Super Mario

It's Cup Final Saturday and more than three times the population of Antigua Guatemala is right now seated inside Wembley stadium. Stoke are playing tight in the first half, obliging several Manchester City players to try their luck from long range.

One of these is the notoriously petulant Italian Mario Balotelli, he of the inflated ego and white Maserati. In September last year he was at the wheel of his other car, an Audi R8, when he was involved in a minor accident. Police at the scene were somewhat intrigued by the discovery that the footballer was carrying 6000 Euros on his person. Balotelli's explanation? "Because I'm rich."

Perhaps Super Mario keeps a big wad of cash in his pocket to satisfy a need to perform random acts of generosity. For it was only recently that he handed a homeless man one thousand pounds outside a casino.

Last week Balotelli's social work was in the news again. When asked for an autograph by a young fan outside City's training ground, he in turn asked the lad why he wasn't in school. Upon learning that a bully was making formal education a living nightmare for the autograph-hunter, Balotelli drove him and his mother to the school, where he set up a face to face confrontation with the headteacher and the alleged bully. Handshakes of conciliation were effected and Balotelli climbed back into his Maserati and drove off.

Born to Ghanaian immigrants Balotelli was given up to foster care as a young boy. Now his parents want him back. Balotelli's explanation? "Because I'm rich."

Bollywood on ice

Did you watch these guys the other night?

Here's an earlier, slightly less polished version of the original dance offering from the American pair Meryl Davis and Charie White, performed in Tokyo last year. If you listen hard enough you'll spot the Japanese for "well coordinated".

Winter Olympics

It's another lovely cloudless morning here in Antigua, but the temperature has dipped noticeably, perhaps so that we might get ourselves more in the mood for watching coverage of Vancouver 2010 this afternoon.

No Central or South American nation has ever won a medal at the Winter Games, though you'd think the Argies were overdue one. Consequently, the interest on local terrestrial TV is rather more limited than say during the Mundial. (Come June we can expect the whole country to come to a virtual standstill for a month.)

We tracked the parade of nations on Saturday, hoping (against all hope) to spot a Guatemalan delegation. "No llegaron, ni para vender granizadas," noted V acerbically once we'd hit the Hs.

Mexico has sent a lone athlete however: Prince Hubertus von Hohenlohe, at 51 the oldest competitor in Vancouver. He's the son of Prince Alfonso, legendary founder of the Marbella Club, and has been known to release pop albums in Mexico under the pseudonym of Andy Himalaya.

Although here representing Mexico, the blue-blooded alpine skier resides in Liechtenstein, a tiny place that doesn't seem to need his help in winning medals at the Winter Olympics. From the stats displayed by NBC I gathered that you could fit the entire populations of Liechtenstein, Monaco and Antigua Guatemala into Wembley Stadium and still have room left over for everyone who's read the novels of last year's Nobel prize-winner Herta Müller.

Poor Georgia. They've acquired the knack of earning themselves the greatest sympathy applause the last couple of times that the Olympians have paraded.

The Innuit put in an appearance too, along with other indigenous contingents which collectively danced a joyous welcome to the world around the strangely zombie-like totems pictured above. Oddly enough, in spite of choosing to live in the frozen northern wastes, the Innuit's greatest contribution to the Olympic movement would appear to have been the kayak, more likely to be seen in competition at the Summer Games, though I imagine you could get down a mountain quite fast in one.

While I enjoy the Downhill (though I don't know why. I think it has to do with childhood memories of Franz Klammer's wild rides) V enjoys the skating. China's married pair Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo deservedly claimed Gold in an event where the line between mediocrity and sublimity is starker than the scoring suggests.

I'll be in Vancouver for a couple of days in May, my maiden visit to Canada, by which time it will have warmed up a bit...one hopes.

This week we've also tuned into TV Globo's extensive coverage of the Rio Carnival. How can so much fun make such tedious viewing? It would be more entertaining to spend several hours watching English people tossing pancakes (...or cross country skiing for that matter.)

Anyway, a Lenten afternoon on the sofa beckons. Speaking of which, something I read earlier reminded me of the famous put-down delivered by the late, great Alan Clark, Minister in Thatcher's last government, who dismissed her nemesis Michael Heseltine as the sort of man who "bought his own furniture".

It is true that if there is one thing that is sadly lacking in La Antigua it's an IKEA superstore. But for anyone willing to venture into the badlands of Guatemala City there's plenty of mass-produced, but 'designer' furniture to be had at the likes of Sears and Siman.

A friend bought me a copy of Stuff White People Like for Christmas, the dead tree version of the hilarious blog by Christian Landers. It's had me chuckling self-consciously on numerous occasions over the past few days, not least with No54: Kitchen Gadgets. Plenty of those at Siman too. I'm glad it's over 30 minutes away really.

