50:50
World Cup 2006: A series of very, very good players, playing the game very well
I'm afraid to say, the least actual football I have seen since the start of the competition due to stuff that needed doing in the afternoon, plus an ill-timed trip into London and back to witness a read-through of two episodes of Not Going Out before a small, invited audience at the rehearsal space to see if the laughs are actually laughs. (They mostly were.) I heard part of the first half of tonight's non-clash between Argentina and Ned on the radio in a cab home from the train station (I was able to ask the manly question, "What's the score, mate?" of my driver). This was my first experience of the much-loved Five Live: a commentator I didn't recognise who said, "the beat continues relentlessly", which I liked, plus Graham Taylor, who still sounds a bit like a patronising geography teacher. Saw the remainder on TV. For the first time this World Cup, I have been truly grateful for the highlights on BBC1 at 10.50.
Portugal 2 Mexico 1
Behold the winners of Group D. I was sorting things out in the garage when this one played. Trying to find the electical fittings that were never fitted to our downstairs sockets and light-switches. That's my excuse. It's pretty frustrating that a huge tournament like this should be so inconvenient for people with jobs, or things to find in the garage. Simon Hattenstone in the Guardian wrote about being a World Cup addict in the paper today. Yeah, well, he's a journalist. He sits at home for a living.
Iran 1 Angola 1
One of those matches where news from the simultaneous tie (see: above) filtered through on mobiles. If Angola had beaten Iran and Portugal beat Mexico, they could have gone through. Not to be.
Ivory Coast 3 Serbia & Montenegro 2
First win for the much-loved Africans, and with S&M (ha ha) two up within 20 minutes. I wish I'd seen this one. Both teams were down to ten men by the end. Serbia go home [almost - Maths Ed.] goalless, and the Coast do so with a lot of new fans.
Holland 0 Argentina 0
Peter Drury said the thing about the "very, very good players" quoted above, and he's right, but it was David Pleat who brilliantly described this one as "a game of chess." Two sides spying on each other. That was about it. Despite a team with holes in it, Holland still wanted to win, purely to topline the group and play the least fantastic team from Group D, which turns out to be Mexico, but, like an Angolan win, it was not to be. Argentina, hairy bastards that they are, still look like the team to beat, or not beat, but didn't score goals tonight - why waste them? Messi, whom you have to call the new Maradonna by football law, shone in the half we saw. As did Cruz, whose name is surely pronounced "Cruth", but that would slow down the English commentators, who go for "Cruise". It was nice to see two teams playing in their first strip. And to see the symbolic possession graphic pop up, informing us that it was split 50:50, which you rarely see. That says it all.
Nobody's explained what the version of Go West they play at the end of all matches is. It's not the Pet Shop Boys' version, nor Village People. It sounds choral and classical. What is it, football fans?
posted by Andrew Collins @ 9:54 PM
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"Go West" is a Fifa commissioned 'anthem' played by an 'orchestra' (ie synthesisers) in the vein of the vaguely classical Champions League theme played in place of the national anthems prior to the start of the Champions League club games - which has also been used as the intro to the ITV Champions League coverage.
Why "Go West" has been selected as the tune is anyone's guess. Mine is that it is suitably euphoric and optimistic as a football-related anthem, and also maybe symbolic of Germany's recent history.
In South American Spanish the z tends to be pronounced as an 's' sound rather than the 'th' they use in Spain.
i've heard it said that the lisped version of certain letters evolved because a Spanish monarch at some point had a lisp. But I think that's an urban myth - and I imagine you probably knew about it already?
Hello, Andrew, by the way.
Hello. I love the way things are pronounced differently around the globe.
I'm puzzled by "Serbia go home goalless...", given the score at the top of that paragraph. Is there a clever meaning to this that's flying over my not-that-interested-in-football head?
"Go West" is an odd phrase in that it has that association with going off and making your fortune overseas, but it also means to be destroyed. Looked at that way it's sort of appropriate to the World Cup I suppose.
...especially considering how badly the former Eastern Bloc sides have done this time out as well!
Dave, if you've read my other entries of late, you'll let me off with this excuse: I've been working too hard! Thank God it's only a blog!
The lyrics aren't Go West though, they are "Stand up for the champions".
- the official Fifa theme no less.
The German team re-recorded Go West with the Village People as their official song for the '94 world cup in the USA and it's continued to be an anthem for them. In fact they did a whole album with them. It was very very bad, but marginally better than any of David Hasselhoff's musical ouevre.
Not saying that this is the reason it is played - but I'm sure there must be some connection.
I've not picked out the lyrics 'stand up for the champions' in the current version as noted by Jem above (although I've heard them sung by fans in the UK) but if that is official FIFA sanctioning will it be ok for me to tell the stewards it is ok when they get arsey about me standing up at a game next season?
As a Spurs fan, that tune is more commonly known to us as 'Nayim from the halfway line' as a tribute to David Seaman, and 'Stand up if you Hate Man U'
Rotters - I love how you make sure to tell us that an album recorded by the German football team and the Village People was very very bad.
heheh.
To think... I almost bought one on eBay.... that was a close call :-)
Go West has also recently been reworked into a advert for, if memory serves me, curry sauce company Sharwoods. It's hard to explain the wit that's gone into it, but they took "Go West" and, giving it a curry flavour so to speak, turned it into "Go East". Given that the original "Go West" is a gay anthem, surely "Go East" is a homophobic rant telling those liberated gays to get back in the closet and keep themselves locked up. Shame on you Sharwoods with your homophobic packet curries..
I think Go West is used as a football anthem so much because it is easy to sing - no tricksy harmonies there.
ok i tracked it down.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000FQWG6K/
Stand Up (champions theme) on the album above. guleo vi presents "2006 Fifa world cup hits"..thats right its that lion.
there's a picture of the astonishing album sleeve here:
http://en.aigomusic.com/albumpage/236220.ftl
its also got all together now on it and versions of could you be loved.
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