This week’s episode features a round up of the games that had been played at the time, instant reaction to France, South Africa.  See if we called Germany and Ghana correctly and how we think the Kiwis will get on today. The regular well of amusement that is ’Call My Fact’ runs a little dry but there is still room for The Bard, Ilunga Mwepu, Alf Di Stefano, Mark Knofler, Mark Bresciano and some coach theft.  The Grand Feature of Underdog, will obviously Feature The New Zealand lions who held Italy last week. Media Watch features Chris Waddle but is very brief.  No word from Nick in South Africa just yet but we’ll be hearing from him in the next episode.

We again try, and partly fail, to not talk too much about England and predict the qualifiers – of which we definately got Germany right. Wow! Insight.

Thanks for listenng/reading.

Nick’s blog last Seat On The Plane
Cockle’s blog Half Time Whistle

Broadsheet, if not quite tabloid, opinion appears to be moving towards vilifying the ring leaders in this pathetic England team.  The general consensus being, ‘oh stop making excuses and grow a pair, you overpaid sensitive nancy boys’.  For too long now these pampered half-people have been blaming others or searching hard for excuses with which to pass off their failure and in doing this seem to forget that the fans expeect glorious failure but would rather avoid weak-willed, submission, lack of application and competence.  The players milk goodwill, act with wilful self interest and, astonishingly, also with excessive arrogance and delusion.

‘Clear the air talks’?  You’re presumably having a laugh?  The only air that really needs clearing is the hot stuff that emanates, permanently, from every robotic member of this bloated, media trained whiny squad.  There is something to be said for ensuring all England players are ‘in a good moment’, as Fabio might say, but there is a line where good preparation becomes pandering to their every whim.  This pandering is what they get day in / day out at club level and that clearly turns affable young men into monstrous sulking ogres with a whole bag of frozen Iceland chips on their shoulders.  It is never their fault, at club level it is always the ref, the opposition, bad luck, the fans getting on their backs etc etc.

The Premiership player is not programmed to accept responsbility, there are almost no consequences to even the worst actions. These delicate little flowers (delicate when it suits them, that is) want to talk and have their point heard, which is fine but the talk is cheap, it is rarely backed with action. And the talk of the England squad member is the most bargain bucket of any footballer at the bst of times.   As Rooney, seemingly now the second or third most deluded of these pound shop moaners, showed how completely out of touch he now is by complainaing of boos after the Algeria game.  Is it impossible for such cosseted individuals to accept or understand the reasons why they are booed?  As has been pointed out by many better commentators than I, they were booed because a lot of people had spent a lot of money and taken a lot of holiday to watch these players have a decent tournament, in line with expectation.  They don’t expect this bunch of players to win the World Cup but they do at least hope highly paid and trained professionals, who perform brilliantly for club, can manage the simple tasks like effort and competence.  The vast majority of England’s team have, seemimgly, been unable to.

But yet, we know, of course, that none of this failure is the footballer’s fault, we don’t understand. Outwardly they talk the talk but it’s what they have been told to say. The extra stuff that leaks out gives them away.  Excuses excuses, always the same.  First it was the altitude, then it was the ball, then it was press intrusion, now it’s when the team is picked and how it’s picked and how they train – allegedly.  Sorry chaps, it may well, minutely, be some of those things but it can’t be the manager’s methods.  After all, throughout qualifying, when you were winning, you loved them, he was a breath of fresh air, you loved the discipline of knowing who was boss.  Remember? He is doing very little different now.

I am uncertain how any of these factors can explain how Rooney goes from being a player with the best touch in England to a player unable to control the simplest of passes. I do know that the carping is endemic and must stop in order for anything t improve. Part of me hopes that England get knocked out on Wednesday, celebrating the success of this bunch of ingrates would require serious compromise.  At least if they get knocked out Fabio will resign and then unleash almighty vengeance by exposing the ludicrous demands, expectations and fragile egos of this hapless bunch of cuntbeaks.

Will it change anything? I suspect not but it might lead to more of a tabloid swing towards blame of players, rather than the likely Bolognese Head that will appear when we lose.  Fabio, like many of his immediate predecessorsget somne flack for the eneormous pile of cash they get to manage an international team. They clearly have to, it’s danger money in order to soften the blow of having to with these egomaniancs.

