I was sad to hear of the death of Brazilian footballer Socrates. He was a member of that second most entertaining of Brazil teams: the one that lost to Italy (well, to Paolo Rossi) in the second stage of the 1982 World Cup tournament. His goal in that game was sublime as he appeared to ghost past an Italian defender and then comprehensively beat Dino Zoff (Dino Zoff!) at his near post. He also had an idiosyncratic way with penalty kicks – which he would take with absolutely no run-up.

In his non-footballing life he was a medic, qualifying as a doctor before taking up professional football.

I remember from TV reports of the Brazil camp in 1982 he could play guitar and hold a tune. He was a smoker, though, and also, it seems, overindulged in drink.

Sad to see him go.

Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira (aren’t those Brazilian names wonderful?)
19/2/1954-4/12/2011. So it goes.

I turned over to the BBC news today and encountered bafflement. Gary Speed dead? Surely not? I’d seen him on Football Focus only yesterday and he looked in fine fettle.

Then it became curiouser and curiouser. It seems he took his own life – which is tragic, not least for his family.

The sense of shock in the football world at this news was admirably illustrated by the one minute’s silence called for at the Swansea City – Aston Villa game today spontaneously evolving into one minute’s applause.

Speed (helped by the emergence of some fine young footballing talent from the Principality) seemed on the verge of converting the Wales national team’s perennial also-rans status into something approaching success.

It would be a fitting memorial to him if Wales were now to qualify for the 2014 World Cup.

Gary Andrew Speed: 8/9/1969-27/11/11. So it goes.

You only had to look at who won the rights to hold the next two World Cups after 2014 to know money was involved somewhere along the line.

Russia – oligarchs – and Qatar – oil.

It’s only the degree, and whether it actually went to the members of the FIFA board or their pet projects which was in any way in doubt.

All the shock horror is a bit overdone.

But a cleaning out of FIFA’s Augean stables would be no bad thing just the same.

So. It’s Russia.

Well done, comrades. (Or don’t you say that anymore?)

Fat lot of good having David Beckham, the Prince William and Mr Irresponsible presenting the England bid as part of the team did them.

But what an outpouring of bile we got from the commentariat on BBC news in the aftermath, saying that the process was flawed, not transparent enough and must be changed.

What? You lose the vote and that’s because of the system?

This display of sour grapes is profoundly unappealing. You were acting as if it were your divine right to have the tournament. I know God is supposed to be an Englishman but get a grip. No wonder you lost.

Where does this ridiculous sense of entitlement originate? You lucked out once and have been more or less mince ever since. You continually puff up your league as the best in the world. If it is – and that’s by no means a given – it would only be because it is stuffed full of foreign players who are more gifted technically, and more intelligent in the football sense, than your indigenous ones.

And before anyone points the finger, my poor little football country has no such delusions of grandeur. We cured ourselves of any vestige of that a long time ago.

It’s indicative of the desperation fans of England feel that they appear to think that only by hosting the World Cup will they ever win it again. (I would suggest that the way the England team is going now even being hosts wouldn’t guarantee that.)

Face it guys. Nobody likes you. You’re too arrogant.

Hampden Park, 12/10/10

Well this was much brighter. Two good goals and coming from behind to equalise. Against the World Champions* too. It just shows the benefits of having a go sometimes. Mind you I only watched the highlights show at 11.05.

The timidity of the (lack of) ambition in evidence against Lithuania and in the Czech Rep was shown up by this performance. We are capable of creating chances and of scoring them – even against the best. Okay it was at home and with a fierce vocal backing. But Spain are a much greater force than the two teams from whom we filched merely one point and who now have four and three respectively in our mini tournament to decide the upper lower (or lower upper if you prefer) placings in the group. Spain will win it overall, Liechtenstein will be bottom.

It’s all left us with too much to do.

*The official World Champions. Japan (!) are now the unofficial World Champions. That title has changed hands twice now since the World Cup.

