TV VIEW/Keith Duggan: 7.15 am - Flick on the idiot box first thing in the morning and see terrible pictures of football fans rioting. There must be hundreds of them burning things and attacking this car, kicking at the doors and eventually turning it upside down.Keith Duggan
Immediately begin to fear the worst for Dunphy.
7.19am. Imagine poor Eamo inside the doomed vehicle, still harping on about Keano and maybe trying to contact Robert Fisk by mobile so that they can have a two-way conversation about bravery under fire and stuff like that. Muse over whom might now present The Last Word. Peer closer at the screen and realise that Eamo does not drive a Skoda or certainly not a Skoda with foreign plates. Come to understand, mainly by listening to the report that these events are coming from Moscow.
8.15am. Skip across the road to fetch the papers, aiming a deft strike at a stray can, a la Figo. Fresh air the attempt and stumble over own feet, a la Mills. Feel disturbed by the nationwide obsession with Dunphy, who is staring craggily from every front page in the land.
8.18am. Flick to RTÉ and find Bill O'Herlihy, Ray Houghton and Gerry Armstrong (when are they going to let this man sleep?). Have nothing against them per se but somehow the scene looks like the remnants of a party that was never too good to begin with. Sense the cold draft caused by the absence of Dunphy in the studio. Note that Bill looks a little ashen. Flick to mute to try and guess what they are saying about whatever game is being played. The Belgians are boring some poor suckers or other into considering abandoning international football altogether just to ensure they don't meet Belgium again. The silence doesn't help. The RTÉ set now looks like some amateur dramatics staging of a stilted Eastern European play. See in Houghton the potential as a good Joxer, though.
9.00am ( or possibly much later). Flick on the Beeb and am immediately confronted by Martin O'Neill saying, " it seems that Portugal have replaced the artists with the artisans." Low whistles of admiration follow from his fellow panellists.
"I've been thinking of that one for about three hours," he admits.
Instantly understand why he is talking this way. On Friday evening, spurred on by England's win over Argentina, BBC2's Late Review team held an artsy discussion on the use of language among the practitioners of the beautiful game. The guests, high of brow and sharp of tongue, were much taken by SG (we think the use of initials gives him more lit. cred) Eriksson's phrase about "spirit stretching to the stars." They claimed that the Zen of Sven had taken hold of the popular imagination and that the likes of David Beckham had begun talking poetically. Feel certain that O'Neill was watching the same show and was intent on leading the charge for the footerati.
12.30pm. Time flies by. Watch Portugal v Poland. Wonder if the joy of seeing Portugal progress in the World Cup would be worth sacrificing for the excitement of watching them go out so embarrassingly early. Doesn't happen anyway. Portugal begin scoring at will. Yellow cards are popping like light bulbs. Hugh Dallas is refereeing. He gives one to Frechaut of Portugal but nobody wisecracks to the effect that the player is Frechaut of luck. In the first week, that would have been given.
Half-time. Learn that nobody really has much good to say about Poland. Alan Hansen destroys the reputations of virtually all the Polish defenders with his slow motion commentary. "Where's he going. What's it all about?" he asks.
It is a valid question for all of us. Learn also that the world has only 42 hours to wait until England v Nigeria.
1.40pm. Wonder if it rains like this all the time in Korea. The players are soaked. The Poles, massive and dripping and crew cut, look like forlorn hopefuls for A Streetcar Named Desire. Debate as to whether Bill O'Herlihy would make a good Stella.
Meanwhile, the commentators assure us gleefully that Poland are going home.
At 0-3 down, they manufacture a goal but Dallas, miserable as ever, disallows it.
"There are great celebrations from the Polish end, an indication of their boredom maybe - or their ignorance," said the BBC's man. And there we had it, the Ignorant Polak slur, right in the 71st minute.
2.15pm. Much praise for Figo in the studio. We are informed at least 40 times that he is a 'world class' player. The Poles have no one of that calibre.
"Appalling," concludes Martin O'Neill.
"The Poles are on their hols," beams Gary Lineker, by way of goodbye.
Probably not the poetry that Sven was hoping for.