Like Fabio’s, the management style of the last three or four England managers has come under the spotlight after perceived player criticism.  Given the vast majority of those managers had a decent record one can only assume some other force is at play, maybe the players are not as good as they think they are or the FA is constantly employing the wrong men.  The latter is feasible but both Sven and Fabio were internationally renowned.  The former, however, is quite clearly a trend.  It’s funny that the same core of twats keeps having issues with managers’ style but yet only when they aren’t winning.

As is becoming the pattern, the players are now taking stick for being useless and they’ve clearly decided to castrate themsleves with the reason that it is because Fabio picks his team too late.   Much is made of the courage of the English footballer but it’s rarely in evidence in psychological terms in an England camp.  Long gone are the days when Psycho or Butcher (or even beckham!) will step up and take the lead by example.  This courage may sometimes manifest itself physically but where are the genuine guts, where are the massive cojones, where is the self respect, where is the pride?  There was very little of it on show in the last week.

Do we really want England to win the World Cup?  Can we really celebrate this bunch?  All will be forgotten of course, in that event, but the core of this team can easily be perceived as rotten.  John Terry, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard,  Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney keep having the same old problems, it is becoming increasingly clear the people with the problem are the players and not the manager, or the ball, or the altitude … It is not even necessarily because they aren’t good enough, which they might not be, it’s simply because they are maladjusted young men who have been almost dehumansied by their clubs, the big clubs.  They are insufficiently balanced human beings and cannot cope with this scenario.

In my eyes, the only way to  change this is for Premier League managers to stop pandering to these millionaires, stop making excuses for them, stop protecting them in the face of the obvious error. Well, given that the manager is always the one who get’s the owner’s blame for failure, i can’t see why the player would take any notice o fthe manager so it has to come down to the owner. Except he’s not English, has lot sof money invested and wants blood, he doesn’t give a shite.

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In a short postscript I would just like to bash my usual target.  You’ll notice that it’s not just Terry and England in this tournament.  Deco’s had a pop at Key Hair Osh.  Anelka has clashed with Domenech … OK, Domenech is bonkers and Blanc was perhaps foollishly named his successor before this tournament began but he is still the manager and, whether you like him or not, presumably you have some professional pride and actually want to win the World Cup?  Or maybe not. My point being that these players all play for the same club team. And, talking of Terry, is this man the most deluded of all?.  Stripped of the England captaincy for nailing the mother of team mate’s child, he think he’s the obvious choice of leader to lay down a challenge to the England manager. He’s the manager John, do as you’re told and get on with it or go home.

Anti-Modern-Football.

And NEW ZEALAND. And here’s to hoping that Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen will have their sarcastic comments rammed forcibly where it’s cloudy. Although why Hansen feels so able to comment given his team aren’t there, we don;t know. Unless, of course, he is now a nationalised Englishman?

And North Korea, although they stand next to no chance, presumably.

Image courtesy of TWTD

Well, maybe, but it was an amusing night so where to start … ? After four games of relative calm, a bit of banging on by Beglin and some old fashioned stereotyping from Mick ‘naive defending’ McCarthy, we get ITV HD ground zero.

But, before that, let’s go straight to Corden. I like Gav&Stace but I’m not a fan of the big lad when he’s on panel shows but, to be fair, neither he nor Simon Cowell were the problem with this show. Katy Perry, eh, whose bright idea was that? And Abby Clancy? What the fuck? What sort of insulting cult sticks Gordon Banks and Adam Johnson with these vapid tit-sticks? Though I did like that bloke out of Hollyoaks staring with hollow, dead eyes at the back of Banks’ head whenever he said anything. Weird.

Cowell is big enough and showbiz enough to deal with it, which he did admirably, and even came out of it with some cache. But the first 10 minute of that show will live long in my memory as the most buttock clenching TV since that one time I watched Jeremy Kyle.

I hope Banks and Johnson have sacked their agents.

Now, ITV. In our preview we sarcastically referred back to the Everton debacle, the one where they went to an ad break and missed the goal and the only bit of entertainment of note in a fairly dour game. Well, we joked that we hoped that wouldn’t happen again but, 4 minutes into the very first England game, ITV HD viewers were treated to the sponsor’s [I'm not naming them] shit and then a blank screen. The blank screen was, presumably, where someone was frantically trying to retrieve the situation and then realised England had scored so went all Robert Green, pressed ‘CUT’ and prepared themselves for a lynching.

