The Touchline Bawler

The loudest cheers at this year’s Wimbledon were almost certainly reserved for an American who bowed out rather meekly in the third round. One of the greatest aspects of Wimbledon is the respect it affords to its former champions, and that was certainly on show today. Anyone who saw Andre Agassi’s farewell to Wimbledon this afternoon would have been moved.

You could quite easily believe his Wimbledon finale had been carefully choreographed. Although thoroughly outclassed by Rafa Nadal, there was a fitting symbolism that the man who burst on to the scene in his own inimitable style should finally be knocked out by the great entertainer of his generation. Moreover, that the match finished just in time for TV viewers to switch from BBC2 to BBC1 for the England World Cup quarter-final.

Agassi, of course, was not the same player who won Wimbledon all the way back in 1992. Back then, you could feel the heckles of some of the stuffier members of both the press and the tennis hierarchy wondering who this young upstart thought he was. Shirt not tucked in? And with a pony-tail? Sacrilege! How could anyone support him!

It was that style that won the hearts of tennis fans the world over, however. All too often, incredibly talented tennis players waste their fan base by becoming irritable and moody. Martina Hingis’s temper at the French Open and Andy Murray’s foul-mouthed Davis Cup outburst are cases in point - they damage their image as a result. Even a player with the talent and charisma of Goran Ivanisevic only really became a hero at Wimbledon when he learned how to make a joke out of his tantrums. Agassi was never like that. A fierce competitor, for sure, but who always played with a love of the game and seemed to be enjoying himself. Expressing a personality like that through the game of tennis was always going to win fans.

Thus the 36-year-old, shaven-headed incarnation of Agassi still receives great popular support. It was sad watching him on court today - you yearned to turn the clock back ten years and watch Agassi at the height of his game going inch-for-inch with Nadal in a five-set thriller. It was sad to see a man who previously played with so much time have to chase around the court at the whim of a younger challenger. Agassi’s farewell was tinged with sadness because it was a reminder of the passage of time, and that all glory fades.

Perhaps that was why I was so enthralled by watching the rapturous applause at the end. The impending retirement of Andre Agassi marks the end, really, of the first sporting career that I have followed from start to finish. Retirements heretofore in my lifetime have been those who were playing their game before I developed a love of sport; or else their careers are continuing in some form or another. Today was the first time I was consciously aware of having seen a career wax and wane more or less in its entireity.

The change that Agassi brought about, therefore, is the change that shaped my sport-watching habits. In many ways, the change was a cultural one. Agassi may not have changed the way tennis is played, but he changed the way the game is viewed. His somewhat rebellious style attracted new fans. Is it any wonder the big screens at Wimbledon followed in Agassi’s wake? He was symbolic of the bringing of sport into a big money age - becoming a global superstar. A change in sporting culture that was only possible because of the broadening of the appeal, and a greater emphasis on fan participation. That participation found its tennis hero in Agassi. He will be missed. But his legacy to Wimbledon and its champions will remain with us for far longer.

Today’s Germany vs Argentina match was a delight to watch. The tension of a high-level knockout match, combined with some startlingly good displays of football (particularly from the Germans, I thought), combined to make a match that had me on the edge of my seat for much of the time. Admittedly, I root passionately for Germany except when they play England, but nevertheless, that was the kind of excitment that befits such a huge stage.

Watching the game, and most importantly, the penalty shoot-out at the end, I got the impression that Germany will be this year’s World Cup winners. The confidence with which every single player struck their penalty kicks was remarkable - they carried themselves like a winning team.

The World Cup is a tournament that normally works in finding the best team in the world, despite all the odds. In theory, a knockout competition should find some miscarriages of justice. But generally, in a World Cup, a team will develop as the tournament progresses.

This Germany team seemed a different outfit to that which had started the World Cup in the 4-2 win over Costa Rica. The team seemed much more of a cohesive unit - confident in knowing where their teammates were; confident in moving the ball up the field despite the chances of a swift counter-attack from the talented Argentine forwards.

The defence, in particular, seemed well organised, and the central defenders (including Per Mertesacker, who I thought at the start of the tournament was going to be the weakest link) played the ball very confidently - allowing the midfielders to play far further up the field, which meant that their passing could be far more incisive. England take note.

Moreover, the end of the match showed a genuine team spirit. Those who hadn’t played in the match - with the notable exception of Oliver Kahn - seemed just as delighted as those who had. And the benefits of playing in front of a home crowd are well documented. Germany seem to be peaking at just the right time. That they are in with such a good chance marks another interesting change in the World Cup, but that comes for another time. In the meantime, I’ll just remember the spirit of the German side today. And they may well be cheering even more come next Sunday.

This is a breaking story but it seems to be getting worse by the minute. Now both Ullrich and Basso will now miss the Tour de France after being named in doping investigations in Spain. It’s unclear at the moment whether this is a pre-emptive measure to try to retain the sport’s last vestiges of credibility or whether they are truly implicated in cheating. Either way this will overshadow what was shaping up to be a classic Tour and seriously threatens the future of cycling as a competitive sport on the scale we know it. This is something I have been toying with for a while, and I know Ken has covered it elsewhere, but maybe there is no choice than to consider permitting doping. I hope to return to this soon.

