Quoterie # 27

"When I write a book, then you'll know." After John Wright, the writing bug seems to have bitten Jagmohan Dalmiya as well, when asked if the CAB elections was the toughest of his career. Of course, we can't wait for Sourav and Greg Chapell, MBE to join the bookwagon.

Just not cricket

Cycling and baseball have more in common than you might think. Both sports put their athletes through absurdly grueling seasons, 162 games for major-leaguers, and more than 100 days of racing over eight months for most pro cyclists. While both cycling and baseball are team sports, both also prize individual performances and records. Finally, both sports are phenomenally difficult, with physical demands (timing, strength, and coordination in baseball, sheer speed and endurance in cycling) not required of, say, NASCAR drivers. In other words, both cyclists and ballplayers have much to gain from taking steroids and other performance-boosting substances. Coming to cricket...never mind. you see the parallels. Then again, maybe you don't. (Or just don't want to.)

Why 'unbelievable' should not be believed

Like much of the rest of the world, I was thrilled by Floyd Landis' startling comeback in Stage 17 of the Tour de France. But since I write about doping and sports, I've learned to be suspicious of miracles. So the next time you see something amazing on the sports channel, think about it.

Mick Hume on Zidane and horses

Those of us who have long argued against the Pavlovian notion that violence on television leads to violence off it have been dealt a blow. Weeks after the world watched Zinédine Zidane head-butt Marco Materazzi, jockey Paul O’Neill was caught “doing a Zidane” on a racehorse called City Affair. Like Zidane, O’Neill said sorry but blamed his victim for provoking him. So what did City Affair whisper in his ear? Something about having a face like a horse’s butt? My friend Ed Barrett, writer and equine lip-reader, suggests it was “Your mother is a terrorist horse”.

Quoterie # 26

"It is a bit of an unexpected development," Tilt admitted yesterday, between consulting his health insurance policy and completing his will. "But we are looking forward to facing Shoaib. Most of our team are local boys and playing against him will be one of the highlights of our career. I usually bat at four or five, but I might drop myself down the order a bit for this one." Matthew Tilt, Captain of St. Georges from Telford in an understandably generous mood before he and his team of amateurs turn out in a match against Berkswell in the third division of the Birmingham league who will have Shoaib Akthar playing for them and trying to slowly make his way back to top-flight cricket after a long injury lay-off.

Quoterie # 25

"I've seen him [Murali] crumble under pressure. I've seen batsmen taking him on going for like 80 in ten overs and they take him off." AB de Villiers seems to have seen what nobody else has even imagine.

Quoterie # 24

"Almost everybody who can be in the Pakistan team is here and if any such player is not already with us, that means he is injured. I mean, we don't have anybody left to try out any more." Zaheer Abbas, Pakistan's team manager, paints a sorry picture regarding their injury troubles on the ongoing tour of England.

Quoterie # 23

"It was a very, very dodgy wicket." Henry Webster, chairman of Yorkshire side Goldsborough, comes up with an international-quality excuse after his side were dismissed for 5. None of the runs came off the bat.

Quoterie # 22

"I had to think quite hard about getting the flight to Doha. I had to be convinced I wouldn't get lost or something. I think it's east of India - way over there - I had never been there in my life before." Confusing the Middle-East for India's east, Thandi Tshabalala goes way off the mark.

Kicking Wayne Rooney

It would be easy to sneer loftily at Wayne Rooney's "My Life Until Two Weeks Ago", the five million quid HarperCollins is paying him for his meanderings, and the whole cretinised community that hangs on his words like they matter. So let's. For the rest of the article, head to Gideon Haigh's take on Wayne's book that's not Wayne's book. Enjoy.
http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1827980,00.html

Quick quip

"Is Jose Mourinho's new haircut supposed to depict Chelsea's playing style? Flat at the back, thick in the middle and devoid of anything up front" - Jehan Shah, fan male.

