Marseille – The Inquest

As most experience sports journalists and long time England fans predicted the off field antics are catching the headlines today.

While England fans are certainly no angels the sight of organised masked Russians wearing hoodies pulled up in 30°C temperatures and armed with all manner of weapons takes hoolaginism to a new depressing level.

Saying that, we had a great day with nice food & wine in the sunshine near the beach. The stadium looked really good too – completely rebuilt since my last visit for a UEFA Cup semi-final with The Toon in 2004.

Our Woy really needs to answer some questions – no bigger one than why has he brought Rashford and Vardy with him if he doesn’t play them when this game desperately needed a change from Sterling, Kane and Lallana. Quite impressed with Rooney however, good distribution and vision all night.

Everyone could see a change up front was needed – what does Neville do, surely he could see what a waste of time Sterling was? Should have been easy for England and hugely frustrating when the inevitable equaliser came right at the end.

Don’t let us even start on Kane taking corners or the scenes at the end – could have been another Heysel. Back in 98 the only major trouble was in Marseille, let’s hope things calm down now but there’ll be a lot of English & Russia fans in Lille on Wednesday and Northern Ireland & Polish fans clashed in Nice last night ahead of their first game today.

Roll on Lens and the Wales game with England under pressure already…

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Enjoying the nicer parts of Marseille pre-match

Minutey Provence Rosé, nice food and sunshine with not a sniff of tear gas!

The best Fan Zones are always on a beach but nothing will beat then Copacabana in Rio…. 5 hours to kick off.

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En route to Euros quality @henrywinter reading material…

Delays, strikes, floods, protests… Finally on the way…

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Tickets Arrived… All Sorted… Here We Go Again…

Just rail, metro, air, docks, petrol, power, air traffic control and pilots strikes plus street protests, floods, terrorists, hooligans and STDs… We did manage to avoid certain death in South Africa, Ukraine and Brazil mind!

Squad announced 16 May at 11am – Includes Standbys…

Goalkeepers:
Joe Hart (Manchester City), Fraser Forster (Southampton), Tom Heaton (Burnley).

Defenders:
Gary Cahill (Chelsea), Chris Smalling (Manchester United), John Stones (Everton), Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur), Ryan Bertrand (Southampton), Danny Rose (Tottenham Hotspur), Nathaniel Clyne (Liverpool).

Midfielders:
Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur), Ross Barkley (Everton), Fabian Delph (Manchester City), Eric Dier (Tottenham Hotspur), Danny Drinkwater (Leicester City), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Adam Lallana (Liverpool), James Milner (Liverpool), Raheem Sterling (Manchester City), Andros Townsend (Newcastle United), Jack Wilshere (Arsenal).

Strikers:
Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur), Jamie Vardy (Leicester City), Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool), Marcus Rashford (Manchester United).

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Brazil 2014 – The Video Montage plus World Cup Loves & Hates

Click on the text link to watch…

The Video Montage – HD Format – SD Format

The Loves and Hates…

Love about Brazil World Cup 2014:
Entertainment value of most games and quality football – Best World Cup ever.
The refereeing overall.
Rio free travel with tickets on match day, volunteer helpers etc.
The Food – all of it.
Prices – generally cheaper than expected and still can’t find the BBCs £21 pint of beer. Average is £2 for a pint.
The Drink – most of it.
Cocktails on the beach.
The beaches.
Pre-match music – Thunderstruck, AC/DC.
Copocabana – Best location for a FanFest ever.
The banter with fans from all over the world.
Long, long moaning, grumpy conversations with England Fans analysing every kick, formation, team selection and managers decision for days after games – quality crack.
Caipirinhas and “CaipryVods”
Rio Helicopter Trip – breathtaking.
Italy, Portugal & Spain also going out in group stage.
USA Fans – forgetting about the chants & dress code – out here in big numbers & many highly knowledgable.
Aussies – plenty here, always up for a drink.
Louis Suarez – the whole affair.
Favela visit – humbling.
Watching Brazil in a penalty shoot out on the Copacabana.
Goals x Bookings x Corner sweep.
Getting belted by waves on the Copacabana.
Colombian Fans, always smiling.
Mabs Bar.
England’s Support.
Brazil locals, bar staff etc spot on.

Hate about Brazil World Cup 2014:
Face Paint.
Fancy Dress.
Mexican Waves.
Wigs and Stupid Hats.
Family/Tourist Day Out Supporters.
USA fans dressed up as other teams and supporting them (daily occurence in our hotel).
U-S-A and “We believe we will win” USA chants.
The FIFA Flag Ban.
Sau Paulo – City too big, organisation, transport and ticket collection not up to scratch like Belo and Rio.
Half Time Music – Happy, Pharell.
Ticket allocations.
Cat1 Maracanã tickets no better than Cat3 – a rip off.
The protestors – it’s too late now anyway and it may have cost £13b but £27b is coming in as a result (a few hundred thousand jobs created too).
The whole “we’re on the big screen thing” with fans waiving at all the cameras focused on the crowd – focus on the bloody match!
Brazil fans (only during matches) – not exactly sporting, mocking Chile & other teams going home and hyper critical of all players.
Mobile phones all videoing the whole match.
The Traffic.
Mabs Bar.
England’s performances.
The FA (& the new members tickets scheme).
And FIFA obviously…

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