Adrian Chiles to his immense discredit mumbled a quarter apology about viewing problems. I wonder if the directors told him the full nightmare scenario? Given most pubs would have been viewing in HD I am guessing a lot of people missed the goal. It was funny when it came back and it took a few seconds for someone to realise it had become 1-0.

There was an oddly muted cheer before half a dozen blokes started to spew forth the bile in the general direction of Adam Crozier and then descend in to fits of laughter. And don’t even get me started on Tyldesley, he must have been watching a different game for about the first hour so erratic where his utterings.

Then we noticed Henry Winter’s tweet: “In with #England coach Capello…not showing much awareness of enormity of result…”. Enormity? What enormity? Earlier, Henry said “Heskey helped make Gerrard’s goal but little else.” What game had this man been watching? Have you been on the sauce, Henry? A new low for the once great man.

What a classy way to end the day. All afternoon we’d been treated to some great shots of Maradona, finger pointy goal celeb, shouty shrugs at officials and rotund pleasure at full time. And all in glorious beardocolour.

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Addendum.
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I forgot about the eyebrows. Man, the eyebrows. During the BBC highlights package the MOTD team seemed to be controlled by experienced puppeteers. Eyebrows up, eyebrows down, someone with skill needs to edit it together to the Can Can.

Lee Dixon had had his shaved off, Hansen had gone for the kind of Hitler Moustache halfbrow shave and Big Al and Smooth Gal just upped and downed like a dog’s back leg. Most odd. And Becks with his Roger Moore eyebrow-up look topped it off. Top notch facial wizardry gets the Beeb crew the Weekend Pundit Gold Star.

In a similar vein, “Carry on ranting” says the Sun’s Steven Howard to Fabio. “After all, it has worked for the last 25 games” he reasons. Well, tactics and that not required then? Grrrrr. Also in the Sun El Terry of the Costa Scribes tells us his Top 100 World Cup stars. Half of England’s team are in the top 15 so surely we can’t fail to win the damn thing? Well, maybe, maybe not, only another 2 make the top 100. Also, Venables used to say that if a team had 5 players who could score a goal they’d probably win. Well, 2 of the 5 Lions that El Tel lists are defenders so, the pre-requisite 5 are not there. We’re doomed? Probably, given Spain have 7 attackers in Terry’s top 30, you can perhaps draw your own conclusions about where Venablia thinks Jules might end up this time.

Tuesday and Wednesday were John Terry’s days to say England could win the World Cup, while at the same time moaning about the ball, the altitude, the lack of top-end moisturiser and the frustration caused by poor quality hotel lighting. Today it’s Joe Cole’s turn to insist “we” can win the World Cup and he is EVERYWHERE, every paper running an EXCLUSIVE! God I’m bored, I can’t wait for the telly stuff to kick off so I don;t have to read the newspapers ever again.

Joe seemed less bothered about the Jabulani but the Telegraph’s Alan Smith cast an ex-pro’s eye over the phenomenon that is the Adidas ball and concluded that ball, not talent, meant he only scored about 20 goals a season when he was gangling around defenders 20 years ago. Talent, effort, application and fortune would not have improved Smudger’s return, but this ball would have magically made him a 50 goal a season striker!! Yes, 50! FIFTY! What a majestic piece of kit this vulcanized rubber device must be!

The Mail’s Alex Kay, the Telegraph’s Ian Chadband and even Tottingham legend Ossie Ardiles believe Lionel Messi is the key to Argentina’s World Cup. Not controversial but about 30,000 words between them was a bit OTT. That was particularly the case when, within minutes of the presses stopping for the day, Argentina’s fitness coach was telling the world that the little maestro was knackered and nothing could get him in shape for the World Cup, except several weeks of rest. Doh! By which time presumably Divine Diego’s followers will have been sent home and moved on to a lesser god.

The Sport’s Dean Windass thumped tubs and waxed lyrical about oxen, lions, battles and going hell-for-leather, after insisting we had to “nip our collective arseholes” and stop “pissing about with multiple substitutions and weird experimental formations”. Well, that’s that sorted then. In the Mail, modest, card-happy, Tring-based, ex- whistler, Graham Poll, noted that four years ago he was “one of the very best referees in the world”. He was, to be fair, and he now thinks Carlos Simon is getting grief erroneously and is actually a good ref with some unfair baggage. Poll is backing Carlos to deal with the England USA game in a thoroughly professional manner

Finally, this gem from the comments sction in the Mail sum up perfectly what is wrong with not only the average Mail reader but also the average English football ‘fan’. I really do despair.