Levytation

According to France's foremost philosopher Bernard-Henry Levy, Zinédine Zidane is "more admired than the Pope, the Dalai Lama, [the Fiver] and Nelson Mandela put together". In fact according to Levy, it was precisely because he's so adored that Zizou brutally chestbutted Marco Materazzi during the World Cup final. The modest hero wanted to show he was human, see, not "a demi-god or some idiotic empty hologram". And as everyone knows, the best way to show you're a man is to behave like a rabid rhino.

How to write an apology note

"Due to an act of blinding incompetence on our part, you received two Fivers on Friday afternoon, the first of which bore a remarkable similarity to Thursday's Fiver. We would like to apologise unreservedly for this foolishness and for any distress or embarrassment caused. We'd also like to promise it won't happen again, but it probably will, so we won't." Courtesy, the Fiver, The Guardian's tea-time take on all things football.

Will someone cleanse the 'Italian league' from Indian cricket?

John Foot, author of Calcio: A History of Italian Football, thinks the scandal is in some respects quintessentially Italian: "Sucking up to the powerful is something that happens naturally in Italian society". But he also believes it is about the vast quantities of money now at stake in the Italian game. "The big clubs can't leave anything to chance now. They just have to win every year."

Balls to the simple pleasures of football

The desire to read meaning into everything today is a symptom of the absence of anything meaningful of substance at the heart of society. The attempt to politicise something like football is one result of the demise of proper debate where it belongs in the political sphere. And the desire to turn a sporting hero into a major victim and a martyr is a graphic illustration of the emotion-driven state of public life. More proof:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/dev/article/1022
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/398/
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/362/

Simon says

From the Guardian: "Perhaps we'll never know what was said or what he was thinking. Perhaps the greatest riddle of all is that in destroying his legacy as a sporting hero, he might have immortalised himself as the man who stood up to bigots, real or imagined, no matter the price." We concur.

Cho chweet!

"I hope any year I come back here in the final and win, I hope one year I don't play against a guy like Roger," said Nadal. "He played unbelievable on this surface and I improved a lot this year, so I am very happy for that. But I can play on this surface, no?" Nobody doubts it now, especially Federer .

Wilson and his bitter

Compare and contrast Beckham's tears with Gazza's in 1990. The latter had lit up Italia 90 and was upset at being ruled out of a likely final appearance he had done so much to bring about. It didn't happen, but he was not to know that. Beckham was one of England's dampest squibs in Germany, and he just looked damper when he started blubbing. Gazza inspired a generation of kids, not with his tears but with his football. If Beckham does the same, one fears it will be a few more generations before England get a grip on reality, let alone the World Cup.

There is nothing wrong with dreams, every footballer's career starts with them and the excellent Andrea Pirlo, for one, has just described reaching a World Cup final as a boyhood dream come true. Every aspiring footballer should dream of playing in a World Cup final, but when you become a professional footballer and take part in a World Cup tournament, the dream has to go on hold until the work is completed. No waving to friends in the crowd, no tears because you can't get your own way, no WAGs hamming it up on the giant screen. The last stages of World Cups are brutal, for players only. England have always been a bit rose-tinted about their place in the world order, but the Eriksson years will go down as a decadent period of wild over-optimism and blatant self-delusion. Fortunately, the FA have invested in an antidote. He's called Steve McClaren.

Buckley at his acerbic best

At the end, Brian Barwick (ex-TV, now inevitably head of the FA) was still spinning away attempting to present the England team's debacle as a triumph on the bizarre grounds that Brazil and Argentina had departed from the airport before them. That's right, thanks to a delayed flight England are now officially the fifth best team in the world. Shortly thereafter, during an interregnum for the position of England captain, David Beckham announced his resignation from a position that didn't exist. A non-announcement designed to deflect attention from his friend and ex-boss that succeeded so well it knocked the death of English soldiers in Afghanistan down the news agenda.

Italy wins

Italy 3, France 2, in overtime. One of the greatest games ever 'played'.

Dotty Motty

A sampling of bloopers from the fortunately inimitable John Motson:

Even Brazil can't play without the ball."
Italy v Ghana

"What did they say the capacity was, Mark? Forty-three? I'll tell you, there's 35,000 English lads in here... oh, it's a goal! Who scored?"

