Saturday at 3pm

Joyful chaos (despite how it looks)

In many ways, normal services has resumed hasn’t it. A technology slip-up (our theory is that Michael Oliver didn’t have his watch set to vibrate), a fairly dour 0-0, a City (Kevin de Bruyne) masterclass and David Luiz playing as if controlled by a teenager wearing a headset, albeit a teenager wearing a headset that wasn’t plugged in to a console playing a game he or she had no idea how to play.

England Expects (Way Too Much. As Ever. Ad Infinitum)

"You know what we said pre-tournament about getting to the knockouts being a success ... FUCK. THAT. Final or you're shit."

Well well well. It seems by all accounts that England have become the first ever side in the history of the World Cup to get a bye to the final. Clearly a huge oversight on behalf of FIFA, seeing as though they wouldn’t even award us hosting rights to the tournament. Or maybe it’s their way of keeping us sweet? Either way, it’s a hell of a development for a side that have only won five knock-out games at a World Cup since 1966 (and only three of those inside 90 minutes).

A lovely game of charades

"Lads I can't use it to check where your Uber is"

Now the dust has settled on the group stages, let’s address some of the things we’ve learned from the World Cup so far. In short, Germany are rubbish so we don’t have to worry about them in tournaments ever again, England are going to win it, four games in one day is NOT too many and no one has been kidnapped, poisoned or otherwise defiled by the Russian state (that we know of). All in all, something of a success.

Everything is different yet again (i.e. exactly the same as before)

"One-nil up lads. Keep it tig... oh."

It’s very un-Spongers for us to piss on everyone’s chips at a major tournament. But here we are, chaps in hand, aiming for the McCains. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. After four days of football, England are in town (Volgograd to be precise). Aside from witnessing the game of the tournament so far (Spain vs Portugal), we’ve seen Germany humbled by Mexico. France limping to a 2-1 win against the Aussies. And Brazil and Argentina stuttering to 1-1 draws against two banks of four aka Switzerland and Iceland.

Why A European Side Is Going To Win It This Year Or We'll Delete This Post

"Awww shit. Magic Spongers got it right again."

A lot is made about how European teams cannot win a World Cup on Latin American soil. Probably because they never have. So far, so fair enough. But as we’ve never let the problematic presence of ‘facts’ get in the way of our writing, we’re going to stick our necks out and say that this is the year it all changes and a European side will do just that. And this is a win-win situation for us because, if a European side does win it, we’ll just delete this very sentence, say "we told you so" and we’ll be the toast of the internet. And if a European side doesn’t win it, we just delete this entire piece. Or we keep it in and we look ‘meta’. There are plenty of ways to skin an onion.

It's the World Cup, Stupid

'That's what I think of your Golden Generation.'

So, sports car or saloon? It’s a bizarre question, of course it is, but should give us pause for thought. In some ways it’s inkeeping with many a reaction to an England squad announcement, seeking to give a competitive style to the national side without pausing to consider the fact that whatever the answer, it was still a being attributed to a Vauxhall.

A (very selective) review of the year

Oh boy...

It was most refreshing to see 2013 become the year in which football finally started to move away from the hysteria over managerial movements, controversial on- and off-pitch incidents, minute scrutiny on even the tiniest perceived slight or indiscretion, ridiculous transfer fees and generally threatening to disappear forever up one of those particular proverbial arseholes at any given moment. EXCEPT THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN, DID IT.

A Load of Balls

World cupping

It’s perhaps one of football’s greater ironies that FIFA spend a great deal of time trying to make the game produce more goals and excitement to the general detriment of draws, only to spend an inordinate amount of other people’s time and money on one that is so pointless and overblown that from an initial level of anticipation at the start, viewers are forced into to a general state of torpor and indifference by the close. A bit like this paragraph.

The Shape of Things to Come

'Two plus two equals HARRY FOR ENGLAND'

More bewildering news from the world of autobiographical serialisation as the greatest-manager-England-never-had-but-still-may-have-and-most-likely-still-will-end-up-with-at-some-point decided to follow such luminary commentators as Gary Lineker and, ahem us, in putting the boot into the FA for not being able to run the country properly, or something.

Never Mind The Bollocks

"Yes, I WILL be doing this every week."

Close season transfer speculation/gossip/bullshit, for me, reached its zenith in the (probably balmy) summer of 1996. When my peers and I were young enough not to know better and had yet to be infected by pessimism, especially as England had come desperately close to their first final of my lifetime until that ultimate of bastards Andreas Moller snatched away the dream in a way only a bastard of German heritage can.

ZE GERMANS ARE COMING

"More of the same lads."

