by J Hutcherson | June 10th, 2006
FINAL 1-0 England: Paraguay gave up half an hour ago. England gave up after Paraguay scored for them. Really poor game. Certainly the worst so far.
89th Minute: England still out to prove this isn’t a team game, shooting from as far out as whoever’s on the ball decides makes sense.
83rd Minute: Hargreaves in for Cole. England is trying to kill this one off and take their 1-0 win. Unfortunately, so is Paraguay.
73rd Minute: Frank Lampard tries to change things, but the best chance Ingerlund has had in awhile gets stopped.
This picture is running with a New York Times story on political blogs.
66th Minute: Well, at least we have a pretty good idea that nothing has changed for Sven’s England. There should be some sort of ceremony with nobility involved where the tag “World Cup contender” is officially removed. Robinson hitting the jumbotron - as Balboa calls it - with a goal kick remains the lonely highlight.
63rd Minute: Peter Crouch gets a yellow for dissent. Balboa advises him to get cards for kicking someone, not arguing. Exactly.
57th Minute: Hardcore commentary time from the announce team. O’Brien decides 5 points is the magic number to advance from the group stage. Balboa goes with 9. Advantage Balboa.
56thMinute: Owen is out for Downing. Who? Exactly. This changes everyth… well, not so much.
55th Minute: I rewound and listened multiple times, and I think Balboa just called England “New England.” He definitely mumbled something monosyllabic right before he said ‘England.’ Good for him. MLS represent. Regardless, the point is sound. England is not playing well.
49th Minute: O’Brien is heading into Uecker territory with the geography lessons. That is, if there was any humor in his commentary. Odd, considering that’s a big part of the great baseball announcers.
SECOND HALF: No changes as far as I can tell from the sofa.
HALFTIME 1-0 Paraguay: Paraguay almost equalizes late off the volley, but this is very safe soccer from both teams. By ’safe’ read ‘boring.’ Paraguay looks like they’re more concerned with differential than anything else, trying to keep England off the counter by limiting their own attack. Fair enough, considering they’re down a keeper.
38th Minute: A possession graphic flashed on screen and Dave O’Brien resisted the urge to read it to us like we’re a bunch of children trying to figure out why our cartoons went missing. Good on you Dave.
35th Minute: Break out the omelets, we’re getting the ‘Jim McKay essay’ at halftime. and what a game it is! Shoot me.
33rd Minute: Here’s a list of flight times from London. It’s fascinating. Or maybe this game is just that boring. Balboa is calling England out for not playing well. Indeed.
28th Minute: Dear Dave, a 90 minute flight from any major English airport would not land in England. It’s really that small. A game in Frankfurt does not feel like a home game for the English fans. I would love to hear Dave explain troop movements in World War II. ‘That battle was only across the Channel in Normandy. It felt like a home game for them.’
24th Minute: Balboa sounded a little depressed having to play straight man to O’Brien’s never-ending Prince William/robot dance/geezer story. So would I. For those keeping score at home, in slang English it means man. So Joe Cole called bonny Prince William a nice man. See, this is why I’m here.
16 Minutes: England needs to take a step back and show some composure. They’re a little too excited to run all over Paraguay. That’s the big reason why the score is the same.
8th Minute: Paraguay’s keeper is subbed out. Let’s see if Dave O’Brien goes to the suitcase for the ‘82 European Cup example. Ok, since you asked. In the ‘82 European Cup, Aston Villa lost their keeper early, the sub played off his head, yada yada yada, Villa are champions of Europe.
Paraguay has no shape at all. Take your pick on who will make a run on them. England isn’t this good. It’s like pro wrestling at this point, for one side to look this good, the other side has to look this bad.
1-0 England Paraguay opens the scoring in the 3rd minute… on Paraguay. Looked like it could’ve been Beckham, could’ve been Owen, turns out it was Paraguay.
Game On: There’s a scroller running along the top telling some very disappointed children they’re getting shafted on the cartoons this morning.
I’ve waited my entire career in pro soccer to have a need to correctly spell Brent Musburger. Not really, but who would’ve thought? I’m also thinking we turn the expected showing of the Jim McKay “hey look, soccer is the world’s game’ piece into a drinking game. Yeah, too early. How about instead of a shot, you chug an omelet? And by you, I mean not me.