Football Daily | It’s World Cup week – will the hope, memes and dreams be as good as it gets?
In today’s Football Daily: has the World Cup already peaked?
#CONTENT
Geopolitics World Cup Week is upon us, baby. We stand on the edge of greatness. Who will dream, who will dare to stay up on Friday night for the 3am (BST) kick-off of South Korea v Czechia, and live to tell the tale? Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and, with muffled drum, bring out the television, let the morning come.
Yes, the undercooked boiled eggs at Fifa might have tried to ruin the World Cup with their extortionate ticket prices and other concerns but after nearly four years of waiting, we are now just three days away from the start of football’s greatest spectacle. Everywhere Football Daily looks there is a feast for the eyes. The Côte d’Ivoire squad checked into their hotel in Delaware wearing jackets that would make the Tango Orange Man blush. Brazil were also typically understated in their arrival after the plane carrying the Seleção squad was literally baptised by fire engines on the runway – Carlo Ancelotti’s side arrived safe in the USA USA USA before they beat Egypt in their final warmup match that featured movable corner flags.
The internet is already awash with #content – Big Website’s snazzy player guide and Bracketology game are live live live, glossy pre-tournament adverts from sportswear giants (including one that features Channing Tatum as Erling Haaland) have started doing the rounds, while Edgar Davids and Didier Drogba have been spotted playing cage football with Steve Nash in New York City. And is there a bigger dopamine hit than watching England fans refusing to do the Mexican Wave during the 1-0 warm-up win over New Zealand?
Let’s hope the GWC lives up to the considerable hype. US-based boffins at the Washington University in St Louis have revealed that dopamine can actually peak during anticipation of an event rather than during the event itself – apparently an evolutionary mechanism that helped our ancestors stay motivated during long hunts and gathering expeditions. Which is basically a nerdy way of saying that this week, this small euphoric window before the tournament begins, bursting with hope, memes and dreams, might be as good as it gets before the crushing disappointment of actually watching England/Scotland/Brazil/your favourite team crash out in the first knockout round. Roll on Thursday!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I consider myself one of the greatest players ever. An 11 out of 10” – there’s gold in this here chat between the ever-modest Romário and Thiago Rabelo.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Podcast-wise, I only listen to Football Weekly of course (ahem …) but I did happen to hear an interview with Jürgen Klinsmann. What’s fascinating about him is that whenever he’s interviewed he always trots out a story about Diego Maradona at Napoli doing a famous warm-up with ‘Live is Life’ playing in the background with him and his teammates warming up in the corner of the pitch and looking at him in awe. The problem is, that happened in a game in 1989 between Bayern Munich and Napoli in the semi-final of the old Big Vase but Klinsmann was at Stuttgart at the time. Stuttgart did play Napoli in the final, but Maradona didn’t do that warmup then, so he must have seen footage of the warmup so many times that he’s conflated the two. Memory is a funny old thing” – Noble Francis.
Re: Graham Potter’s claim to be the best non-Swede to take the country to the World Cup (Friday’s Quote of the Day). Either he is unaware of the remarkable achievement of the English manager George Rayner who took them to the 1958 final (where they lost to Pelé’s Brazil) or he expects to win the whole damn thing! I’m weighing up whether to put this month’s housekeeping on them at 150-1” – Bob Wilcox
Imagine my shock when I read Friday’s Football Daily only to find that Neale Redington – whom I’m sure meant nothing by it – suggested that my questioning whether Andoni Iraola really wanted the potentially thankless job of Liverpool gaffer/convenient target meant that I might be a fan of Tottenham. But in the interest of full disclosure: no. I don’t really have a horse in the Premier League race, other than enjoying recent seasons of Manchester City for the sake of watching Erling Haaland turn world-class defenders into so many kanelsnurr. The team of my heart is the San Jose Earthquakes, but while I pull for a club that hasn’t won anything in quite some time, I still do not have the level of masochism necessary to be a Spurs supporter. Sorry. Wishing Iraola luck (he’s likely to need it)” –Ray Anselmo.
May I ask who this Ricardo Lopes is who plays for Cape Verde and ‘Shamrock’? It couldn’t possibly be Roberto “Pico” Lopes of Shamrock Rovers, could it?” – Neill McGowan (and 1,056 others).
If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day is … Noble Francis. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.
A FRIENDLY ROW
Norway have the hump with Scotland and it’s not over fishing rights in the North Sea. No, this is connected to the Scots cancelling a training-ground friendly between the two sides that had been scheduled for Monday. Peeved Norway head coach Ståle Solbakken has branded Scotland boss Steve Clarke “unprofessional” while team manager, Brede Hangeland, has been chuntering away to Norwegian TV about “gentleman’s agreements” being broken. The official line from Scotland is that they have several injury niggles and don’t want to take any risks but Football Daily has two other theories. One, Scotland don’t want to come down from the high of sticking four first-half goals past Bolivia during the friendly win in New Jersey at the weekend. Two, they’ve seen the picture below and decided if Erling Haaland isn’t even one of the taller members of the Norwegian squad, we’ll leave it, thanks.
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