Today is gonna be the day that theyâre gonna throw it back to you.
Happy World Cup Day everyone.
Let the football begin.
Sadly only one game on opening day, I always find that to be a pile of shit, but it is what it is.
The whole thing is a pile of shite mate. Infantino once again confirmed that yesterday with his presser.
Football every day? Gerrawayoutofit. You lads tried to say the same about Russia and Qatar. The Beautiful Game always wins out.
Fall in paleface.
I go to bed at 10pm. Itâll be YouTube highlights for me.
Itâll be class. The last World Cup was incredible.
2006 is the benchmark though. I donât think any tournament, or any thing, will ever be as good again
2006 was a very average World Cup.
That doesnât matter in the slightest. I was 18, I had nothing to do but watch and obsess over football, and that last great Italian team won it
We live out the experiences through our own eyes. Each World Cup has its own magic. The youngsters are buzzing for this one.
Apropos of yesterdayâs query, did anyone check if there is a mid morning highlights show for the stretched wfh employee or a 7.30am round up for the kids before they go to school?
Maybe itâs just that things have moved on & the way we consume things is differentâŚthere might not be an appetite for a show with a presenter & a pundit or two & folk just go onto You Tube & watch game clips on FIFAâs channel or whatever.
I remember being all over Eurosport back in 1994. My memory is of them showing World Cup action on a loop, top goals, best saves etc.
Studio PelĂŠ
âThat was fan tast gameâ
The âpride matchâ between Egypt and Iran is one to really savour
Luckily Saint and Greavsie are back with a weekly World Cup special on UTV on Saturdays at 1:05pm and Iâll be making sure to tune in for that.
Ecuador v Curacao seems a game made for the dulcet tones of Jimmy Magee.
Looking forward to several Barry Davies mini-polemics about the crassness of the administration of football and indeed the crassness of the administration of the failed state holding most of the matches.
Liam Nolan will surely be presenting some of the late night games on RTE.
100% genuine celebrity spot:
Who: Liam Nolan
Where: The pedestrian check in area for the Sealink Stena Line ferry at Holyhead
When: About 12:01am on Thursday August 19th, 1993
Any other business: Liam was standing in the check in area with a woman who presumably was his wife. He had a travel style case with him. He appeared to be passing time in the normal style you would in such a situation, before getting on the ferry. I thought to myself âthatâs yer man from RTE, whatâs his name, oh yeah, Liam Nolan.â
Liam Nolan was one of the main RTE anchors the last time the World Cup was held in Mexico.
I remember him handing back after half time with âand now itâs back to the Jalisco Stadium and Himmy Mageeâ
How would you rank the six world cups so far this century?
I hated 2010: pinnacle of boring possession based football with the constant drone of vuvuzelas in the background.
I really enjoyed 2002 and 2022.
No huge opinion on 2006, 2014 and 2018.
I have no recollection of Liam Nolan, which is strange as I remember all the jobbing/backup presenters in GAA, rubby etc of that era.
Me oulâ fella won a first round episode of Know Your Sport on the first series which was 1987/88. The programme was recorded in December 1987. I was not at it. He came back from Montrose that evening saying he won the episode - one of the other contestants who was Fintan Ffrench from Kildare (I think) gave him a lift home (nice one Fintan) - but he was mainly annoyed with himself because on one round there were questions based on the 1986 World Cup quarter-final between France and Brazil, and one of the questions was what was the venue, the city was an acceptable answer, and me oulâ fella answered âGuadalajaraâ - thatâs Guadala Jara with a J sound, instead of Guadal Hara with a H sound. He was annoyed with himself because he knew the correct pronunciation full well but some sort of internal Mr. Bean syndrome had made him spurt out a wrong pronunciation.
When the actual broadcast of the episode rolled around a few months later, he visibly bristled at his mispronunciation.
The legend goes that Jimmy Magee pronounced Josimar as âJosie Maherâ. I guess the legend was mildly amusing at the time it was told, which was in a newspaper column by Somebody in 1990.
Then of course there was Georgeâs Stan Vollox, which became very very close to Stan Bollox.
The group stages in 2014 were really good iirc, Holland hammering Spain, Uruguay and Costa Rica coming out of the group with England and Italy
1986 was peak, work back from there.
Youâll always knock entertainment out of the group stages. The problem happens when we get to the knockout and teams are either knackered, injury ravaged or full of fear, and they go back into themselves. But the groups will always throw up some entertainment.