Death Match III

The most controversial FIFA fixture in world football reaches round three today.



As some of you will know, Egypt were down 1-3 from the first leg, but with the score still at 1-0 in Cairo in the fifth minute of time added-on, the locals managed to get the second goal that they so desperately needed to draw the tie overall, and force this afternoon's decider in Khartoum. It was probably offside but seriously, what referee in the world was ever going to disallow it?

It is said that the ill-feeling that lead to the original 'hate match' in 1982 was a result of Egypt's indifference to Algeria's struggle for independence from the French.

How do you like that?

Not a lot if you're of the tico persuasion.

Honduras booked themselves a place in South Africa on wednesday evening, thanks to that late and possibly unconstitutional gringo equaliser in the fifth minute of extra time.

Costa Rica will get one last bite at the guinda however, as they now face a play-off against the Uruguayan team who let everyone down by not putting the Argies out of their misery earlier the same day.

Maradonna then showed everyone what a class act he is by calling a Coke- sponsored press conference in which he asked the gathered press pack to keep sucking on the big one...



...and singling out one hack called Toti Pasman for some shaming comments, such as "“Vos también la tenés adentro."



(Update: Diego's remarks could earn him a five match ban, which would keep him out of everyone's hair until the semi-finals...should the Argies even progress that far.)

Guatemalan interest in next year's Mundial is likely to be even more consuming than it was back in Germany 2006, since there may well be two Central American teams involved, plus Mexico — for whom the chapines seem to acquire a grudging respect if not actual affection for a few weeks every four years.

Once all these have been knocked out, Hispanic allegiances will tend to switch to Brazil and Spain, handily the two teams with the greatest chance of actually winning the competition.

England will be somewhere in the chasing pack (and thanks to events in Montevideo consigned to the second tier of seeds) with the likes of France and Argentina straggling further back, unless they somehow manage to effect a change of manager before the tournament commences.

France of course still have to qualify through the European play-offs, but have been helped by UEFA's (run by a Frenchman) belated decision to change the format from a free draw to a seeded one, thereby giving the likes of Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo the best chance of actually appearing all kitted up in South Africa...to the great delight of advertisers everywhere.

Sudáfrica 2010 (1)

Haiti lost 0-5 to El Salvador yesterday. They're on a bit of a roll at the moment.

Meanwhile, their penultimate tormentor Hurricane Hanna brought Saturday's tennis at Flushing Meadow to an abrupt close, forcing me to watch England's un-emphatic 2-0 victory against Andorra in the Olympic stadium in Barcelona.

Guatemala remains in third place in CONCACAF Group A, their hopes for the Mundial in 2010 just about alive after a 92nd minute equaliser by defender Gallardo in Trinidad. Group leaders USA beat Cuba 1-0.

Today's Belgian GP was a classic...but why are the 2008 F1 cars such mingers?

Chamarreados

I'm watching the match in Personajes today. I suspect all those people in orange t-shirts in the Cafe 2000 next door are feeling a bit sick right now. There are some very noisy Russians in here though.

Sometimes I think it would be worth learning Spanish just in order to follow the local soccer commentary.

There would appear to be far more nouns in Latin American football discourse than our own. Wherever we might say that someone is doing something the commentator over here is more likely to observe that a something is being done, be it a barrida or a bonbón or one of countless other specialist terms that I have gradually assimilated through several major international tournaments.

Channel 11 has a pair of pundits that I find a bit trying though: a Chapin and an Argie. They remind me a bit of the classic BBC F1 partnership of Murray Walker and James Hunt, the one seemingly high on banned substances and the other detached and phlegmatic to the point of not even noting that a "goooooooooooooool" has been scored until he has finished whatever it is he has been prattling on about. When these two are holding the mikes you need to keep your eyes glued to the TV as there's nothing in the tone of voice of either man which would allow you to distinguish between a situation likely to lead to a goal and one which couldn't possibly.

Guatemala's World Cup qualifier with St Lucia last Saturday provided a welcome break from the beautiful game as exemplified (in the main) by the Euro2008 competition.

The St Lucians were a truly hapless bunch. Just a few minutes into the match V joked that they must have overdone the pre-match frijoles. Soon their lethargy progressed to the acute phase, with several keeling over with agonising cramps before the first half was even over. Their defending was straight out of Alan Hansen's worst pesadillas and their strikers, on the rare occasions they made it into Guatemala's half of the pitch, didn't seem to know where the goal was.

The Chapin commentator, typically rather animated during Euro2008 matches, sounded here as if he was about to have a stroke any moment. Rrrrrrrrremate!

