Early Doors - Your morning briefing blog

Bring back the Iron Curtain

Wed Oct 15 08:55AM

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of communism in Europe might have been great news for hundreds of millions of people, but Early Doors still rues the day the East Germans got into their Trabants and turned left.

Democracy, prosperity and freedom are all very nice - but when the result is a confusing and long-winded World Cup qualifying competition, surely that is too high a price to pay for a few trendy buzzwords?

First these countries liberate themselves from the yoke of tyranny, then they want to play international football. What next - televisions? Running water? It's madness.

Early Doors remembers the glorious simplicity of the 1990 World Cup qualifying competition, which took place before anyone had thought to tear down the Iron Curtain, nip down to Laura Ashley and replace it with a nice fuchsia and duck egg design.

There were a mere 32 teams comprising seven groups with the winners and runners-up qualifying for Italia '90.

Well, unless you were Denmark - for some reason the second-placed team with the worst record didn't make it. Not so simple after all.

There was not much messing about with minnows. The cliche about 'no easy games in international football any more' has got it completely backwards.

Back in the late 80s, there was no San Marino, no Liechtenstein, no Andorra, and the USSR and Yugoslavia had yet to shatter into a million shards of mediocrity.

And Germany, because they were better than everyone else, got two teams. Early Doors can think of no reason outside football why the country might have been split into East (booooo!) and West (hooray!).

These were the days when England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland made up over 10 percent of the teams in the European section. No wonder the Tartan Army always used to qualify.

The ranks have now swollen to a whopping 53 countries, and away trips are a tiresome mix of stag party venues and places that are actually in Asia.

And there are so many new names to remember - it is like arriving, drunk, at a posh dinner party and being introduced to a load of people you have never met before.

In those circumstances, how can anyone blame you if you think Tristan is Tarquin, or Hugo is Horatio?

Lithuania/Latvia, Macedonia/Montenegro, Slovenia/Slovakia. Early Doors wonders if these countries are playing a prank on the West - payback for its complicity in Stalin's crimes during the Second World War, perhaps.

Take Slovenia and Slovakia, whose people frequently get annoyed when blundering foreigners get them mixed up and feel compelled to point out the differences.

Not only do they have similar names, they even share virtually identical flags; both countries have three horizontal stripes - white on top, then blue, then red.

Admittedly, they each have a different badge on the left side of the flag. Slovenia's is of three mountains with stars above them; Slovakia's is of three less pointy mountains with a big double cross coming out of them.

If people are going to get their noses bent out of shape when others get the name of their country wrong, they need to simplify things.

Why not merge the two countries for the sake of pig-ignorant football fans everywhere? Who cares if you don't even share a border? Independence is overrated.

Even more disappointingly, hardly any of these new teams are much fun. True, there's the odd Croatia or Czech Republic but by and large, while they're not that bad, neither are they very good.

No doubt the English press will build up the trip to Kiev to face Ukraine as the most dangerous foray east since Napoleon sent half a million conscripts into Russia with nothing but a tunic on their backs and a baguette down their trousers.

But tell that to the Wales team that had to play two-thirds of their 1990 World Cup qualifiers against West Germany and Holland (Juergen Klinsmann is pictured above sticking one past Neville Southall).

However Early Doors likes Belarus, where England play tonight; it is obviously part of Europe, yet you cannot get a low-cost flight there.

Although it can only be a matter of time until Ryanair start flying to Minsk (Bialystok), just a short 450km bus ride away from the city centre.

Irish bars will spring up around the main square, allowing thousands of Brits to experience a new culture by sitting in the pub watching Sky Sports and drinking lager that is very slightly cheaper than back home.

For, if the New Europe has any purpose, it is to supply Hackett-wearing louts with new places to get pissed and vomit on each other's shoes. Amen.

- - -

PICTURE OF THE DAY: Stevie G's missus Alex Curran on the back page of The Sun - she's obviously been taking style tips from John McCririck.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "We became a bit of a circus in terms of the WAG situation. It seems like there was a big show around the whole England squad. It was like watching a theatre show unfolding. Football almost became a secondary element to the main event." Forget the condemnation of football's WAG culture - what about the revelation that Rio Ferdinand has been to the theatre?

BET OF THE DAY: Alexandra Burke to win X Factor at 3/1. Why? Because Wayne Rooney said so. Here's Coleen: "We love watching the show and he picked out Leona two years ago from watching her very first audition. Then he tipped Leon to beat Rhydian in the final [last year]. I wouldn't have a clue who is going to win this year. Cheryl has the strongest group but it's who the public likes. I like Laura and Diana but Wayne is confident it's Alex."

FOREIGN VIEW: "Platini scores another goal against us" - Marca vents its spleen at UEFA's hard line stance against Atletico Madrid's lovable racist thugs. On the upside, you can collect tokens for an Atletico sandwich toaster, which brands your toastie with the club crest. Or, if you prefer, a hooligan doing a monkey impression. Not really.

COMING UP: Minute-by-minute text comments of Belarus v England, Germany v Wales, Rep. Ireland v Cyprus and Northern Ireland v San Marino. Plus live scores and scorers from every World Cup qualifier, even the ones in rubbish countries. The whole shebang kicks off at 16:00 UK time.

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