Try as I might, the sight of one particular goal still turns my stomach every time I see it. You can watch it here after about two minutes of nostalgia and The Pogues. It’s a simple looping header from Wim Kieft at Euro ‘88, one with a wicked bounce, as well as another Dutchman standing in an offside position out of shot.

But it’s not the injustice of the linesman's decision – after all Alan McLoughlin was standing three yards offside when Kevin Sheedy blasted home against England at Italia ’90 – instead it’s just the sickening amount of time it takes to go in. Ireland slowly but surely seeing a semi final berth slip out of their grasp.

The flight of the ball barely makes sense, some odd divot is hit and football history follows. How many times have you seen Marco Van Basten’s volley in the final? At least a hundred if you’ve even a passing interest in football, near a thousand if you happen to actually like the game. No divot, no volley, no Marco Goalo volley of the century.

Kieft’s goal disgusts me to this day. I can’t help it.

The path of Dutch football rarely makes sense, be it to do with divots, lunch time seating arrangements or even the sheer oddity that is Dirk Kuyt. Therefore, Ireland’s exit at Euro ’88 to that goal should just be chalked down as another oddball moment in the history of a nation that’s usually too busy rowing to win tournaments; despite the fact that they’re often technically the best side on show.

There was a book released a few years ago by football writer David Winner, entitled Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football, which I picked up again recently. When I say ‘recently’, I mean out of a desperate attempt to do anything with Christmas other than drink, eat, eat, eat, drink… oh, and avoid generally awful Christmas TV (I include nearly every live Premier League game over the festive period in that too – cheers Sky for not showing Chelsea v Villa).

It did the trick. When you see a chapter on how the ‘Provos’ changed football you generally associate it with terrace violence in Northern Ireland’s top flight in the late seventies. However, in Winner’s book he’s referring to a 1960s group of Dutch anti-establishment protestors. Their tactics for social reform basically revolved around annoying the police with clever non-violent protests and pranks to such a point that the only logical conclusion was that they would end up getting a good kicking. Public support and press headlines followed.

The book itself is about the “idea of Dutch football” rather than the Dutch national side or even their club teams. The spirit of total football, so goes the argument, comes in part from inspiration such as the Provos, who managed to free themselves from the post-war conservatism of their home country. It’s not just them though; it’s their architects, painters, anarchists and the petty differences of the middle classes that make up the nature of Dutch football.

National identity it seems, dictates the national style of football. Does the argument stand up when you take a look at other nations? Seeing the almost drunken fashion in which the FAI have gone about stumbling from one failed conquest to another in the ‘race’ for Ireland manager, our administrators certainly resemble some of our fine nation on a Saturday night out. But actual footballing style?

The grinding nature of the Charlton era matched some very hard financial times; much like the flair players of the ultimately unsuccessful ‘70s side resembled the ramshackle trad music bands that delighted home crowds but often struggled abroad when it came to making the big breakthrough. Now we’re a nation who relies on foreign workers to prop up the workforce; should a decent continental coach get the job he will sit well with our mercenary friendly attitudes.

England’s style of play? Is there one? If there is, it resembles their white van man fan-base (try saying that ten times in a row) rather than the country as a whole - not subtle and can be accused of being brainless at times. Perhaps instead of protesting Provos, Fabio, Capello could look to Have I Got News for You for how to handle genuine talent in a large, often misguided organisation. Joe Cole as England’s Paul Merton? Privately educated Lamps as Ian Hislop? Owen Hargreaves as the anchor? It could work. It won’t, but it could.

Then there’s Spain; where Civil War pretty much defines their current squad and any in living memory. There’s also the slow method of carrying out their day (how many meals and breaks do they have anyway) that matches the patient build up of their football sides.

There’s gotta be some decent masters degree in the whole subject – after all if they can give college lectures on the science of superheroes then national football identities should have some of Mensa’s finest working on this topic.

Winner’s tale of the Dutch is a great read anyway… though I still wish that Kieft’s header had bounced harmlessly wide.
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Anyhoo, had to write on something other than the Premier League above as we have been battered over the head with it over Christmas. But much like Sam Allardyce’s wife (ref: Okeydoke Football’s entirely non-libelous Awards Show) we’re back for more so give us your best shot!

Tonight we’re podcasting and discussing the events of the Christmas period (winners: Chelsea, Arsenal; losers: Liverpool, Derby, and Newcastle). We’ll also have Pub Talk and comments.

Until then, belated Happy New Year, JJ

Okey Doke Football Podcast is available every Friday morning, subscribe here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/OkeyDokeFootball

For all those who weren’t overly excited at the thought of England being at Euro 2008, last night was one of the most delirious evenings of football seen in some time. I won’t go too in depth into English misery or the reasons for it. Instead here, simply, is a run down of some of the texts I received last night from a few mates during the genuinely enthralling 90 minutes and hilarious punditry at half time and full time, (some of which I unfortunately missed but got updates as you’ll see).

It all started with this one…

Pre-match:
‘New keeper, Terry and Rio missing, no Owen, no Rooney and Croatia top of the crop and wanting to beat the brits. Believe lads, believe. Have Croatia at 7-1’

0-1
‘Isn’t sport funny sometimes’
‘England one nil down… come on!’

0-2
‘Just when life can’t get any better, it suddenly does.’

Russia go 1-0 up
‘Lawro’s starting to get a bit upset with things. Can’t wait to see Wrighty’s mug at half time.’
‘Stan for England’

45 mins
‘Gary is straight into it at half time. “I don’t like to be in negative… eh town, but eh, I am Ian”… who was formerly called Wrighty before the game’
‘The look of pain on Ian Wright’s face is worth the Sky subscription alone’

1-2
‘Back in it and a miracle save from Carson. It’s starting to look a bit ominous.’

Now, from here there was quite a bit of silence, as people returned to their everyday lives fearing the inevitable. When that came from Crouch’s goal every man and his dog thought England were through. We didn’t reckon with England sitting back and seemingly refusing to pass to each other. Then…

3-2
‘Jesus I was so depressed thinking England would get through. Thank fuck!’

Final whistle:
‘Hansen came out with a good one there… said it’s a low point in English history. That’s no nonsense. He didn’t even mention football.’
‘Oops!’
‘Pure comedy genius’
‘Slaven Bilic, absolute legend – “listen England didn’t lose tonight because of McClaren’s tactics, you lost because we are a better team than you".’

And in the finale, we go back to where we started and my mate Mick with his 7-1 bet…
‘Let me help you with those champions league pools in future. Young lad operating on his own like you is easy fodder for the bookies.’

He’s right; my Champions League predictions are generally as piss poor as a 60-yard pass from Steven Gerrard, who incidentally changed his tune about McClaren fairly damn quickly after the game, having backed him for the last ten days. All in all, I won’t hide it, I’ve said plenty of times on the podcast that I didn’t want England to go through as – since Ireland have been dirt for a good five years now – I hate watching tournaments where my only interest is in seeing England fail.

Euro 2008 will lose very little with England’s elimination and I’m really looking forward to the tournament at last. Now here comes karma to kick me up the arse and we’ll get England in the World Cup group draw tomorrow afternoon.

Later, JJ

(ps: the name of the pic above, nicked from the BBC website is: '44254068_losers2_getty416'. Pretty much sums it up.)

Okey Doke Football Podcast is available every Friday morning,
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With the end of the Euro 2008 qualifiers in sight, many people are finishing up with some very important questions on their mind. While the problems of Ireland and Wales are well worn topics, so I won’t go into them here (most of them rhyme with ‘banager’ though) there’s a few issues that are left outstanding now that – for the most part – the participants in world football’s second biggest showcase have been decided.

Here’s a rundown…

Should they stay or should they go?
While it’s fairly obvious that many of the men who have led sides to unsuccessful campaigns will lose their jobs, there’s a few that have fate in their own hands. Marco van Basten for one has led Holland to the championships after a rough start to the campaign.
However, with Chelsea supposedly sniffing around and with his old team-mates Carlo Ancelloti and Frank Rijkaard looking shaky in their current jobs, he could yet jump ship prior to next June. There is also the suspicion that the Dutch will be far less than the sum of their parts next year, as was the case in the last World Cup. The fact that many of the players would happily see their national coach head off may also point towards an early exit for Marco Goalo.
Slaven Bilic too has said that he would like to manage in England and the poker-faced Croatian could well make a move to a decent Premier League side in the coming months. With Alan Curbishley continuing to provide plenty of bills but little answers for West Ham could the former Hammer, Bilic end up at Upton Park? Personally I hope so; the guy always talks with intelligence and likes to play good football, just what the league needs. The new Luca Vialli perhaps.

