ON THE COUCH:All aquiver for our 64th match but puzzled looks at introduction to the evening's viewing
NOT THAT you really needed to be told, but you doubly realised it was a very special night when RTÉ showed us that man on a Dublin city rooftop shouting so loudly about the glory of the World Cup the Jervis Street Shopping Centre trembled and Liberty Hall collapsed.
John Giles looked a bit puzzled about this introduction to the evening’s viewing, but as the wondrous Aprés Match would tell you, Gilesie takes the demolition of each Dublin city building on its merits. And this was a great demolition, not just a good one, possibly – but we can’t be certain – making the point that on World Cup final night the world trembles as one.
All aquiver, then, for our 64th match in a month. And it only felt like 20 minutes since Tshabalala made us spill our hi-energy drink all over the remote control.
We suspected South Africa’s goal in that opening game would be hard to beat. It was. Nothing topped it.
One last visit to Eurosport’s incomparable Soccer City Live for predictions. Roger Milla? “C’est difficile, c’est cinquante-cinquante,” he said, for the 64th time in the tournament. (“Roger says it’s difficult, it’s 50-50,” said our eternally helpful translator).
Patrick Kluivert? “Holland.”
“That’s a very big surprise,” said the ever-beaming Gernot Bauer, turning to Lebu, who, the other, night, he described as the show’s “eye candy”.
“Ah, thank you, Gernot,” she’d beamed back. Prediction? “A small margin of, I don’t know, 1-0, 2-1 to I don’t know who,” she said. “Thank you Lebu,” said Gernot.
Right, here come the BBC lads decked out in suits and ties, looking a bit like the usual suspects (they were too – Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen, Lee Dixon and Alan Sheeeearah), scrubbing up beautifully for the big occasion. The RTÉ crew, it must be said, looked no less dapper.
Gilesie’s heart said Spain – “Holland are a team that tries to destroy . . . but they’re not demons by any means, Bill” – and his head agreed. Ish.
First half. Johan Cruyff said he’d feel “intense joy” if Spain won the final, a declaration that possibly made him as popular in his home place as Nigel De Jong is with Xabi Alonso’s Ma.
After that first 45, though, many a global couch would surely have felt intensely intense pain if Spain didn’t win the final.
It took a month but, finally, the RTÉ and BBC panels were watching the same game.
Liam: “I’m appalled at what we’ve seen . . . cynical fouls, some brutal fouls – and I don’t mean that in a Dublin sense, I mean brutality is what we’ve seen.”
Hansen: “Total football? That’s a laugh, it’s total thuggery. I can’t believe the Dutch still have 11 on the pitch – van Bommel should definitely have gone, De Jong and Sneijder too.”
Shearer: “If this was a group game Holland would have been down to nine men, at least.”
Giles: “Vinnie Jones would be in that Dutch team the way they’re playing, it’s dreadful stuff.”
Dixon: “Even Sneijder has been sucked in to the thuggery.”
Dunphy: “It’s a horror show . . . what De Jong did to Alonso could kill a man, it was horrific.”
Hansen: “Look at De Jong . . . ah, Jesus.”
Liam: “If that’s the way they’re going to try and win the World Cup, well, it’s a sad day for football.”
Giles: “I’d say the people in Holland watching this would be horrified – I’d say they don’t care whether they win or not.”
Off again. As that Coldplay tune put it, “look at the stars . . . they were all yellow”.
Losing count here. Howard Webb worn out scribbling. “He’ll run out of ink soon,” Ray Houghton sighed.
Full-time, 0-0. “A shambles, awful, disappointing – for a football lover it’s been shocking,” said Dunphy, sounding as disillusioned as a spectator at the Louth v Meath game.
Extra-time. D’you know, if Liberty Hall wasn’t already in ruins it might well have crumbled with the sheer lovely relief of that Andres Iniesta, bless his navy socks, goal. Or “GOooooOOOooooaaaaAAAAaaaaAAAL,” as a seemingly joyful George Hamilton described it.
Iniesta, incidentally, was booked for taking his shirt off after scoring the World Cup-winning goal. Same punishment as De Jong. Funny auld game. Almost as funny peculiar as New Zealand being the tournament’s only unbeaten team.
“It would have been a dark day for football if the Dutch won it playing like that,” said Brady, who’d happily lost his bet, while winning the footballing war. “Thank God their histrionics and gamesmanship haven’t worked.”
“Spain won, that was the final justice,” said Gilesie, reckoning tiki-taka had seen off total thuggery. Altogether now: Pheeeeeeew.
