June 2014

[Sweder]

I didn't fancy it this morning. Lack of sleep, the tail-end of an upper molar abssess, creaky knee. The excuses lined up like a defensive wall fidgeting behind a spray-painted ten-yard line. I've been here before. Feeling crap about/ before a run doesn't always equate to a crap run. So I set off, rather like Croatia, more in hope than expectation.

The run was a good deal kinder to me than the officials were to the boys from the Little Chef. Neymar, a man who could have been sobbing into an early shower after an elbow with malice aforethought, scuffed an equaliser in off the post to cancel out Marcelo's stumbled own goal. Then came the 2014 moment that, in Croatia at least, will sit next to Maradona's Hand Of God in the pantheon of World Cup injustices. Right, said Fred, drop it on me 'ead, can't get that so I'll fall instead. The man from Japan almost dislocated his wrist in his haste to award a penalty.

Insult was duly added when Croatia conjured a perfectly good leveller only for those pesky officials to chalk it off for an apparent foul on the stranded Brazilian 'keeper. Oscar, for once not worthy of an eponimous statuette, papered over the cracks with a world-class toe-poke in added time.

I should imagine the coffee in Zagreb had a rather bitter taste this morning. As the world's media attempts to report 'disturbances' (riots) on the streets of Rio and Sao Paulo in a manner that won't jeopardise their three-week junket, we're left to ponder if this might be the most politicised football tournament in history. Brazilians are taking to the streets in their droves to protest appalling poverty, government ineptitude and what is perceived as the pissing away of national resources on a party for millionaires. Imagine if they'd lost last night.

Still, the next one should be OK. It's in Russia.