get a little tedious). What irks me about these particular kinds of people is the way they go beyond a mere disliking of football to an attempt to belittle and dismiss the entire concept of football.  I imagine the grand arm-gesture and the sneering tone-of-voice; "football? Oh, it's just a bunch of men running about."

It isn't, though, is it?  It's quite a bit more than that, as we all well know.

The fact is, it's possible to describe anything in such a way that you reduce it to a couple of disparaging sentences of sheer disdain, distilling the most fundamental essence of a particular activity and then expressing it in a way calculated to imply that it requires no skill, training, practise or hard work whatsoever.

You're an Olympic gymnast?  Oh, that's just a lot of leaping about in tight lycra clothing.

You enjoy fine food?  Oh, that's just making stuff warm and then putting it in your face.

You like fishing?  That's just dangling some string in the sea.

You're a mathematician?  Oh, that's just writing down numbers.

You're a Formula 1 driver?  Oh, that's just driving 'round and 'round in circles.

You've written a bestselling novel?  That's just choosing some words over others.

You're an opera singer?  Oh, that's just making sounds with your throat.

You played the lead rôle in a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company?  Oh, that's just saying words while wearing a silly ruff.

…see what I mean?!

Not liking something doesn't mean you have to show complete and utter contempt for the whole idea.  I don't particularly enjoy watching (or playing) darts - but I can still appreciate that it takes a huge amount of skill and precision to be really good at it.  Indeed, I'd have thought that much was self-evident.

Not liking football doesn't make you any 'better'.  It makes you different from people who do like it - and there's nothing wrong with that!  But if you're the sort of person who derives a perverse delight from denigrating something which brings so much joy to so many people, maybe you should look first at why that is…

Foreign bodies in the box

As at every major international tournament (and oftentimes in between, as well), the topic of foreign players playing in English football leagues is being hotly debated by a whole host of people who have spectacularly missed the point.

The argument goes that too many of those nasty foreign players are coming over here with their 'skills' and their 'work ethic' and clubs are playing them instead of decent, honest homegrown English players, who are left sitting on the bench, barely getting any game time at all.  And, therefore, this hurts the national team when it comes to big tournaments, because our players can't seem to get a game at club level.

There may well be something in that.  But calling for restrictions or regulations is a nonsense which would ruin football in this country.  Of course clubs are going to play their strongest starting XI given the opportunity - what else would you expect them to do?!  If the foreign players are better, more naturally gifted, and work harder in training than their English counterparts, isn't it up to those English players to up their game?

If you're not good enough to start for your club, then you're not good enough - don't whinge about it, don't go running to mummy and daddy claiming the other kids are being mean to you… Do something about it!  To argue for restrictions is no different, in principle, from the Luddite protectionism displayed by London cab drivers in response to a competitor (in the shape of taxi app Uber) appearing on the market.

But this is all a smokescreen for the real issue which haunts the England team - the fact that none of England's players are playing in foreign leagues.  Far from wringing our hands worrying about foreign players 'coming over here', we should be 'going over there'.

Where the #ENG starting XI play their club football. #ENGvITA pic.twitter.com/RX2J6X1zVS
— BBC 606 (@bbc606) June 14, 2014

Why is that?  Well, we hear a lot of talk about how the Premier League is the best league in the world - it clearly isn't (although that's definitely a topic for another post!), but what it does have is a very distinctive style of play.  Almost all the players who have played for England in my lifetime have stayed in England their entire careers - which makes them rather one-dimensional, no matter how good they are.  The 'English way of playing' is all they know - and when players with such little experience of different styles of playing come up against other international teams during the World Cup, they often don't know how to handle them.

When you look at the best international football teams, their squads are melting pots of a range of various footballing cultures from around the world; they will have players who play club football in the Premier League, in La Liga, in the Bundesliga, in Brazil, in Argentina, in the US - and this gives them a much more rounded experience of football in general.  Personally, I would prefer to see more English players signing for clubs abroad (even - and this is crucial - if not necessarily for the top clubs in those foreign leagues), gaining more knowledge of different footballing styles, different climates, different stadia, etc. - and then drawing all these diverse experiences together to mould an exciting and multi-faceted England team which knows its opponents and can anticipate them.

But this will never happen, because in England we are cursed with a vastly overinflated opinion of our own football culture, and refuse to see the bigger picture.

Why I am IN

No, this isn't a Liberal Democrat party political broadcast (although if they asked me to do one, I wouldn't rule it out).  I'm talking about staying in to watch the football…

This evening - at the ungodly (to many, but to me perfectly reasonable) time of eleven o'clock - is England's first game of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.  For me, conversation about the match has dominated the past few days; discussions about tactics, possible lineups, score predictions - and about viewing arrangements on the night.  During rehearsals yesterday with one of the bands I work for, there was a keen debate about which pubs would be the best places to watch the game - there was even talk of watching it in one of the local nightclubs.  Honestly?  I can't think of anything worse.

