NoBlog 37: Jim Lovetoy Plots Englandīs Path to World Cup Victory...
27th May 2010
Media personality Jim Lovetoy writes exclusively for The Football Ramble. “This is no blog, it’s a column. It’s credible. Proper journalism that has an influence...”
Football is over until the World Cup and I don’t know what to do with my days. I’ve been trying to keep myself entertained with other sports and events but it just isn’t working. Apparently we won the cricket World Cup thing but the only thing I like about cricket is the name Graham Onions. Eurovision is about to happen but unless we enter a transsexual, goth robot we don’t have a chance of winning. All of the other countries will gang up and vote against us because we won the Second World War for them, not to mention the first. To make matters worse my Wii broke. I’ve been so bored I even rang my dad. “Make your own entertainment, that’s what we had to do,” he said. Great idea Dad. Sure, I could paint a hedgehog blue, give it little trainers and gloves and try and make it get my wedding ring out of a tree but it just isn’t the same. They’re too slow for one thing.
The one thing keeping me sane in these dark, boring times is the knowledge that the Word Cup is just around the corner. All of the nosayers are out in force saying that England don’t have a chance of winning it but I say no yourself, nosayers. I don’t see a team England couldn’t beat and this is the path I predict England will take to glory:
The Group Stage:
USA
They pose an obvious threat from set pieces when you look at the size of Landon Donovan’s forehead but they’re likely to be preoccupied with inventing WMDs, setting up a permanent occupation of the country and then stripping it of its natural resources. Oh yeah I went there. I’ve read a Michael Moore book. Great amusement parks though.
Result: 3-1 to England.
Algeria
Sounds like a terrorist news network. These sorts of teams notoriously make up the numbers so the wise thing to do would be to play a second string side and rest the good players.
Result: 4-0 to England.
Slovenia
I don’t know anything about this country but the name make me think that it’s people are lazy and dribble a lot. Aaron Lennon will help us beat them at their own game, if he can be bothered to play that is, he’s barely played a game for Spurs this season!
Result: 4-0 to England
Last 16: Australia
I expect the Aussie’s to progress from a tough group despite being so drunk all the time. It’s actually that reckless Dutch courage that helps them win. They beat us at cricket, they beat us at rugby, they’d even beat us in Eurovision if they could find a way but there is no way, no way, that our boys will allow them to beat us at football.
Result: 3-1 to England
Quarter Final: France
This is where the cheating against England traditionally begins and as we’ve seen with Thierry Henry’s exploits against Ireland they’ve been putting in the preparation. At this stage in previous competitions we’ve fought against this injustice like lions and come up short. Fighting like lions won’t be good enough this time. This time we’ll have to fight like salmon. That sounds odd but think about it, salmon swim upstream with the threat of being eaten by bears looming at all times and they’re not extinct or anything. We’ll have to be similarly resolute in the face of adversity. They’re obviously pretty stupid to be swimming upstream in the first place but I don’t expect Wayne Rooney to be working on the Large Hadron Colander any time soon so if they can do it we can too. The key here is that France aren’t very good anymore, I can’t see them finding a way through and after we have a goal wrongly disallowed I think we’ll do them on penalties. Sooner or later we just have to.
Result: 0-0 to England (England win 5-0 on penalties)
Semi-Final: Brazil
This is where it gets a bit scary. We all know how good the Brazilian players are from watching adverts and we’ll need to pull off one of our all time great performances to get through this. However I think we can do it. The Brazilians love to play the ball on the ground. The way to beat them? Hoof it at every opportunity. They won’t know how to deal with these tactics as they’ll have never seen them before. Just picture it: Green kicks it out to Johnson, he heads it to Barry, he thumps it over to Lampard who volleys over a high ball for Crouch to head home. The Brazilian players probably don’t even know that you’re allowed to head the ball so this will leave them shell shocked and we’ll easily progress.
Result: 3-0 to England.
Final: Germany
A lot of people are tipping Spain to make the final but I look at the squad and I just don’t think they have the names to do it. Who the hell is Sergio Biscuits? I literally don’t know who that is. For me it’ll be an England vs Germany final. I haven’t checked whether or not this is logically possible but strange things happen in this game and any experienced football man knows that you can’t rule anything out.
Germany are missing Michael Ballack but they have a strong strike force made up of players from all over the world, which is for some reason allowed now. Mario Gomez is clearly some sort of Mexican, Cacau is obviously Brazilian or at least Argentinian and the national team have once again invaded Poland for Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski. You’d think they’d have learned not to do that. You’d also think that FIFA would notice that they have loads of obviously non-German players. Though this seems like an unfair advantage it will work in our favour as that typical German steel won’t be there. Germany will learn that multiculturalism is not the way forward and there’ll be uproar in the country. We’ll be perfectly placed to take advantage of this disarray and the goals will fly in. It’ll be like when we beat them 5-1 that time. “Even Heskey scored!” people said. For a while I actually thought his name was Even Heskey! This victory will be even more emphatic than that one. Even Heskey will score again, Rio Ferdinand will lift that golden trophy and England will go on to dominate international football for the foreseeable eternity!
Result: 5-0 to Engerland.
Though I’m still so bored I’ve Sky +ed the darts it’s made me feel better to break down our chances in such a logical way. Any right thinking person can see that we’ve got a better chance than ever and I for one can’t wait for it to kick off! Chelsea, Chelsea!
Jim Lovetoy
Follow Jim’s ravings on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JimLovetoyTFR
How far can England progress? Who do you expect to win? Which teams or players do you tip to make a surprise impact?
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Aimee
:::2010-05-27 18:30:00
Thank you for this. World Cup fever is really starting to kick in and I am glad it´s not just affecting me...
<3
Erik the viking
:::2010-05-28 12:24:28
You´ve got the final wrong, Jim. In the 93rd minute Jens Lehman will seal the victory for the lions. A perfect set pieces from Lennon, Wazza heads the ball like no one else can, but hits the post. The ball will bounce back from Lehman´s head and into the net.
And yeah, I know Jens is not in the team. But he will get there, somehow, as he always does.
THFC6061
:::2010-05-30 10:25:44
CROUCH MORE LETHAL THAN ROONEY!
Unbelieveable as it may seem, Peter Crouch has actually got a far better strike-rate for England than Wayne Rooney.
Crouch has scored 21 goals in 38 matches for England, giving him a strike-rate of a goal for every 1.81 games played.
Rooney has 25 goals in 59 matches, which gives him a strike-rate of a goal for every 2.36 games played.
What´s even more remarkable is the fact that many of Crouch´s England appearances have been as a used sub, while almost all of Rooney´s have been as a starter playing the entire 90 minutes.
Peter Crouch´s 21 England goals have come from 2,094 minutes on the pitch. This gives him an average of a goal scored for every 100 minutes played.
Wayne Rooney´s 25 England goals have come from 4,157 minutes on the pitch. This gives him an average of a goal scored for every 166 minutes played.
Full details & statistics of the England provisional World Cup 2010 squad of 30 available here:
http://www.myfootballfacts.com/England_World_Cup_2010_Squad.html
NiCo
:::2010-06-01 04:18:18
Fantastic, Brazilian players are pretty short after all, Germany are gonna be the new Portugal and bring in as many short Brazilians they can, and Jens Lehman will take his helicopter (painted white, yellow, and red) and land in the stadium during the opening ceremonies.
Wonderful post.
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