The man in the pic above, Guatemala's famed No9, Carlos 'El Pescado' ('the fish') Ruiz - David Beckham's team-mate at LA Galaxy - scored four of the six goals conceded that night by the Caribbean outfit. (During the last set of World Cup qualifiers Ruiz had acquired the unfortunate extra nickname of Nemo, because of the way he appeared to have gone missing!)

When the St Lucian keeper Dany Michael went down with cramp in the second half it was the Guatemalan strikers that rushed to his aid before a rather fat-looking physio from the other side eventually arrived on the scene. Michael's replacement had, according to V, "piernitas de grillo" (spindly legs) but the more immediate target of the commentators' deprecatory wit was the way he had come on bearing his squad number (No3) scribbled on a piece of card which had been fastened it to his jersey with masking tape!

The return leg is tonight in Los Angeles. Not exactly a home tie then for the sorry St Lucians! Another chamarreada?

Update: Looks like I'll have to order another Gallo. The Tulipanes have equalised.

Update en Chapin: "Los Rusos hicieron jugo de las naranjas con yema de huevo."

Uniquely perfect

A crap '07/'08 season for the Dolphins had a silver lining on Sunday night when the Giants scored a late winning touchdown against the up-to-then rather smug Patriots. So for now, the 17-0 1972 Dolphins remain, in the words of one member of that team, "uniquely perfect". This year's vintage also very narrowly avoided the unwanted distinction of becoming uniquely imperfect!

Mano Dura?

Fabio Capello, an Italian with a confessed admiration for the 'order' that Francisco Franco brought to Spain, has today been appointed as the next England manager. A bit of goose-stepping is so often the required medicine for chronic national humiliation.

Soho Square remains full of opportunistic hacks, plus a bloke in a John Bull get-up protesting the foreign appointment.

Dolphins v Giants

I'm sure if the two NFL teams facing up to each other at Wembley yesterday had played it like the guys in this amusing clip (forward passes notwithstanding, perhaps not entirely unlike that pub rugby team alluded to by Lawrence Dallaglio in his forthcoming memoirs) then more of the locals watching might have really got into the game!

Oddly though, this 'laterals' lark seems more popular in American college football than in the major league.




Anyway, I think I actually understand American Football better than Rugby, even though the latter was compulsory at my school. I've followed Gridiron on and off since Superbowl IXX which matched up the two greatest quaterbacks of that era, the Dolphins' Dan Marino and the 49-ers' Joe Montana. My uncle lived in Florida and was a Dolphins fan so I kind of inherited the affiliation.

The Dolphins lost comprehensively in '85, and it's something they have been doing a great deal of this year too, with yesterday's encounter, nominally a home game for them, offering no relief. (The 49-ers also got stuffed later on, courtesy of New Orleans.)

Surfer was always a Giants fan. They scored their touchdown yesterday thanks apparently to the muddy and broken up conditions of the Wembley turf, under which a defensive linebacker 'had the turning circle of a transatlantic liner.

"Cachetazo Duro"

So the Argie team that should have won the World Cup becomes the Argie team that should have won the Copa America. My heart bleeds.

Federer wins!

Roger Federer has finally managed to beat Rafa Nadal on clay, ending the Spaniard's 81 match winning streak on the surface which dated back to April 2005. The doubters have been circling around Federer since the start of the Spring, and in the first set he played as if he couldn't keep his eyes from drifting up to them. But then suddently he rediscovered his invincibility and ended up taking the third set 6-0. Roll on Roland Garros!

La Batalla de las Superficies

Puchica.

Una cancha en Mallorca mitad hierba mitad tierra batida, en cual Rafael Nadal se impuso de nuevo ayer a Roger Federer: 7-5, 4-6 y 7-6. (Por supuesto el manacorense tenia la ventajita extra de estar 'en casa'.)

Esto a mí me confundiría! Cuando rebota la pelota en la superficie de tierra, uno estaría tan tentado de devolver el tiro como si fuera el lado oponente igual de mullido!

Tuvieron que cambiarse de zapatos cada dos juegos.

Humble Pie

Andrew Flintoff will be arriving at Sydney's Kingsford Smith international airport with a seriously unlovely piece of Antipodean silverware. If our cricketers are coming back on BA it will cost them an extra two hundred and forty pounds to check it in.

Humble pie is back on the menu down under.

Now is the winter of our discontent

The Ashes series has only just begun down under and already words like humiliation spring to mind. And we have weeks more of this to bear. In a way it's lucky England didn't win the World Cup in Berlin this summer as our soccer players would probably have immediately forgotten how to compete at the highest level in the same way our cricketers and rugby players did after their own deleriously celebrated triumphs.

