FA Folly

[DLT]

So why were the FA in such a rush to announce our next manager?

If it was my job to choose today then it would be Hiddink, then Scolari.

[Mally]

Unfortunately beause the wonderful English press (and increasingly the broadcast media) would have turned the World Cup campaign into a guess the manager blood lust feeding frenzy if it hadn't been sorted out.

[Mooro]

and in any case Hiddink is already sorted for a job and Scolari would still have turned it down and at least we can focus on the tournament knowing Sven will be out of the picture soon.

I'm not sure what waiting would have done to help the decision making process anyway - except shown us what a miserable b'stard O'neill can be and make every pundit discussion involving him, Big Sam, Curbs, Psycho, El Tel, Shearer and Uncle Tom cobbly into a pseudo job interview, which could have become very tiresome....

[Baboo]

And would McLaren even be on your list of interviewees Dave?

The media drove Scholari away. Yes Mark, they're truly wonderful.

[DLT]

Of course not Baboo.

I would appoint Steve Parkin with Nigel Spackman as coach.

[Mooro]

Nice try from Scolari today - our player should not have had a yellow card for kicking someone, because they had gone against the convention of fair play and not given the ball back - nice one.

Oh, and the guy who headbutted another player should not be banned either....

except shown us what a miserable b'stard O'neill can be

okay, so i'm as cock-eyed as they come with regards to o'neill (anyone who turns wycombe into a league club deserves everything thrown at them), but even i was amazed by the seemingly bizarre tirade he launched at marcel desailly during one panel discussion. anyone else see that? what the hell was that about?

back to the subject: it's a nuts way to conduct the management of a team. if england are 2-0 down at half-time to portugal, and eriksson and mclaren disagree on the way to approach the second-half, who do you listen to? the man who's on his way out and clearly is de-mob happy, or the man who'll be taking charge for your next campaign?

mind you, i'm not sure the leadership's clear anyway. oh well.

can't believe spain are knocked out. a) i thoroughly enjoyed watching them play football and b) i thought after the miserable failure of my hunches on italy and the U.S.A i'd finally got one right with spain. nope. my position in the prediction league looks well and truly jiggered, and i officially know nothing about football. again.

[Myles Francis]

Oh, and the guy who headbutted another player should not be banned either....

FIFA's stance on this is an absolute cop-out. Where a player clearly headbutts another the governing body should impose a ban regardless of what action the referee took during the game. Well, they should if they were serious about stamping out serious foul play.

After that game, Sepp Blatter also showed (yet again) what a sound-bite politician he is with his condemnation of the referee. All the referee was doing was following to the letter the instructions of FIFA as to when yellow cards should be doled out, coupled with the threat of going home early if he failed to obey.

[Matt D]

that was me by the way. obviously.

[Mally]

i was amazed by the seemingly bizarre tirade he launched at marcel desailly during one panel discussion. anyone else see that? what the hell was that about?

It seems to be a recurring Martin O'Neil theme - I remember him lauching into similar attacks of other pundits at previous tournaments. He is so single minded that he will argue with anybody who disagrees with him regardles of the situation. Honest perhaps but not very diplomatic. Its part of the reason why he's been a good club manager but part of the reason why he'd be a shit international manager where diplmacy, politics and PR are some of the most important skills.