I Hate International Football
Another round of boring international football is over. England are looking more and more unlikely to qualify for Euro 2008. Henry broke Platini’s goals for France record. And of course, tons of injuries for a host of players, and not just Arsenal ones.
For Arsenal, Senderos has a back problem that may rule him out for 2 weeks. Gallas was said to have suffered a set back in training for France, but did play 90 minutes for the French in midweek. Rosicky was left out of both matches for the Czech Republic and looks unlikely to start for us this weekend. And the most disconcerting news of all was what looked like a very nasty knee injury for Van Persie which may rule him out for 4 weeks to several months. Fuck!
International football sucks because it consists of teams limited by nationality and played by a bunch of people who haven’t really played together for much time. For other sports, this may be fine, but for a competitive team sport, it just takes the competitive and the team element out of it. This is why it is boring and this is also why the level of football on show is so low that you wonder if a second division club team might just be able to beat the national team. About the only thing that gives International games some excitement is the patriotic fervour that it may stir and give matches a bit of an edge, but that’s just a breeding ground for nationalism and racism (see Easter European football “fans”). And don’t even get me started on International friendlies (also known as money generating events for FIFA - and don’t get get me started on FIFA, also known as …).
Anyway, thank goodness club football is back (albeit minus the players injured during International week, such as Terry, A. Cole, Robben, Van der Vaart, Anelka, Mellberg, Nuno Gomes, Nicolas Burdisso, Van Persie, Rosicky, Senderos …).