Come on Algeria!

Z doh!

I’m supporting Algeria.

They are dragging along the bottom of their world cup group but they showed lots of courage and fight and they are supported by the very nice man on the counter of the privatised pharmacy at Charing Cross Hospital.

All I do know is that they don’t have all these advantages;

Daniel Taylor, The Guardian;

Ultimately it always comes back to the same thing. When Roy Hodgson and his players arrived back in Rio de Janeiro it was to the best training facilities in the city. They have a 72-strong entourage from the Football Association including a psychiatrist, nutritionists, a turf specialist, a cook and at least one guy whose job seems to be to spray the players with water when they start overheating. They have industrial fans, heat chambers and individually tailored recovery drinks after inviting scientists from Loughborough University to study their sweat patterns. Hodgson has talked to Sir Dave Brailsford and Lord Coe about how to co-ordinate a successful team and everyone is agreed: nothing more could have been done to create the right environment.

 

“No excuses,” Wayne Rooney had said. Steven Gerrard described it as the most meticulously planned operation he had known. Hodgson could scarcely have sounded more confident. “Anyone who thinks we can’t win the World Cup has to be barking up the wrong tree,” he said, two days before landing in Brazil.

 

Yet here we are, embarking on the inquest before a lot of the teams have even played a second game. England were the team that wanted to play like Spain and, eventually, they managed it. Except the headline in Marca on Thursday was “The End”. England have managed it even before they finished their week-long course of malaria tablets.

Meanwhile, (I’m not the first to say this, it’s from Twitter) I have decided to announce my retirement from England international football viewing.

After 48 years of despair it’s time for younger men to carry the burden of sitting on an armchair or holding a pint while the pub goes silent again and again.

England? I suggest a summer of community service. as they have been playing like a non league team and as most people cannot afford to go and see them play; how about a summer of visiting minor clubs for friendlies, bringing football home?

A bit of practise wouldn't do any harm either.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)