Check their heads
Scotland. Ah, poor old Scotland. Nearly there, not quite, within a whisper… say it whichever way you want but they didn’t make it. While their achievements in their group no doubt deserved more (any country would struggle to qualify from their group ahead of Italy and France); football is cruel and Scotland won’t have a competitive game for the guts of a year. Will their players be able to get themselves up for another mammoth campaign? A lot, obviously, depends on the draw for the World Cup qualifiers but consider these two questions:
(a) Their start striker McFadden has been playing well above himself, can he continue to do this at a high level? And…
(b) Can they overcome their inability to beat middling Eastern European sides away from home? The victory away to France was amazing, but victories against the Ukraine and Georgia would, most likely, have seen them through. Games like this will almost certainly feature in the next qualifying series.

All in all, these aren’t massive challenges, but the assumption they will qualify for the next major tournament is something that might come back and bite them on the arse next time around.

Major tournament England
Will the lessons be learned from the World Cup? Will the hype die down? Will the players play down their chances? Will McClaren be brave enough to drop Beckham for a second time? Will be brave enough to separate Gerrard and Lampard in a major tournament game? I’m guessing… no, no, no, no and just for a change eh… no.

There will be a lot of water under the bridge and no doubt plenty of broken metatarsals in the headlines before England head out to the tournament but you suspect that come next June it’ll be the same damn story. They have some decent players and let’s hope that now it looks like they’ll get there they play some decent football as, though I hate myself for it, I always end up watching their games.

Coverage c**ts
Will the BBC and ITV provide decent, un-biased and interesting coverage? With not a hint of Jonathan Pearce and Clive Tyldesley to be found anywhere? Will they bollocks.

“And now over to pitchside where everyone is shifting nervously next to our man on the inside, Garth Crooks.”
“Slurp…thanks Gary.”

Some things never change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cugYQ35vtvQ

Later, JJ

Okey Doke Football Podcast is available every Friday morning, subscribe here
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I know the issue of quotas is being looked at by most football sites today due to Steve Coppell and Gordon Brown sticking their respective oars into the issue. Alex Ferguson’s comments on the matter have also raised eyebrows (though his interest is in sticking it to Arsenal rather than the ‘health of the game’). But, aside from the questions over European employment laws and the development of the game in England, I thought I’d point out that the issue has always been a load of cobblers and is barely worthy of the discussion it’s currently getting.

English players, with the exception of a few decent stars in amongst the mire, have always been poor. A spark of gold in a pile of shite as Paul Calf (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcVDPDRKrt0) once said.

Think back to Liverpool’s win over AC Milan in Istanbul. Number of English players in the side – two; Gerrard and Carragher. Think back even further to Liverpool’s 1984 European Cup winning side (the last of seven wins in eight years for English sides) and the team was as follows: Grobbelaar, Neal, Kennedy, Lawrenson, Whelan, Hansen, Dalglish (Robinson), Lee, Rush, Johnston (Nicol), Souness. So that’s three Englishmen including the subs. Okay there’s more Frenchman than Scots in the modern European Cup winners but still very few English, and let’s not forget it’s only England that are bringing up this issue. The Scots are doing just fine… well until Saturday anyway.

Arsenal got to the 2006 final with only a half-fit Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell in their side. Yet despite their loss, when coupled with Liverpool’s victory the year before this laid many of the foundations for the idea of the ‘Golden Generation’ of English football that would win the 2006 World Cup. Five horrendous games later, the state of the English game looked a lot less healthy.

The Manchester United side of 1999 was far more representative in regards to English players – the Nevilles, Butt, Beckham, Cole and of course Scholes who would have been in there too had he not been suspended. Yet, after their triumph, 12 months later many of those players formed the core of an English side that went out in the group stages of Euro 2000. Spain didn’t last long in that tournament either, despite Real Madrid picking up the European Cup only six weeks earlier (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0CPIMH2t9s).

English sides dominated Europe in the mid-to-late seventies and early eighties yet the national side failed to qualify for two World Cups (74 and 78) and went out timidly in 1982 when they actually did make it to Spain.

In fact, there is very little to suggest that a nation’s success at club level – be it with home-grown players or foreigners – leads on to success at international level. Did Italy win anything in the late eighties or early nineties when their sides were dominating in Europe? Nope. Have Spanish national sides ever done anything at the highest level despite Real Madrid’s (and to a certain extent Barcelona’s) record in European competition? Nope.

Both the Italian and Spanish leagues have aspired to be the greatest league in the world over the last 20 years and both understood that this involved bringing in the world’s top talent. When Italy went out of the 1990 World Cup in the semi finals, they didn’t moan that they would have won the tournament had three Italians played for AC Milan instead of Gullit, Rijkaard and van Basten (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O2nEZAb_Mk). They just accepted they were unlucky and moved on.