Life beyond the quarters

What an evening of anomalous national sporting success...

Ok, Andy Murray only won a second round match, but earlier, when the news emerged that he was "looking forward to his encounter with Roger Federer," I had quipped to a colleague that he was in fact looking forward to having the rest of the week off!

Even with the likes of Federer and Nadal set to dominate men's tennis for years to come, it is suddenly possible to believe that the Scot may yet blossom into something more than quarter-final fodder.

And what of England's energetic drubbing of the Greeks: 4-0. It was a friendly, but the new, more pragmatic set-up seems to work, and Owen Hargreaves has carried forward his restored reputation into the the new campaign.

All this called for a celebration, so we barbecued some shrimps, carrots and aubergine. In truth, grilled shrimp may be no more tasty than say grilled turkey, but preparing and consuming it does involve a more complex sensual experience, not least of which is the aroma, which for us − for just one night − converted our Thameside location into an imaginary hide-away facing the setting sun on the Bay of Biscay.

The river has been bloated all week. High tide this morning was filling the open jaws of the lions on the side of the Victoria Embankment and sloshing around the platform behind Cleopatra's Needle.

The Fox and the Hedgeherg

Incidentally, I wonder how Huo Yuanjia would have fared against undefeated French champion Zizou?

Retributive Violence

I suppose you have to be French to be both very sorry and ne regret rien.

Zidane's response reflects a fault-line in our culture I first became painfully aware of when, many years ago, I went to see Harrison Ford in Witness with a Swiss girl I was very smitten with at the time.

There's a scene where some rednecks start baiting a carriage-load of Amesh, including bogus bible-basher John Book, Ford's character. It is their normal practice to turn the other cheek to such provocation, but not for the red-blooded mainstream American male. Book swings a punch and a redneck hits the dirt with a broken nose. Some of the audience in the cinema duly applauded. Not my Swiss friend though. She fumed.

I can't recall having vocally supported Book's manly approach to wind-up merchants, but somehow this on-screen incident soured the mood of the evening, opening up an un-spoken rift between me and the embodiment of patient neutrality at my side!

Only to be expected

It seems that it's OK to head-butt narcisistic Italians in shiny outfits provided that you are a member of an oppressed race and the designated target has made the kind of witty remark about your other half that nationals of this lanky country are justly famous for. Abbas Raza writes:

"As Western nations continue to dominate and oppress the third world by economic as well as military means and the cynical manipulation of governments, as they continue to wreak havoc on the environment, as the injustices of extreme inequality in the distributions of wealth continue to grow, it is to be expected that some will be driven to irrational anger, and will break the rules. And hit back. You can't just show everyone a red card. "

However, Marco Materazzi denies being an oppressor. He is, he insists, only a poor uncultured wop who worships his mamma and has no idea at all what an Islamic terrorist is.

Nevertheless across the Channel at least, the suspicion remains that ZZ was in some way standing up for the world's downtrodden (and Gallic masculine pride in general), as opposed to our own Wayne Rooney whose less emblematic downtreading merely involved standing up on a Portuguese man's testicles.

Mundial (5): Honkety Honk

Not in my view a victory worthy of a night of hooting cavalcades...but then I'm not Italian.

Zizou certainly made sure we'd all remember his final appearance for les bleus. And amazingly, "Zid Vicious" has today been awarded the Golden Ball for best player of the tournament. (Voting took place at half time.)

And so it ends for another four years. I saw most of the second stage out in Guatemala where they describe this 64 partido glut as los festejos, treating it essentially a month-long public festival. Hardly any of the TV ads failed to reference the Mundial and most showed off a sense of humour that British advertising has sadly lost over the last decade or so.

Perhaps in part because of the pan-Latin anti-European sentiment I could sense out in Central America, I've even found myself letting off cuetes for the French and the Germans as they saw off the Argies and then the Brazilians, teams that seemed to think they only had each other to worry about.

At least we're not as bad at penalties as the Swiss!

The commentators on Guatemala's channels 3 and 7 may have sat behind desks in drab 80's-style studios and struggled with surnames like Sweinsteiger and Hargreaves (shvenstegger/hairgrafe) but otherwise delighted with their uplifting lexicon of zapatazos, pelotazos, sombreritos, (rrr)remates and contra-remates. I have reproduced a few of their more accomplished verbal passes below:

Tirar la pelota para bajar cocos: a shot designed to bring down coconuts - Lampard, Maniche etc.

Irse a la piscina verde: to plunge into the green pool i.e. take a dive - C. Ronaldo, Henry etc.

Son como divorciados, nunca se buscan, nunca se acercan: they're like a divorced couple, they never look for each other or get close to each other - of Aimar and Riquelme.