A swing of David Beckham’s (RIP) right boot, a flash of Alan Shearer’s not-as-bald-or-boring-back-then forehead and that was that. England one goal, Germany no goals. GERMANY KEINE ZIELE! And so a delirious nation decamped from the pubs they were watching in to… erm, some more pubs to sing inappropriate songs about German aircraft and Lothar Matthäus’ parentage, celebrate England’s victory over the arch enemy and make bold predictions about the destination of the Euro 2000 trophy, before going home to re-enact the match on their brand new Playstation 2 (one for you there, research fans).

This Be The Curse

"We should have defended deeper!"

“England let you down.” Roy Keane’s blunt assessment of England’s shortcomings against Montenegro last night struck a chord. Because that’s precisely what England do. Always. Even when, aged roughly 18, you have recalibrated your expectations to match the reality that England are no better than a quarter final side in the tournaments they do manage to qualify for. In short, England manager hands on misery to England manager; England fan hands on misery to England fan.

PlantagaBACKOFTHENET

"So wise so young, they say, do never live long."

Plantagenet line-leader Richard the Third of England has confirmed his availability for England duty as the national side prepare to face Brazil at Wembley. Third, last seen disappearing beneath a crowd of defenders at the notoriously feisty Bosworth Field on a wet and windy Tuesday night in 1485, declared himself ‘fit and raring to go’ having been confirmed as the skeleton dug up from a social services car park in Leicester in September.

Carrick-Fit

Carrick: Strictly NOT a box-to-box midfielder, since 1999.

If one was asked to compile a list of European football’s most successful passers at present, the king of the metrognomes at Barcelona would surely top most of those compilations. Behind Xavi, who next then? Sergio Busquets and Andres Iniesta surely wouldn’t be too far behind. Maybe Xabi Alonso? The ageing magician Andre Pirlo, too; surely he’d make an appearance. But let’s look closer to home.

Enough is Enough

Whenever we’ve found ourselves ‘compelled’ to write something on this blog in the past, it’s usually been at the revocation of decorum and very much at the behest of some semblance of sanctimony. Wrighty and Brighty have copped it a fair few times for crimes against punditry and speaking/writing. Adrian Chiles, too, may have been labelled by us, variously ‘a potato that a child of below average intelligence has drawn a face on’ and ‘the peawet on a fish supper: only popular in one pocket of the country and reviled everywhere else. Green, disgusting and irrelevant. THAT’S YOU ADRIAN’.
And even England’s bravest man was never immune either from the abuse of two washed-up, semi-alcoholic, northern bloggers.

Cole-de-Sac

"I used to be Joe Cole."

When Brendan Rodgers was appointed manager of Liverpool, one member of the Magic Spongers fraternity (population: two) – a full-time York City fan, part-time Liverpool fan – was pretty happy. ‘Just think’, he crowed, like a crow that had just won a £30 accumulator despite not having arms, opposable thumbs or a brain big enough to put one on in the first place; ‘Just think of Joe Cole in a Brendan Rodgers team. It’ll be f*****g class’.

‘You c**t’, he added, for good measure.

Farewell to England's Bravest Man

YEAH BYE

Goodbye England’s rose,
May you ever grow in our hearts,
You turned offending everyone
Into a noble art.

Going For A Burton

Nice, isn't it? NOW GET RUNNING

An important moment in English football came and went this week. A day when the FA finally attempted to throw off the shackles of their abbreviation connoting ‘Fucking Arseholes’ and pushed forward into a brave new dawn of ‘Fingers out of Arses’. A day when incessant, ceaseless ranting on these fair pages – here, here, here, here and here… you get the picture – finally appears to have come to fruition. A day when the national game’s powers that be finally believe they have an answer to the age-old, 10-word conundrum, comprising in no particular order the words:

‘What, the, Fuck, happened, to, root, and, branch, review, the?’.

YOU’RE WELCOME, ENGLAND.

From Russia With Little Love Lost

"I am quite good... HONESTLY."

We welcome back Dan Forman (follow him @dannyforman) as he explains how, once upon a time, Andrei Arshavin could have been 'the one'. 

The first time you see them some players you just notice straight away and think wow, they can really, well, for want of a better word, play. The first time I saw Andrei Arshavin was one such experience.

It was at Wembley in September 2007 in a short-lived period when things finally, remarkably, seemed to be going quite well for Steve McClaren's England team. England ran out 3-0 winners and put their qualification campaign for Euro 2008 briefly back on track and Emile Heskey's stock as an international striker back from unpalatable to unplayable (these were strange days indeed).

Greece Lightning Strikes Twice

"I'm not saying Italy are shit, but..."

The national football team of Greece’s collective theme seems to be that of a slow, squeaky fart. Not a smelly fart, mind you. There’s nothing noxious about the Greeks. But there is something vaguely entertaining, comedic even about their ability to collectively take on the mannerisms of a long fart for huge swathes of matches, ultimately rendering themselves likeable, non-threatening and surprisingly reliable. Greece. As reliable as a fart. They should stick that on the posters.