"When you see scenes like that, you know you're watching the World Cup!"
England v Paraguay

"He's eccentric, so my Mexican friends tell me."
On the Mexican referee, Marco Rodriguez. England v Paraguay

"If it wasn't Brazil, you'd have to say they aren't playing that well."
Brazil v Croatia

"I don't think Totti's coming back!"
Stating the obvious when substitute for Italy's Totti, Camoranesi was already on the pitch against Ghana

Quoterie # 21

"I was not a perfect player. I have to say, being a striker, I tried ... to get some advantages by joking with a player and then falling down by saying 'but he touched me'. And in fact it was not that. I did it. I think this is a normal movement and I can understand the players acting like that" - it might be a minor point, but how will Fifa ever stamp out diving if its president Sepp Blatter is a self-confessed cheat?

Why Nadal will beat Fed in an 'epic' final

Because it's become too boring to watch Federer win. In fact, this is not going to be Federer's year. It's going to be the start of an 'epic' rivalry between Fed and Rafa.

Match fixing

Is it just a co-incidence that in every series in the recent past India has either won the ODIs and lost the tests or vice versa? Isn't this a sign that the matches are being fixed in such a way that spectators and marketers on both sides are happy? Isn't this what marketers and spectators want? Cricket was dying in the West Indies, so the Windies were given the ODIs. (It helps, because the World Cup is going to be held there and the last thing they want is a fiscal fiasco.) We all know that the easiest way to make money from cricket is through ODIs. (We've seen that in the sub-continent.) Of course, there is no way to prove that matches are, still, being fixed. Guess we're better off believing they're not and continuing to live in our fools' paradise. Enjoy.

French connection

In 1998, you can thank Jean Marie Le Pen for that win, France won because France needed to be unified. The same story has come back to regale us. France needed this win. Soccer brings all of France together. Riots have riven French society into dangerous silos. This win will bring all of France back together. Contrary to popular belief, it's not just talent and sport that drives sport. It's not for nothing that people say sport is one of the greatest shows on earth. It's about what sport can do for TV ratings. It's about what sport can do for society. It's not just about sport. Good for France that France won the semi-final against Portugal. Portugal got what it needed from this World Cup. And so has France. What's left now is for Italy to do for Italian soccer what Rossi did for them in 1982. Rossi came through a match-fixing scandal with flying colours, and so will this Italian team. (Much like the Indian team did, when it ended Australia's dream run in cricket and made people forget the match-fixing scandal that threatened to turn cricket into a losing business proposition.) Italy will outclass France in the final. And it won't, only, be because they're a better team. Time now, for an Italian con job. Of course, not for a minute am I suggesting it's all 'managed'. Why spoil the fun? Why look for the truth, when spin is so much more fun to go with.

How the mighty have fallen

Parreira, who won the World Cup in 1994 with a much less talented squad, admitted "something" was lacking from the team on Saturday. They played, "without a tactical plan, without moves, without standards, without attack, without colour, without heat, without zeal. Without grace, without life, without happiness, without personality, without identity," wrote Fernando Calazans. "Without the Brazilian way of playing at all."

God save the Queen

"Be careful with Rooney. I don't need him, but you do." And so, with that valedictory warning, England's first and perhaps last foreign coach ended an era, supervised by himself and Beckham, in which football and celebrity became locked in a steamy but ultimately unconsummated embrace.

Zen mastered

While Henry ran off into goalscoring glory, followed by the majority of his team-mates, the old maestro smiled to himself. Patrick Vieira, his vice captain, ran over to engulf him. The legend lives on and on.

Expert's comments

Tips for budding commentators: 1) Don't start to speak for at least five seconds after a national anthem. It might not be over. 2) Never say 'There are bound to be goals in this one', unless you've backed the goalless draw. 3) Don't ask Dutch commentators for Dutch player pronunciations. They will just cover you with saliva. 4) Always have something to say over a close-up of Franz Beckenbauer. You will definitely get one. 5) Don't mention the war.