In an interview on Football Focus today – I had a quick look on the BBC website and the iPlayer but the clip doesn’t seem to be there – Steven Gerrard, talking about the World Cup, said that England had gone to South Africa as “genuine contenders.”

Oh really, Steve?

You just don’t get it, do you?

World Cup. Final. Soccer City, Johannesburg, 11/7/10. aet 0-1.

Not a classic. Again, finals are usually far too nervy affairs for the football to be flowing.

Here it was the Dutch who were more nervous about losing than the Spanish, yet they could have won it if Arjen Robben had put their best chance away.

They were lucky to have eleven men still on the pitch after the first half which featured mostly anti-football. What a comedown from the days of Total Football.

Spain could bury teams if they had a taller forward line, got width and delivered accurate crosses. As it is they seem content to win 1-0. That’s four of those in a row now.

A sideline to the Spanish win is that Scotland once again have the opportunity to be crowned Unofficial World Champions when we play them during the next Euro qualifiers.

That is if someone else doesn’t beat them first.

And pigs fly.

World Cup, 3^rd/4^th place play-off, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth, 10/7/10.

This was a ding-dong encounter, end-to-end stuff, both sides managing to take the lead then being clawed back, one going in front again, the other hitting the bar with the last kick of the ball.

Enjoyable stuff.

I doubt the final tomorrow will be as good as this.

The ref ought to have sent off Germany’s Aogo for a wild, over the top challenge but, as it was the third place game, contented himself with a yellow.

Diego Forlan has looked better and better with every game he has played.

I watched the first half of the game last night in the company of Onebrow. He asked me if I’d noticed that the foul throw no longer seems to be penalised. I told him I had and that it’s only outrageous examples that catch a ref or linesman’s eye nowadays.

I suppose it’s because a throw-in is supposed to be an advantage to the taker (btw a Dumbarton supporter laughs at any such suggestion) and so the officials let minor infringements go.

I also said what annoys me more is the consistent cheating indulged in by those who are awarded a free-kick anywhere outside the attacking third. (The refs are more stringent in that area.) On the award being given the ball has immediately been thrown, or placed, ten yards or more in front of where the foul took place. In some cases this has meant offences in a team’s own half have resulted in a free kick taken in their opponent’s. Another was given for a foul on the goal line and taken from near the eighteen yard line. These instances are surely not hard to spot.

All the teams seem to be at this. And don’t get me started on teams “stealing” yards at throw-ins, which is endemic in the professional game.

In this regard, congratulations to David Villa who, after the field invasion interruption just after the game started, did not lump the ball all the way back to Germany’s goalkeeper on the restart but played it a few yards to where Germany had actually had possession. He gets my “sporting gesture” award for this World Cup. (He’ll probably do a Hand of God in the Final now I’ve said that.)

Far too many (for which read: all) instances of giving the ball back in circumstances like these consist in negating, and more, any advantage the team in possession had at the time of the ball being put out of play.

I also note today that the BBC seems to think FIFA are going to introduce goal-line technology before the next Word Cup.

Parsing what Jerome Valcke says, “I would say that it is the final World Cup with the current refereeing system,” suggests to me that another two refs, one behind each goal line, as in the Europa Cup, rather than microchips in the ball, is what is in the collective FIFA mind.

World Cup Semi-Final: Durban Stadium, Durban, 7/7/10

Again not a classic.

Where were the Germans who swept aside England and Argentina? I can recall them having only the one chance; which fell to the wrong K, Kroos not Klose. Apart from that they were never given much of a chance to counterattack by a Spanish side who pressed them high up the park and didn’t allow them time on the ball.

So the Spanish 1-0 juggernaut rolls on. Three results in a row squeezed out now, three one-nils out of five wins in total. Yet Spain seemed to have less of an aversion to shooting in this game – even if most of their efforts went past the post.

There’ll be a new name on the Cup on Sunday. But neither of them has set the tournament alight.

It’ll also be the first time a European side has won a World Cup outside Europe. Previously only Brazil have won outside their own continent (if you count Argentina’s win in Mexico as being in the Americas.)