Yes, watching the football down the pub is a typically British, typically blokey thing to do.  I just fail to see any appeal.  Is there any way in which watching the game in a pub is actually better than just watching at home?  Let's see…

Screen

Yes, most pubs are going to be showing the match on a screen significantly bigger than my TV at home.  Is this a good thing?  No.  At least, not when it will either be so high up on the wall that watching a full ninety minutes causes a permanently cricked neck for days afterwards, or positioned awkwardly behind a pillar, 'round the corner, past a group of exceedingly tall people who arrived early and positioned themselves inconsiderately close.  My television is of a perfectly adequate size for viewing officiating disasters and Wayne Rooney's missed chances, thank you very much.

Environment

At home, I can sit on a comfortable sofa, with a clear view of my quite-big-enough television; I can see everything that's going on, and I can hear all the commentary and analysis (even if I sometimes wish I couldn't).  I can have a drink or a snack without having to pay ridiculous amounts for the privilege, after queueing for twenty minutes (thus missing a large portion of the game) only to be told that the establishment's selection of whiskies is "Jack Daniels or Bells, mate."

I won't be in the lose-lose situation of having to choose between standing up all evening and enduring the agony of aching feet and having nowhere to put anything, or sitting on either a rickety and uncomfortable barstool with a partially obscured view or a marginally less rickety and uncomfortable chair with a totally obscured view.

Connectivity

Like it or not, the internet and social media have become a part of the way many people experience big global events - like a World Cup.  Personally, I like it.  I would much rather be at home where I know I have access to WiFi and charging sockets than in a pub fretting about intermittent 3G and dwindling phone battery.

Atmosphere

This is the big one.  People like going to the pub to watch the game because of the 'atmosphere' (whatever that means).  To me, it means having to share an experience I ought to enjoy with a group of loutish strangers who get steadily more drunk and more rowdy as the night wears on, in a setting where every surface is sticky, the air is hot and humid with the fetid sweat of many men, and there is a lengthy queue for basic amenities like food, drinks and toilets.

Just because I enjoy football, it does not necessarily follow that I enjoy the company of hoards of lager-swilling "white van man" types in England shirts which stretch unedifyingly over their burgeoning beer guts, each convinced he is the biggest football expert in the room and determined to shout down anyone who thinks otherwise.  Nor that I enjoy having to jostle for position just to see the lower left-hand corner of a TV screen which really needs the colour contrast adjusting; nor having beer spilt on my shoes; nor paying £3 for a packet of crisps; nor "banter".

No, I'm definitely going to stay at home to watch England - where I can actually relax and enjoy the game.

San Marino Royale

England's chances of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil were given a boost, following a good 8-0 win over San Marino last night.  I remain, however, ashamed of the attitude of some England fans in the run-up to the game yesterday.

In sport, no one likes a sore loser - and no one likes a sore winner either.  To be a sore winner before the game's even started is really bad.  I found a lot of the comments about San Marino by English football fans to be incredibly arrogant, and also very unpleasant.  Saying things like (for example) "we don't even need to play a goalkeeper tonight!" or "my mum could play for England tonight, and we'd still win!" is pretty poor, in my opinion.

I've met some considerable resistance in trying to explain this point-of-view over Twitter, with plenty of England fans not deigning to consider San Marino worthy of the England team's time.  Believing others to be beneath you - and then pushing that view in their face - is not a nice way to behave, and certainly doesn't make England as a nation look good.

So, here's my take on things...

First of all - this is football, and anything can happen.  Nothing is a foregone conclusion.  Not to mention the fact that England tend to have a history of making rather a meal of matches which, on paper, they ought to win comfortably.

But most importantly, even you do think that England will walk it, and could win the game playing only eight players against San Marino's eleven (or something like that) you don't have to shout about it. How about staying classy, for once, and respecting the opponents?  That kind of cocky strutting by fans before the game is exactly the kind of arrogance which makes England (and English supports) look bad to other footballing nations.  There's simply no need for it.

The argument that "it's not arrogance if it's true" doesn't really hold water either.  You could go to an ATM, withdraw £100 in cash, and then wave it in the face of the nearest homeless person, singing "I've got money and you haven't, ha ha ha ha ha!" - that would be true, but it would also make you come across as vulgar and gauche and generally quite an unpleasant person.

The fact that England did win 8-0 I can ascribe only to the fact that within the team the players and coaches were professional enough not to think they could beat San Marino even if they were on Space Hoppers, and still respected the game enough to play properly and do the basics right.

I'm proud of our team, of course, and I'm very glad we won.  But English football fans who persist in such cockiness running up to a game do neither themselves, nor the team, any favours at all.