Early Doors - Your morning briefing blog

Murray saves English face

Tue Jun 30 08:52AM

At least England U21s got their timing right. If you're going to lose 4-0 to Germany in your biggest match for 25 years, you should probably do it while Andy Murray is locked in a five-setter.

Despite Sky Sports News's valiant insistence that the football is their lead story, there is only one sporting water cooler topic today, and that is Murray's antics under the roof at Wimbledon.

Well, that and the South Africa rugby coach's claim that anyone who doesn't like having their eyes gouged out should put on a tutu and take up ballet instead (that's the kind of comment that could convince ED rugby is a good thing).

For a man who once said he would support anyone but England at the World Cup, young Murray has done our Euro-flops a service by sparing them from public ridicule.

Whenever England play Germany, the tabloids love to go on about the war, casting the players as major historical characters.

If England played the part of any wartime figure last night it was not Churchill or Montgomery, but the Czech Sudetenland; reduced to looking on helplessly as they were completely overrun.

England, in fairness, were not that bad. It was just one of those occasions when you are reminded that football is about goals and nothing else.

Whatever the balance of play, however many shots on target or corners you register, if you lose 4-0 it's a drubbing. Even if your goalie just chucks the ball into his own net four times, which poor Scott Loach might as well have done in lieu of his calamitous display. England would have been better off with Ken Loach in goal.

As it turned out, Joe Hart's shenanigans in the semi-final shoot-out - picking up a yellow card that ruled him out of the final - proved costly to the tune of at least two goals. Although you might suggest it serves Hart right for being such a cocky beggar.

The pages of German scandal sheet Bild are surprisingly light on triumphalism this morning, which makes things all the more depressing.

The Germans knew they were going to win, so they see little reason to crow about it now they have done so.

- - -

Chelsea's appeal against the Champions League bans handed out to Didier Drogba and Jose Bosingwa is another massive own-goal from football's most paranoid PR machine.

The four-match sanction handed out to Bosingwa for comments made about referee Tom Henning Ovrebo after Chelsea's defeat against Barcelona might seem a little harsh, but you can hardly expect to call the ref a cheat and get away with it.

Drogba's behaviour, while hilarious and the kind of thing ED would like to see after every match, was clearly unacceptable.

Six matches - in rugby terms more than a sucker punch but less than a gouge - seems like a reasonable punishment for screaming obscenities down a camera lens during prime time. There is no place for that in football; after all, what do you think Kitchen Nightmares is for?

Regardless of the suspensions' merits, what makes Chelsea look petulant and foolish is that their appeal has absolutely no chance of succeeding.

Drogba's crazy-eyed dissent was the kind of thing the authorities cannot abide - particularly as he was using their equipment to vent his expletive-strewn views on Ovrebo.

He could not have made himself any more unpopular with the powers-that-be if he had arranged for a courier to deliver a dog turd direct to the doorstep of UEFA HQ in Switzerland.

Chelsea's statement described the punishments "unnecessarily harsh given the circumstances," a particularly petty remark that showed they have no intention whatsoever of chalking Ovrebo's admittedly pitiful performance down to experience.

The Norwegian obviously had a bad game but it was not one-way traffic as he sent Barcelona's Eric Abidal off for a tangle of legs. And the Jamie Redknapp line that a referee from "a country like Norway" could never be any good was undermined somewhat by the fact that the bloke who reffed the final was Swiss.

Chelsea could have taken the high ground. They could issued a statement expressing disappointment at the severity of the punishments, but saying they would accept them for the good of the game.

Instead, they have launched an appeal that is clearly doomed to failure and they are going to look like idiots.

Unless it succeeds, in which case ED will look like an idiot.

- - -

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "If I have the chance to play for Barcelona, I'd be really happy." The fiercely loyal Andrei Arshavin seeks a way out of his 50 per cent income tax hell in North London.

FOREIGN VIEW: Santa Fe's Uruguayan coach Ruben Israel resigned after being threatened with death if he did not quit, the Colombian club's president Armando Farfan has said.

Israel had not yet taken charge of a match.

"Yesterday he received several calls with threats on his life and those of his family, calls we can't understand because he hasn't even stepped onto the grass in the stadium," Farfan said.

He said the club would meet with Israel to try to make him change his mind by offering him security guarantees.

He added the person that made the threatening calls claimed to be a member of hard core fans of Santa Fe, six-times champions but seeking their first title in 34 years.

Israel, 51, was appointed to replace former Colombia and Ecuador coach Hernan Dario Gomez, who quit after Santa Fe's failure to reach the semi-finals. He led Libertad to Paraguayan league titles in 2007 and 2008.

COMING UP: Look, Elena Dementieva v Francesca Schiavone might not have quite the same appeal as Murray or Federer, but it's Wimbledon. You can at least pretend to be interested.

- - -

In light of some epic stupidity on the message board below, Early Doors would like to confirm it does not think Andy Murray is English. He's Scottish. ED knows this. The headline does not suggest otherwise.

• Email
• Share:
  • Delicious
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Stumbleupon
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine