That hat-trick by you-know-who on Tuesday night?
They were, naturally, reserved enough about it all in Portugal, the newspaper Publico dispassionately suggesting:
“Prayers for the Portuguese national team may be addressed to any one deity, but it is the superhero Cristiano Ronaldo who responds”.
In other words, the lad is God, and after that performance who could possibly dispute the claim?
Certainly not Ronaldo, who’s never been lacking in the self-esteem department, nor those eejits who reckoned he’d amount to nuttin’, that he was just an early version of Nani.
But Zlatan Ibrahimovic? You’d hazard a guess he might not join in on the love-fest, him being of the view that Ronaldo and Messi are barely worthy of lacing his boots.
Although, in fairness, he did graciously applaud Ronaldo’s hat-trick and conceded after the game that Portugal deserved to go to the World Cup.
Did he leave it there?
It’s Zlatan. Of course not:
“One thing is for sure, a World Cup without me is nothing to watch.”
Come on, how could you not love the fella? Zlatan, then, no more than ourselves, will have next summer off, and it is, you have to say, a comfort to know that we’re in such exalted non-World-Cup-qualifying company, a reminder that it’s the funniest of games, in a strange kind of way.
Who else won’t be there? Well, most of the planet, just the 32 nations qualifying, so we’re far from alone.
Yesterday, the Guardian listed 11 European players who won't make it to Brazil, players of some considerable quality, and opened the debate, asking their readers who else would be missed at the tournament.
“Giggs,” said one, although one chap offered a comforting thought, “There’s still a chance - he’ll probably still be playing in Qatar.”
True enough.
“Wayne Rooney,” suggested another.
Huh? England have qualified.
“He never turns up at major tournaments,” was the gist of the reply.
Oooh, harsh.
Who else? “Conor Sammon.”
Birthright
Okay. "It makes a mockery of the very concept of football that Big Con won't be there, and if Giovanni Trapattoni ever finds himself in the East Midlands I'll give him what's coming to him for mangling Ireland's qualification and denying the fish his birthright."
Then some other character listed a world XI – Simoncini (San Marino), Chuthong (Thailand), Castrillo (Guatemala), Jacobsen (Faroe Islands), Faisal (Bangladesh), Josemar (Mozambique), Mawejje (Uganda), Mambare (Zimbabwe), Fatkhuloev (Tajikstan), Huang Yang (Hong Kong) and Mifsud (Malta) – whose absence would be felt in Brazil, and all you could say was: um. Like we weren’t familiar with them all, Fatkhuloev a particular favourite.
Who will be there, of course, is France, after their gobsmacking resurrection against Ukraine, 2-0 down after the first leg of their play-off, adieu, and then boom: they won 3-0 and they’re now busy sorting out their working visas for Brazil.
And on the (almost) fourth anniversary of handball-gate, you had to be chuffed for them, (“Roy: get over it”), and wish them plain sailing in Brazil, and no more than an internal feud or two.
L'Equipe, need you be reminded, declared this French team to be the worst in history, presumably in a character kind of way, because the combined cost of the squad is equivalent to the US deficit, and scundered them after that first leg, their front page before the second leg featuring freaky red, white and blue eyes accompanied by the caption "do it". They did too, and you have a notion the squad is now using the paper after toilet activity.
Naked forecast
As for Doria Tillier. You know, the French weather presenter who vowed to bring France the latest wind chill factors while naked if the team overcame that first leg deficit?
Well, she followed through on her promise, reporting the weather in just a pair of boots while running around a country landscape. The highest ratings for a weather forecast in history? Probably.
Popular, too, a French porn site which promised to make itself entirely free if France prevailed. That’s how sure they were that Evra and Co would crash and burn.
As the mighty Balls.ie reported: Dorcel’s vice president of Media, Ghislain Faribeault, told the French press:
“Seeing the score change in a positive way, we started to try and beef up our servers and prepare for scalability. We decided this operation in a bit in a hurry. But we did not expect such a result!”
By full-time they had more hits than Zlatan’s ego.
Our fate was sealed a while back, And it’s Brazil’s loss that Martin and Roy won’t be there, never mind Zlatan and Co, Roy complaining about the potholes on the Copacabana while John Delaney tried to calm him and insist it was an ideal training location? Life is jammed with wondrous missed majestic moments.
Happy sailing Cristiano and Co, Zlatan and ourselves aren’t bitter. Ish.
