Were Spain excellent...or just average?
Wednesday 30 June 2010 11:44
La Liga Loca’s ‘Ladeez of Battlestar Galactica’ calendar - Cylon Boomer is next month’s model, yay! - says that July is almost upon us.
And that means the blog has been watching and droning on about football non-stop for some eleven months now. This might explain why LLL has even less of a clue than usual on what in jumping Josephine’s longjohns is going on in the wide, wide world of sport.
The blog thought that Spain’s footballing efforts against Switzerland and Honduras were quite good, whilst the performances against Chile and most recently of all, Portugal were a little like an average episode of CSI: it passes the time and entertains you in snatches with the occasional cool shot of a bullet going very slowly through a shoulder blade (ah, so that's what happened to Joan Capdevilla last night - ed.).
LLL senses that the good people of Madrid may agree. During Euro 2008, the singing/car horn tooting after each victory went on for days. On Tuesday night, it had all but stopped half-an-hour after the 1-0 win over Portugal, aside from the odd tool who decided to celebrate at 4.30 in the morning.
However, the sporting press don’t seem to follow this more modest vibe. The TV broadcasters of the Portugal clash spent 90 minutes shouting “Excellent Puyol! Excellent Busquets! Excellent Torres!” Every. Time. They. Did. Anything.
This is especially deluded in the case of the Liverpool striker who will surely be sent back to England forthwith branded with a big ‘damaged goods’ mark on his Fuenlabradan forehead, especially after Fernando Llorente’s fairly bright cameo appearance.
Marca have gone most nuts with the headline of “This is my Spain!”. “The reds get their rhythm and touch back that made them the best in the world!....The triumph of the masters!” continues the paper before declaring victory on Saturday in their editorial.
“Spain has everything. A beatable opponent but one we’ll have to be careful of in Paraguay and on top of everything else, a group of wonderful footballers capable of amazing the whole world.”
AS are just as nuts in their assessment of the 1-0 win against a team that barely bothered to attack with the paper happily going into stereotype mode with the headline “Bullfighters!”
“A good match, a good win and a good rival for the quarters,” smugs the paper’s editor Alfredo Relaño who puts Spain straight into a possible semi-final clash against Germany or Argentina where LLL expects La Selección to get their a**es handed to them unless they improve across the board over the next week.
Deeper inside the paper the wonderfully mad Tomás Roncero, who has been let loose in South Africa, writes that Spain has got back “its lyrics, its music, its prose, its verse, its tiki, its taka, its possession, its obsession...”
Even Luis Aragonés, who has been poking away at his former charges from the beginning of the tournament - as is his right Mr Marca Director, Eduardo Inda, who wrote a nasty, little editorial suggesting that the Euro 2008 winner “shuts up” - is a little chipper and notes that “the Spain we want to see was in the second half.
”How to deal with Cristiano Ronaldo’s - ahem - display in the Spain clash has left both Madridista papers in a bit of quandary. AS are less bent over Real Madrid’s spanking knee and so are happy to award the pouty-one zero points from three for his footballing stylings and snigger that he was “back to failing in a decisive game.”
Marca give him one point but did opine that the brave little Madrid soldier “walked alone with his eyes glazed and fury in his face.”
Ronaldo’s general hopelessness in the tournament gave Barcelona-based Sport a chance for a chuckle with Josep Maria Casanovas noting that the culé-for-life, product of La Masia and “great Barcelona signing, David Villa, had the Madrid star for breakfast in a spectacular manner before the eyes of the football world.”
But all the praise being thrown in Spain’s direction has got the blog genuinely thinking that it has lost the plot and has squashed its footballing compass.
Is it getting too old for this kind of (cough), as they say in Lethal Weapon?
Maybe La Furia Roja were back to their best? Maybe a final berth is in the bag?
Or maybe there are other voices in the wilderness who feel the same grumpy way as La Liga Loca?
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About Tim Stannard
La Liga Loca is the playground for the evil, more childish half of Tim Stannard’s psyche to be let loose. The other 50% is a contributor to FourFourTwo magazine, Football365, Sabotage Times as well as other publications such as UEFA Champions Magazine and When Saturday Comes. He is also a regular guest on Real Madrid TV’s Extra Time show and works as a TV producer extraordinaire for hire. To contact Tim directly email laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk