Four Game Saturday

[Logan Mountstuart]

I'm just about to set off up the coast path on the bike to Milady beach in Biarritz. Such appears to be the lack of football enthusiasm around here, I'm frightened I may not find a bar showing it. But surely they have to today? France are playing, for god's sake.

Apparently the sun is going to finally come out today, so I may slip off to the beach during games 2 and 3 and listen to 5 live on my naughty app. Choices choices.

[IronSeaPower]

1100 Match 1
1300-1400 - cut grass
1400 Match 2 (with Orchard Pig Cider)
1600-1700 - Holly Tree pruning
1700 Match 3 (More Cider)
1900-2000 - Might have some tea
2000 Match 4 (More cider)

[Satchmo Distel]

Did ITV cut Paraguay/South Africa short so they could 'preview' the England game? I have a memory of them giving the game very short shrift.

I also recall Argentina v Nigeria being the first warning sign that Argentina (joint favourites with France going in) were going to be poor.

[shackleford]

Oh aye, I'm in. The benefits of having nae pals or woman. I was out on the bike for two hours this morning, so I don't feel so bad about lazing around for the rest of the day.

[Gerontophile]

Missed the first half hour of Aus-Fra. Then the second half-hour. Woke up for the goals.

Will be in bed by 2pm this afternoon, and back to work tonight after 4 wonderful days off.

[Jobi1]

Ah, the joy of being in a relationship with another football fan. He’s said we should probably at least make the effort to go out to the takeaway between the third and fourth games. Today is a good day.

[Sean of the Shed]

They can deliver, you know.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

It's not just the footy - there is a full day of international rugby too, and an international cricket one-dayer.

[Jobi1]

They can deliver, you know.

He did say ‘probably’...

[ChrisJ]

I'm having a go at this.

10am did Tesco.

11am Australia v France. Interesting matchup here. It was the contrasting approaches to racism that gave this one texture; Aboriginal exclusion/interning children in tropical holding camps against the more sophisticated 'secularism-is-a-rationale-for-islamophobia' thang. Hoped they'd both lose, but in the final analysis, Clive, you have to want the Aussies to lose at everything, don't you? Fuck VAR, though.

1st half Macadamia snack, 2nd half Camembert and French bread.

1pm Lawns, work emails.

2pm Evita v Bjork. Half time now. Aguero smashed one in and I feared for the puffin-grillers but Iceland have just shown that they're even better than 2 years ago and they still don't give a fuck. Also that the Argentines need someone (Sam?) to render 'defending' into Spanish. Someone's had a go, but only managed movimiento aleatorio. It has to be said, there are no easy games for vegetarians at this level. We're going to have to keep their shape against the grilled beef and rotten shark and hope a snack of dulce de leche and Skyr is enough.

4 pm. Housework

5 pm Incas v Vikings. Going to have to 'do a Lawrenson' here and confess that I know nothing much about these teams except the players who 'ply their trade' in the EPL. I have fond memories of both. (Denmark and Peru, not Lawrenson and the EPL.) Let that suffice. Gone for a tactically innovative half time fusion snack: Papa a la Huancaina, but prepared with Danish cheese... I think it shows I'm prepared to take risks to get a result. Also, it shows that I know less about Peruvian cuisine than Danny Murphy does about communication, and that faced with the prospect of another half and hour on Google researching "Danish vegetarian dishes", I bottled it.

7pm Cooking

8pm Croatia v Nigeria. Two civil wars, two different outcomes. Tourism v Oil. PPV v TG. I'm a little apprehensive about this one. I know both sides have the ability to enthral me for 90 minutes, but in a cagy opener when neither dare lose, will they be able to keep my energy levels high enough for a fourth game in 9 hours? I felt carbs were the answer and opted for sensibly-sized portions of jollof and burek.

I tend to avoid making predictions, but I'm confident I'll be sent to sleep in the spare room tonight.

[johnr]

Picked up my contact lenses before the first game.
Got ingredients for my West African Jollof Rice between 1 and 2.
Got my beers and wine in now. Jollof on the hob. Looking forward to number 3.
It's looking good for the rest of the day and evening now, but it's been stressful time management...

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Anyone know what the mood is in the England camp? There hasn't been an update for five fucking minutes.

[EIM]

This is becoming a slog.

[Gerontophile]

Yep. I am looking forward to my bed.

[Ray de Galles]

This is becoming a slog.

Having the worst game of the day on last hasn’t been ideal. The rugby on my ipad has been far better.

[Ray de Galles]

Still, well done everyone that lasted the course. I hope you share my sense of real pride in achieving this personal milestone.

I was out with a friend last week who told me he was climbing Mont Blanc this summer because “he likes to do one thing a year that reminds him he’s alive”.

I told him I knew what he meant because last year I’d seen a game in absolutely every round of the FA Cup and managed to see my target of 50 new films in a year for the first time.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

This is becoming a slog.

Get the golf on.

[PM]

Managed to do all four. Not as fatigued as I imagined.

5.45am: Avoided getting yelled at for the alarm going off by saying the cat was meowing or something. Big take away from a bleary eyed France vs Australia was the suspicion that VAR is going to legitimize the idea of not necessarily diving as falling over if you lose the ball in the box and a defender touches you. There seems to be nothing to penalize you for doing so under the current VAR review system. And literally everything looks like a foul in slow motion. Even buttering your toast.

8-9am: Rode bike to ye olde meat store to get Black Forest bacon, speck and bread for breakfast. Bread was duly fried (with paprika).

9am: Argentina vs Iceland underscored just how impressively organized Iceland are. You want to root for them not because they’re underdogs but because of how tight the whole operation is. It’s like marveling at an exceptionally clean and efficient factory while you’re philosophically against mass consumerism etcetera.

11-12: Rode bike for a couple of errands mainly in a bid to get off the couch.

12pm: Has the silly penalty run up every really worked?

2pm: Rode bike to pick up soft shell crabs for later. Stoped off at the wine store, chatted to the Brazilian owner about how we’re both kinda ambivalent about a lot of the tournament but just want to enjoy some games. Might also be the only wine store in NYC with a signed Reinaldo jersey behind the counter. Has so far done nothing to increase business.

3pm: Game was okay, the wine was crap, but the Cigar City brown ales I had in stock were top notch. Kinda disappointed there are only four games tomorrow.

[Jah Womble]

Did ITV cut Paraguay/South Africa short so they could 'preview' the England game? I have a memory of them giving the game very short shrift.

Yes, I recall that - one had to switch to ITV2 (which not everybody could back then) to watch the end of the match. My cousin - who'd been watching the entertaining Paraguay/SA game - called me to keep tabs on it. As a Welshman, boy, was he pissed off that England's preparations were given priority. And rightly so.

Get the golf on.

None of the games was quite 'that' bad.

[ChrisJ]

Looking back, the first game was dull, the second and third were pretty good without reaching the heights of SPA-POR. The fourth was mainly professionally efficient by Croatia. I felt fairly early on that the result was never in doubt so that spoiled it a bit for me. Nevertheless, it never even threatened to get so bad as to make me want to watch golf. I spent a little while thinking about it and came to the conclusion I was incapable of imagining any circumstance in which I'd want to watch golf.

By the end of game four, I was a bit ratty, half-cut, and queasy from eating too much hastily-prepared food. Mentally, I coped well with the lack of movement and social isolation. I think once having binge-watched Orange is the New Black and Breaking Bad over a couple of holiday weekends was good training.

All in all, I'm glad I did it, although Mont Blanc would have been preferable. Having ticked it off, I think I'll just do a couple of games and eat lightly today.

[ad hoc]

Given the fact that none of these games could have gone to extra time, I think it would have been better to schedule them every two hours rather than three. The binge watching would have been easier. Those hour+ breaks just dragged on and it was hard to get inspired to get back into it and turn the TV on. But I managed. Just. Perhaps a longer break between #2 & #3 would have been enough. Something to think about FIFA

[johnr]

That's a great idea. They could have fitted in 5, maybe 6, games then.

[Satchmo Distel]

The gap is for the TV companies to make money from adverts I suspect

[ad hoc]

The gap is for the TV companies to make money from adverts I suspect

Surely nobody stayed glued to the telly in those 70 minute slots. Seems like using ten minutes for ads would have been just as or more effective

[Jah Womble]

Going to the shops or getting your tea - that's what those gaps are for.