Wednesday was a black day for my football interests with England failing to qualify for Euro 2008 and Ian Holloway ditching Argyle just days after saying how much loved the club and the city to fill the vacant position at Leicester. But I just read a news article on the BBC website about Opera singer Tony Henry making an X-rated gaff in singing the Croatian national anthem. In the penultimate line of the anthem he should have sang ‘Mila kuda si plania’ which translates as ‘You know my dear how we love your mountains’; but instead sang ‘Mila kura si planina’ which translates as ‘My dear, my penis is a mountain’. The even funnier thing is that it fired up the Croatian players even more and the Croats have requested that he sings their anthem in the Euro finals and be their mascot! When I read this I couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes; it’s absolutely hilarious, if you are going to screw up; you might as well do it on the biggest stage, 80,000 at Wembley and millions on TV!
The fallout of England’s failure begins, doubts over many of the so-called top players inclusion in future England teams and even finding managerial candidates seems to be a problem. No-one seems to want the job and I can’t say that I blame them; the standard of player that England has to offer seems to be limited. England have lots of quality individuals but a group full of overpaid so-called superstars don’t make a team, there’s no ‘I’ in team! I have always been opposed to non English managers in charge of the national squad; but it looks like the next England manager will be from foreign shores as pretty much all the English managers have ruled themselves out. I think that Jose Mourinho would be a good choice, but he has poured cold water on becoming England manager, so it seems that being England manager is an undesirable proposition despite the huge financial incentives!