Lovely, Lovely People

If you don’t do iTunes then CLICK ME and press play to listen via the RSS feed.

This week’s gobshites are Taylor, Bruno, Cockles and Damon and we get down with fruity sound of the vuvuzela. Actually, that’s a slight lie, it was a Croatia flavoured sub-vuvu acquired at a non-league FA Ciup tie.

Important questions are asked, will Gabriel Clarke and Gabby Logan get cosy while following the England team around South Africa. What has happened to El Tel and how long will Jurgen Klinsman wait before putting the boot into England?

And will Steve Rider ever get a new job?

If you have any questions or comments or come cross any examples of shabby World Cup media coverage, let us know by email, via the Twitter feed or via therealfacup Facebook wall.

Next week all of this and focus on North Korea, before they are officially knocked out. The week after it will be New Zealand, who will hopefully still be in, and we’ll be joined in the ‘studio’ by rabid Kiwi, Jiff.

Linky to podcast here, for now. Hopefully available on iTunes shortly, we’re just waiting for the review.

This first effort is a test, mostly to see if the 8 year old G4 iBook will stand up to it. This episode me, Andy and Ryan just have a bit of a chinwag about the England squad, all those ads, our hopes for the finals and some filthy porn. There was also some brief mention of the Switzerland World Cup in 1954 but I think we got away with it. Mind you, those crazy Swiss certainly know how to throw a party, 140 goals in just 26 matches. More of that would be fuckin’ ‘A’.

In the weeks to come we’ll be more structured, have a look at the fortunes of NZ, Honduras, South Africa and North Korea, among others. We’ll be keeping a beedy eye on the media and having a chuckle at inevitable big boy tantrums *MexiCAN*.

Joining us from South Africa, whenever he can, will be Nick from Last Seat On The Plane blog. And if we’re lucky Simon will chuck us some bones from whichever part of the Americas he’s currently in. Will he be back before the final …. ???

Next week’s effort will include our first Underdog Feature … the Hosts, South Africa. As we’re new to this any comments, abusive or otherwise, are more than welcome and any questions might even be pondered by the expert panel.

Bye.

Johnson, Carragher – Ferdinand, Terry, King, Upson – A.Cole, Baines

Walcott, Lennon – Barry, Lampard, Parker, Milner – Gerrard, Cole

Heskey, Rooney, Crouch, Defoe

Missing out – Bent, Johnson, Carrick, Dawson, Warnock, Wright -Phillips, Huddlestone.

Well, this is kind of a mixture between what we want and what we expect, largely because several players we would have chosen weren’t even in the 30. Our two qualms with Fabio is he seems to have hit the panic button with the Scholes and Carragher situations. And, having spent two years saying he favours players playing regularly and in-form, he chooses Carragher, Walcott, Heskey, Crouch and Defoe, leaving out players with significantly better form. And we suspect he’ll take Carrick too.

UPDATE
Baines, Dawson, Huddlestone Parker, A Johnson, Walcott, Bent miss out so we got three wrong.

ACTUAL SQUAD

James, Hart, Green.

Johnson, Carragher – Ferdinand, Terry, King, Upson – A.Cole, Warnock

Wright-Phillips, Lennon – Barry, Lampard, Carrick, Milner – Gerrard, Cole

Heskey, Rooney, Crouch, Defoe

As thorough visitors to this site will know, well known singer songwriter Dylan Ross contributed lyrics to make our own official song.

Despite some basic music knowledge and access to super intelligent software, some percussion instruments and an Ocarina, extreme lack of talent has meant we’ve never got round to putting any music to it. And neither has anyone else. But Dylan now has! You’ll find the link on our ‘Official Song’ page but it’s also here on Dylan’s youtube channel.

In pure realfacup style, Dylan says he’s properly recorded the song “in response to the glut of football songs doing the rounds thanks to the FA’s decision not to have an official song this time around”. He, like us, stared whistfully skywards and pondered what Keith Allen would be doing with himself this summer …

Enjoy. And … stop press … Dylan has been linked up on Square Football

And, as we’re going a bit Real World Cup for the summer, why not also head over to Square Football for more unoffical World Cup song action. If you haven’t already.