Congratulations to Slovenia, a pair of bad managers, strange cures and daylight robbery all feature in this week’s good, the bad and the ugly. Vocabulary support can be found for the words in bold at the foot of the post.
Football Review: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Slovenia, Bad Managers and Thierry Henry
Good
It’s been a good week for Uruguay, Algeria, Portugal, Greece, France, New Zealand and Slovenia as they all booked their places in next year’s World Cup finals with play-off victories over the past few days. Perhaps the most congratulations should go to Slovenia – a country of only 2 million people after they shocked Russia to qualify for only their second World Cup appearance.
Well, not exactly good, but interesting. Recently Liverpool have been hit with several injuries, which has definitely had an effect on their campaign. But in an attempt to get players back to fitness, Benitez has joined other football managers around Europe in asking a Serbian placenta healer to take a look at Yossi Benayoun, Albert Riera, Fabio Aurelio and Glen Johnson, all suffering niggling injuries over the past month or more. The woman, using horse placenta in her treatments – has hit the headlines after treating Robin van Persie this week, but she has been making quite a living from her unorthodox methods, charging A£3,000 for a course of treatment. Good… maybe?
Bad
George Burley the Scotland national team manager last week, has been sacked by the Scottish FA. He might have hoped to be spared the chop when he wasn’t asked to leave after Scotland failed to qualify for the World Cup, but after two losses in friendly matches away to Japan and Wales the authorities decided enough was enough and Burley won’t get the chance to build a winning squad to challenge for the 2012 European Championships. Qualification for that starts in September next year.
Yes, I saw the Scots performance against Wales and they were abysmal – I think he only managed to guide them to three victories while in charge so I think he had to go. For my bad this week I am going to suggest a few variations: Bad luck for Ireland and Egypt who both came back from the dead only to lose out at the final hurdle. Bad tactics – Raymond Domenech the French coach has so many good footballers at his disposal but does not seem to know what to do with them. Bad losers – Russia had two players sent off in their defeat in Slovenia that saw them crash out of the tournament and bad taste in the mouth – the manner in which Ireland were dumped out of the World Cup has left everyone in the country sickened.
Ugly
Now for my ugly this week I am of course going to talk about a photograph of Thierry Henry. Not the one of him handling the ball (twice) to enable France to score a decisive goal. No, the one at the end that shows him sitting down beside a distraught Richard Dunne. Henry has long cultivated a holier than though image in the press and this was no different as he attempted to console the Irish player.
Honestly, I don’t mind that he handled the ball – which player would not do so? But to attempt to show sympathy to a player you have just robbed is condescending at best and downright insulting at worst. FIFA Fair Play ambassador and French captain, Thierry Henry – very ugly indeed.
Vocabulary
hit with: suffer from, have something bad happen to you
placenta: the tissue that connects the foetus to the womb – part of the womb
niggling: troublesome, reoccurring, annoying
hit the headlines: be a big story in the news
unorthodox: strange, unusual, not mainstream
abysmal: Extremely poor (performance)
the chop: the sack – losing your job
distraught: Extremely upset
long cultivated a holier than though image: Over his career he has portrayed an innocent, gentlemanly image
