Wednesday 21 November 2007

The Wrong Trousers

L is almost too tempting this morning and she also appears to be quite lively but I am strong. She's looking lively and that's all before I’ve even put my lycra on. Well not actually my lycra because my fast drying lycra is still, well fast drying, slowly and looking like it will be for the rest of the week. So I put her lycra on instead. Perhaps that's why she's so alert this morning.

It's bleaker than yesterday but I opt for a cold drink instead of a hot one and regret it, in the end I could have done with a drink of hot plastic. It's a bit foggy in Nottingham, so no one notices that I’ve got the ‘wrong trousers’ on but it's pretty much cleared by the time I get to Derby. Still no one notices, so perhaps they suit me.

No one seems to notice my incorrect attire on the way home either, that is until I'm powering up Derby Road, overtaking most of the losers queuing in their cars. Then one of them winds down the car window down and at first I think the female passenger is going to point out that I'm wearing girl's lycra. Although perhaps I have her wrong and she's a fellow cyclist, having a day off, who's going to compliment me on my hill climbing technique. However I'm wrong on both counts. All I get is a blast of music, which would have been nice had the occupants of the car not had such bad taste in music. I think it was that girl who sounds like she's named herself after a venereal disease. Rihanna is it?

I head for the pool, which is quite busy and for once I stay out of the fast lane, away from any psychos out to humiliate me.

There’s a fairly 'big' game tonight, well only big because all the FA Cup replays were last night. Thankfully McClaren leaves out Beckham and surprisingly Robinson too, but everyone agrees it's the correct decision. As for the timing, well his replacement Scott Carson would perhaps have benefited from more friendlies and less watching Robinson from the sidelines because with only eight minutes gone, a Croatian shot bounced just in front of him and Carson does a Robinson and parries the ball into the roof of the net. Perhaps no surprise as he was understudy to him at Leeds as well as at England. He's obviously taught him everything. I kind of suspected it wasn't going to be a good night when I noticed McClaren had pinched Billy Davies's 4-5-1 tactics, right down to the dodgy defence.



Six minutes later it got a whole lot worse as the Croats serenely dribbled the ball around Carson and rolled it into an empty net as the defence embarrassingly appealed for offside. Hilarious, I was very disappointed that I had to leave it and go out but dog training is more important.

Dog training goes incredibly well. Doggo is good if a little blasé. Between runs I check the latest score on my phone. Blimey, I'm surprised to see that England have hauled it back to 2-2. Particularly as Lampard scored the first of them, a penalty, which must have been his first touch of the ball. I am stunned he wasn't replaced at half time.

It turns out though that the devious Croats are just toying with us, they march down the other end of the pitch and score the winner. It was to be expected I suppose. England always scrape through by the skin of their teeth in the last game, so their luck was bound to run out eventually.

What surprised me though was that, after the draw was made, people said it was an easy group and they're still saying it now. Ok it could have be worse but Croatia, Russia, Israel, and England appeared to me to all be very closely matched average quality teams, unless of course you have an inflated view of England's ability. So it was always going to be an exciting four way battle and so it proved. We were wrong on one thing though, Croatia are not as closely matched as we thought, they are miles ahead of the rest of the group.

You would hope this defeat would trigger major changes to the structure of the game in this country but no one is holding their breath.

Get home for Salmon curry and a bit of Bleak.

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