Early Doors - Your morning briefing blog

Kiss and make up

Thu Nov 20 08:55AM

If last night's game in Berlin proved anything, it is that Germans are capable of caring just as little about international friendlies as England.

Most of the friendly faces we got to know and love at the World Cup and Euro 2008 were missing.

There was no Philipp Lahm, bombing forward from left-back and getting caught woefully out of position.

No Torsten Frings prowling around kicking people and smashing in 30-yard screamers like some latter-day Paul Breitner.

No Jens Lehmann, whose public barneys with team-mates and inimitable clowning are now a thing of the past.

And no Michael Ballack, puffing his chest out like Eric Cantona after swallowing a balloon and doing really very little.

Mario Gomez did play, and Early Doors can confirm that he is still rubbish, although not as rubbish as right-back Arne Friedrich who contrived to make Stewart Downing look like Garrincha.

England dominated so much that Fabio Capello had to do the international football equivalent of putting the fat, uncoordinated kid in goal to even up a lop-sided playground kickabout.

Scott Carson's attempt to get 45 confidence-boosting minutes under his belt was somewhat undermined by the almighty mix-up with John Terry that led to the German equaliser, as the pair showed all the teamwork of the Chuckle Brothers attempting to carry a trestle table up a flight of stairs.

- - -

Up in Glasgow, nobody was watching the game. Rather, their eyes were trained on the benches in the hope of seeing Terry Butcher get Diego Maradona in a headlock.

Sadly El Diego was on disappointingly subdued form, only livening up to kiss and cuddle each and every member of his playing and coaching staff on the final whistle.

Butcher was long gone by that stage, beating a hasty retreat so as to avoid touching the hand of God.

As PR blunders go, Butcher's claim that he would never forgive Maradona for his actions in 1986 was a whopper.

Many Scottish people were uneasy about having an Englishman as assistant manager, and a staggeringly bitter rant against someone who the Scots have adopted as a national hero was never going to do much for Butcher's popularity north of the border.

- - -

When a massive news story breaks, you immediately know about it. You flick through the TV channels - all have shelved their scheduled programming for live coverage of the news. Captions flash, yellow bars pop up and 'experts' are hastily assembled on the phone.

E-mails fire back and forth between disbelieving offices and homes - 'Have you heard??' - as the news sweeps the country. People weep openly in the streets, displaying emotions they would keep firmly under wraps in less traumatic time.

Serious programmes like Newsnight talk about little else, while the next morning's papers all have the same lead story - the red-tops turning their banners black and the broadsheets going for the 'massive story only' format of printing a giant double-sized photo on both the front and back pages.

And so it was with John Sergeant's tragically misguided withdrawal from Strictly Come Dancing, supposedly because there was a "real danger" he might win - which he obviously would not have done.

In a week of high-profile withdrawals, rumour has it Fabio Capello considered hauling Sergeant down to Watford, where England medics would have checked whether his pride really was wounded.

Having watched every moment of the hour-long 'It Takes Two' special last night (some bits twice) Early Doors pays tribute to the insane level of hysteria generate by a bloke dancing badly on TV.

Sky News in particular outdid itself, abandoning a story about a suspected murderer escaping from hospital to cover the Sergeant farrago.

It hardly seemed possible before now, but clearly football still has much to learn when it comes to getting worked up about complete irrelevance.

Early Doors wishes Sergeant well on his entirely coincidental all-expenses-paid Caribbean cruise. Come on Christine Bleakley.

- - -

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "It was embarrassing. We have short-changed the fans, especially with Christmas coming up." Northern Ireland boss Nigel Worthington prepares for a new career preparing press releases for Strictly Come Dancing bosses.

DEBUT OF THE DAY: Former bin man Steve Savidan, who played the second half of France's goalless friendly against Uruguay. Although any call-up by Sugar Ray Domenech should probably come with an asterisk by it, Early Doors can happily report that Savidan is a decent player, and almost scored an overhead kick last night.

FOREIGN VIEW: "Only Lippi wins" - Gazzetta dello Sport says the only upside of Italy's drab 1-1 against Greece was that Marcello Lippi set a new national record of 31 games unbeaten as Azzurri coach - compiled either side of his post-World Cup hiatus.

COMING UP: Lots of reaction from last night's games, including England player ratings as awarded by somebody who was actually paying attention and a blow-by-blow Maradona watch. Plus all sorts of other gubbins here.

There's no live football today, but you can click here to follow the rest of England's one-day international defeat to India, as Yuvraj Singh bids to win a third Honda motorcycle.

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