UNTOLD ARSENAL » Blog Archive » It’s insanity week

Adebayor hasn’t played a game in 78 weeks (or something) so he flies off to his country to train with the squad, and Togo say, “we promise he won’t play”.

Eduardo plays bits but keeps getting injured, so he meanders off to Croatia (you’ll recall he is Brazillian) to play for them.

Yup – it’s nonsense time when the nutters, twits, twerps and loonies who run “national” teams on behalf of the corrupt FIFA overlords who ban journalists for having the temerity to ask how much pay Sepp Blatter gets a year, get their hands on the players whose wages you and I pay.

I wouldn’t mind too much if playing for England meant a) you were born in England, and b) you were fit, but of course such basics have long been overthrown.  If you great-granny dropped in to give birth to your grandmother on English soil then you can play for England.  If you can hardly hobble onto the plane to Uzborkanistinstan you should travel so the manager “can have a look at him”.

The Harry-does-apoplexy story from Tottenham High Road over the fact that the knee wobbling L King has been picked for England would be amusing if it were not for the fact that we suffer from the same nonsense year after year.

But let us try and get something interesting out of all this.   Here’s something: Vieira has been dropped by France, and by and large that is not too surprising, as he seems to have lost that style and poise that he had from the moment he appeared for the first time as a sub at Highbury and took over the whole show.   Now, following the Lord Wenger’s pronoucement that maybe after all Diaby is Vieira II it is noteworthy that Diaby does have a chance to get injured not playing for Arsenal. Patrick it seems is now safe.

In fact France is looking a bit like Arsenal in disguise including, as it does, Bacary Sagna, William Gallas, Gael Clichy, Abou Diaby, and Samir Nasri .  That’s five, (I think, let me check, un, deux, trois, yup five) and if they all play it will be worth trying to find a channel that shows France againstLithuania and then against Lithuania (I guess that must be east Lithuania and then west Lithuania).

I suppose we have to feel sorry for Almunia left at home all alone – unless he’s been called up and I missed it.  But as far as I can see we don’t have any players playing for Spain, which is a relief and a half.

In 9 days it will all be over and we’ll know the disaster total – how many maimed, how many food poisoned, how many tapped up by foreign agents, how many coming back without the form they went with, how many who have turned into turnips, how many have been arrested by KGB Chelsea agents and held in darkened cells for days on end.  Still that’s Stamford Bridge for you.

Overall, I suppose if you support Leeds or York or someone, it gives you something to shout about.  Me, I just like shouting about the stupidity of it all.

(c) Tony Attwood, dreaming of a world in which international football is outlawed, and international managers are forced to spend hours in meeting rooms with ex-bankers listening to them moan about how the government has let them down. 2009.