There is very little in sport that has made me happy lately. And it may surprise you to know that, from time to time, I like being happy. And I miss it.

In round 11 in the AFL I tipped eight, if you include a draw, which most comps do. Trouble is, I did it in the work tipping, which means I get a free Whopper next time I buy a Whopper. If I’d put the same tips in at the King, I would have picked up a jackpot of about $250. As a result, I am no longer in any tipping competitions; I will, of course, continue to post my ridiculous suggestions for how you should tip. The Socceroos against Germany were a rabble; the wrong players picked, in the wrong positions, and Pim Verbeek rightly copped a spray for it. However Craig Foster managed to make himself sound as stupid as most of the suits on the SBS commentary team have looked for the past fortnight, when he suggested that a group of players should confront the manager and sack him if he didn’t go with their game plan. That would be like, well, it would be like when Stan Alves got the arse because Peter Everitt didn’t like being yelled at. But hey, we were all upset.

I sat through Saturday night’s game against Ghana, dreading another insipid performance, and was well happy with the way we played, and of course with that sensational GOOOOAAALLL from a free and, let’s be honest, a goalie’s fuck up. Kewell’s red card, and the resultant penalty kick, were dubious, but as Francis Leach said on today’s Back Page Lead, the ref doesn’t have the benefit of a giant flat screen TV and replays. That being said, he was a fucking disgrace, having missed a blatant from-behind, leg-chopping late tackle that should have had Ghana playing a man short ten minutes earlier.

The result sucked, and has made it near impossible for us to get out of the Group stage. That being said, the ‘roos performance was what we have come to expect from them; attacking, creative, aggressive, it was like we had twelve on the ground rather than ten. To dominate the way we did for almost the entire second half speaks volumes for this team, and puts a few of the more lurid Socceroo-bashers to shame.

Where to from here? Germany are expected to beat Ghana, and if they do we’ll need to beat Serbia 3-nil. Should Ghana somehow pull off yet another lucky red card and penalty, and do the Germans in, all we need to do is win, 1-nil would do.

The way things have been going lately, however, I can see nothing but doom: dodgy penalties, several of our best players missing, and an early trip home. It’s just the way things have been going lately.

To continue on the theme of bastard Italians, let’s have a look at their disgusting, filthy, low cheating against the brave little Kiwis. Before I go on, let’s talk about real bravery: New Zealand travel to South Africa, and call themselves the All Whites. They should get automatic entry to the next round just for that.

Anyway, back to the disgusting Azzuri. You’re the defending champion. You’re playing a team ranked 74th in the world. They score against you, and what do you do? Do you call upon your natural superiority, upon the fact that your team contains some of the best and most expensive players in the world (the Azzuri are worth $258 million, the All Whites less than $15 million)? No, you cheat. You dive, you play-act, you intimidate the ref, and eventually you get a bullshit penalty kick, then celebrate like it was the greatest mid-air one-two ever scored in the history of the game. I could go on, like many commentators from non-football countries do, about how to fix football, but what’s the point? It’s worth more than Australia’s GDP already, why the fuck should it change? The punters keep lining up and forking out their hard-earned, no matter how sick and corrupt it is, and while that happens, nought will change.

But that’s why we love sport. Coming up, The Joy Of Sport.

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