There was no attempt to block George Weah (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo8PS4XSCyk), Paul Gascoigne et al entering the Italy afterwards. Serie A was the best league in the world so it wanted the best players, therefore if the Premier League aspires to the same position they should continue getting top players by having an open system. In the long run, the policy of importing foreign talent has hardly done the Italian national side any harm now has it? What with that whole World Cup win and that.

Finally, no amount of foreign players should be blamed for a bunch of pompous ghost-writer hookers failing to beat Macedonia at home. England players and their coaching staff (well despite their coaching staff perhaps) have the talent to reach the European Championships and have no one to blame but themselves. What can be done about the malaise in their international team? How about organising their inflated egos into a vaguely coherent side and beating the other teams in a decidedly easy group. That ought to do it.

But with England’s football team, it’s always somebody else’s fault isn’t it. Damn Johnny Foreigner.

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Don’t forget to sign Mark’s ‘Keep Houllier Away’ petition (not poll as I said the other day like a damned fool). This French gimp must be stopped.
http://www.petitiononline.com/jxz81c/petition.html

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Here’s my choice for the job… and the dog that’s barking… that’s not his dog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iaNlobvJMY

Later - JJ

Ireland. Ah Ireland. Well there’s not much else to say is there Stan? When 16,000 people who have bought tickets choose to stay at home instead of visiting one of the finest stadiums in Europe it says a lot really. As does being booed off at half-time and full-time. As does being personally heckled when leaving the field while being ushered down the tunnel under the protective arm of the kitman. That’s what you’ve sunk to Stan, a nice oul fella like Mick Byrne pleading to leave your poor soul alone. Go. Go now. You have to know it makes sense. Unlike Joey O’Brien in midfield.

The last time I remember a plastic pitch being a big issue was the week after Kenny Dalglish resigned his position as Liverpool manager in February 1991. Ronnie Moran – the number two at the time and the man who should have got the top job over Graeme bloody Souness – took his side to play Luton Town at Kenilworth Road.

The Hatters’ plastic pitch, which has since been dug up with pieces being sold off in the club shop, was said to have been the last thing the players wanted to face after the traumatic week and the Pool went down three-one. As history testifies since, they would continue that downward spiral for some time.

Now, I’m not blaming the plastic pitch for sixteen years of hurt (punctuated by some damn decent cup wins) but it was just one of the first things that came to mind when thinking about Wednesday’s do-or-die game between England and Russia. The game has everything already – winner pretty much takes all, one manager starting to look competent, one manager saying he could have had the other one’s job but he didn’t fancy it, injuries to key players, Michael Owen bound to break a leg and Fat Frank being shot down by his own fans.

But let’s not forget the key element. Not the plastic pitch itself. But the excuse it gives England – and particularly its media outlets – to point to for generations. I’ll make no secret of it, I want Russia to win this game and want England nowhere near next year’s tournament. If they lose, they’ll have “that damned plastic monstrosity” to pin defeat on when, of course, they will only have themselves to blame. Steve McClaren may say the pitch is “no excuse for failure” now, but that could change come Thursday morning.

In the past it’s been Rooney’s red card; or a bobble on the penalty spot; a Ronaldhino free kick that wasn’t meant to go in; a disallowed goal against the Argies; the Hand of God and much more. Examine any of these excuses carefully though and whether you come up with Alan Shearer’s elbow or Gary Lineker missing an open goal, there’s generally a far more sane explanation as to why England haven’t won a tournament in over forty years. Should they lose on Wednesday, in ten years will people point to a dire display against Macedonia as the reason they didn’t qualify? Nah, “it were the plastic pitch mate”.

I know, I know, not all English fans are like that. Of course I realise that lads, but Tommy Lee Jones summed things up well in that, on reflection, atrocious movie ‘Men in Black’ while talking to Will Smith’s character, Jay.

Jay: People are smart, they can handle it.
TLJ: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.

That’s kinda how I feel about England fans en masse, and while this most likely holds true for Irish people too (what with the whole alcoholism malarkey and that), we’re talking about England’s problems here, Ireland’s problems deserve a few books and a short movie entitled: F.A.I. – W.H.Y.

I’d like to go to next year’s finals and I think I’d enjoy it a lot more with the bulk of England’s support staying back in blighty without a team to support… plus getting to see John Terry cry so early in the season would be a real bonus. Go Rooskies!