SCREAMING BLUE MURDER
The Fiver didn’t get where it is today peddling lazy national stereotypes, even if our didgeridoo-playing, Ramsay Street-dwelling, stubby-swilling, shrimp-throwing, strewth-saying Australian cousin G’day Mate Crocodile Dundee Fiver and assorted other foreign cousins might disagree. Truth is, G’Day Mate and his compatriots have more important things to worry about at the moment, what with a couple of their late night TV presenters having riled up the population of an entire country before the first leg of the World Cup showdown between the Sheilaroos and Honduras to be played in San Pedro Sula this weekend.
Interviewing the Sheilaroos striker Tim Cahill on their Channel 10 news and current affairs show, The Project, presenters Waleed Aly and Peter Helliar continued a long and proud tradition of Australian excellence in the field of international diplomacy by joking about the fact that Australia were travelling to a city that was once the murder capital of the world and asking if, in the event of victory, Cahill and his team-mates would have to play Isis next. These banter-tastic comments by two men apparently seized by the spirit of Boris Johnson and Donald J Trump have been predictably well received in Honduras, where the local media have accused the Aussies of racism and the country’s FA president has criticised them for “telling lies” about their hosts.
It gets worse. During a recent interview, Sheilaroos coach, Ange Postecoglou, joked about the logistical difficulties in getting his team’s kit and equipment to Honduras, prompting the newspaper El Heraldo to sniffily observe that “Australians seem to have a lot of fun with the social problems of other countries”. Honduran journalists were further incensed this week when the Sheilaroos touched down in San Pedro Sula and proceeded to blank the assembled local media who had waited for their arrival at the airport in the hope of getting some face time with the visitors.
“As players, we respect the country and people, which is most important,” said Cahill, upon being forced in front of his own country’s media in full-on grovel mode. “What media say is different to what players think. I’m happy here in Honduras. It is a country I already respect a lot but we want to get a good result in the match.”
While the possibility of the Sheilaroos joining USA! USA!! USA!!! on the list of conspicuous absentees for Russia 2018 was already very real, the comments of their cultural attaches Aly, Helliar and Postecoglou have made it even more likely. Having incurred the ire of their hosts in the build-up to their game, the Aussies are unlikely to be afforded a particularly warm welcome to the Estadio Olímpico by any of the 40,000 Honduras supporters or 1,200 police officers and soldiers present. “It’s about football and enjoying that occasion and us taking in the surroundings,” declared Cahill, who will no doubt be calling on some of his experiences as a Millwall player to inform some of his less well-travelled young team-mates just how enjoyable an occasion this weekend’s game might be.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Dear @Twitter. Thank you for giving us all #280characters. Our club name can finally be expressed in its full glory. Yours sincerely, Borussia Verein für Leibesübungen 1900 Mönchengladbach e.V.” – Social media disgrace Twitter’s upgrade/downgrade brings the bantz out of @borussia_en. See also this. And that.
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FIVER LETTERS
“With the renewed focus on the ‘Fit and proper’ test for club owners following the comeuppance of the Royston family I was wondering if there was such a test for teatimely emails? I’m not implying for one moment that the craftsmen that turn the pig’s ear that is modern football into the silk purse of wit and wisdom that occasionally gets diverted into my spam folder would fail it. No, no not one iota, I’m just curious …” – Phil Withall.
“Speaking of ‘Wyndhamesque’. The Midwich Cuckoos tells the tale of how a sleepy village is visited by a strange silver object, the entire population falls asleep, and in the following weeks they discover all the women are pregnant. The children born from these pregnancies grow up to have strange abilities that set them out from ‘normal’ children. Of course, these abilities have a downside and, after a number of disturbing incidents, their adult carer/mentor sacrifices himself along with them for the greater good. Looking at the number of UFOs/crop circles that England saw around 20 years ago I would suggest that our recent success at both men’s and women’s U17/U19 football is following this plot quite nicely – at least up to page 90 so far” – Phil West.
“Two years of the Fiver in one missive? I’ll give it a go: Imagine a teatimeishly email as a football team managed by David Moyes. Namely, we started with nothing, and gradually lost even that” – Andrew Tate.
“With all these injuries coming in the weeks of the internationals it could be that you are running out of adjectives to describe some of them. May I suggest that hamstring injuries become a Duane Eddy (you know The Twangs the Thang). I realise that this might not make sense to some of your readers but to people of a certain vintage like myself it describes the injury perfectly” – Steve O’Hara.
“What with all the furore concerning Spain’s new shirt – which seems to centre on the Adidas chief designer being unable to distinguish between blue and purple or being a subversive anti-royalist – I feel we are missing the demise of the current Spain away shirt, apparently inspired by an England fan who has thrown up a Jalfrezi on himself” – Guy Campbell.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is … Andrew Tate, who wins a copy of the excellent new David Squires book, The Illustrated History of Football: Hall of Fame. We’ve more to give away, so keep typing.
VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
Big Paper, Football Weekly, David Squires and Jonathan Wilson are all up for gongs at the upcoming FSF Awards and you can vote for them here, should you wish.
NOTIFICATIONS AND QUERIES
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BITS AND BOBS
England 0-0 Germany will have a video referee in the posh seats – the system’s first UK airing. It’ll just “correct errors in match-changing situations”, whistled the International Football Association Board.
Meanwhile, both sides at Wembley will be wearing poppies on their armbands and etc and so on.
Optimism’s David Moyes says he’ll get Taxpayers FC “to the correct position” by playing with style. “I’ve only ever wanted to be involved in attacking, entertaining football,” he trilled. “I feel really confident.”
Dundee United have unveiled ex-Hearts coach Csaba Laszlo as their new manager. “His enthusiasm is very infectious,” honked chairman Stephen Thompson.
Wales will play in the 2018 China Cup alongside Uruguay, the Czech Republic and the hosts in the southern Chinese city of Nanning next March. “I think it’s very positive,” thought Chris Coleman. “We’d never have been asked three or four years ago.”
And Chelsea’s longest serving player, keeper Matej Delac, reckons it might be time to do one after no appearances in seven years, and 10 loan spells. “No regrets,” he parped. “Your career can always get better.”
THE RECAP
Sign up and receive the best of Big Website’s coverage, every Friday, it says here. Seems to be a curious lack of mentions for The Fiver …
STILL WANT MORE?
£25m, three shots, none on target – it’s the best and worst of the top-flight summer signings so far.
Graham Potter has performed minor miracles in seven years with Swedish club Ostersund. So why does he never get linked with jobs in England, asks Nick Ames.
Chris Trippier is ready to defy Bury council and hoist the Cross of St George from a 20ft pole in his garden again now son Kieran is cementing his place in the England squad.
Has the devastating judgement against the Oystons finally sounded the death knell for the Football League’s fit and proper persons test? David Conn certainly hopes so.
Valencia’s Simone Zaza has scored just two goals fewer than old club Taxpayers FC this season. He’s No3 on this list of the 10 most improved players in Europe.
It’s play-off time in the race for Russia 2018, so how do the fans of the teams involved think this week’s ties will go down? Find out here.
Sky and BT are set to battle for Slaven Bilic, while Everton eye Diego Simeone, sending the Mill all skittish.
“I can sauté, but foreplay is my forte, I know to score more ways than Luís Boa Morte.” An NSFW The Knowledge, right here.
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