Whatever your views on this it is immensely sad that one of the most open Tours of the last decade will now miss the struggle of Ullrich-Basso, a prospect I had been looking forward to all spring especially with their respective victories in Switzerland and Italy. Let us hope for the good of the sport that new champions will step forward into the gaping hole at the top of cycling.

Despite the gross inequalities which some perceive to exist at Wimbledon, the All England Club has offered a welcome diversion during this two day World Cup hiatus; no match more so than that between Nadal and Kendrick on Centre Court yesterday.

Even though this man, the world number 237, was eventually overcome by Nadal’s astonishingly superior strength, he deserves genuine applause for his spirit and the way he played as he went down fighting. Despite having to watch Nadal claw his way back from two sets down he made sure he was competing to the end with a smile and a quiet word of encouragement to himself. He stuck true to Wimbledon’s traditions with his serve-and-volley style and put up a magnificant performance. He restored some of my faith in the game and the competition which has ebbed in recent years.

By contrast Nadal by turns scowled and leapt like a petulant schoolchild. One has to admire his own spirit, energy and sheer power, but his game seems in danger of being overrun by the same infection currently blighting much of the women’s game: the precocious grunt. On several occasions during long baseline rallies on important points Nadal let out an unbelievably and unnaturally loud grunt well after he had hit the ball. Now if he did this at a time when he was genuinely releasing energy and air as he struck the ball I could understand it, even though it would still be annoying for me, and that’s as a mere spectator. What is genuinely incredible is that the noises are defended as a release of energy at a point well after the ball has been struck and in some instances when it is all but over the net. There can only be one explanation for this; gamesmanship, pure and simple. It’s a mere coincidence that the players who exhibit the most petulant, contrary personality also seem to be those who grunt most often and most loudly… Perhaps we should institute a Baseline Bawler award?

The last two days have been tough for me. I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night with cold sweats. When I sit down to eat, I find my hands shaking uncontrollably. Sometimes I even get sudden, violent headaches. Worst of all, I’m not even talking about my addiction to Diet Coke.

No, instead a void in my life has been created by the first blank days in the World Cup schedule. Whereas for the first two weeks of the competition, my life was taken up by three live matches a day, my diet had been reduced to a meagre two - only to be taken away from me suddenly, almost without warning.

Maybe I should have been more alert. After all, the Switzerland-Ukraine match left me questioning the reason for existence. Although the commentators - whose job, after all, is to make a match seem exciting and worth watching - spent the entireity of the second half moaning about how boring the game was, I doggedly stuck to the TV in the folorn hope that the game must improve, somehow. It’s the World Cup, for crying out loud!

Instead, I now find the structure of my life slowly slipping away. This would be acceptable if there was an increase in the quality of the matches. Sadly, that barely seems to be the case. While the opening rounds are noramlly enlivened by what on the face of it seem remarkably dour matches, the fear of being knocked out by a poor performance often leads to cagey defensive football. So it has been, by and large, for the second round. Argentina-Mexico was an honorable exception. But so far, teams have either been ill-tempered (Portugal-Holland), rolled over and surrendered meekly (Ecuador, Sweden), or the games have been remarkably dull.

Why, then, am I looking forward to the weekend with so much anticipation? Partially because any cricket I play this weekend has been moved to a Sunday to cover for people who want to watch the football first (heathens). But in my heart of hearts, I know that most of the matches will be dull and dour, and in England’s case, thoroughly, totally and utterly frustrating. Still, come 4pm tomorrow I’ll be back in front of my TV, watching avidly. Goodness knows what I’ll be like in 10 days time…

Wayne Rooney is undoubtedly a tremendously special footballing talent. His display today was well off his best - to be quite honest, he looks a little overweight and towards the end of the game today, looked distinctly off-colour too. Nevertheless, once he settled into his role as the front man, he realised what his job was and carried it out with aplomb.

There were two pieces of skill that merited particular mention - one where he took the ball out on the wing and nutmegged an Ecuador defender to restart an attacking opportunity; another where he hit an incisive pass into the penalty area when the opportunity had seemed wasted. Rooney showed that for all his strength, his real ability is his vision for the game and his uncanny knack of putting the ball in the right place at the right time.

This skill isn't what endears him to the average England supporter, however. In the pub this evening, one guy came in to ask his friends if they'd caught the match this afternoon. His next comment was "Did you see that bit when Rooney ran over those two guys?" Of all the aspects of Rooney's game, it was one of the parts that really doesn't merit commendation - the willingness to clatter into challenges with barely a second thought. Not to mention that the failure of the referee to give any reward for his barging brought out his petulant side, another side that we don't want to see.

The reverence in which English players are held for strength and hard graft really holds the England team back. Trevor Sinclair at the last World Cup was lauded for his play. To be fair, he tried as hard as could be expected from someone of limited ability for the world stage. But you cannot beat world-class defences on the left wing when they know that you have to cut in to cross the ball on your right foot. The English obsession with work-rate and graft, however, means that we over-rate many of our players.

In the Portugal game today, Maniche scored a goal of genuine class. Dummying a shot to fool the defender, before moving to the right to shoot for real, and at pace, was a move that could not have been replicated by many of the England players. Rooney, probably. Joe Cole, maybe. But not even the vaunted Lampard and Gerrard have demonstrated such subtle skills. Far from holding the ball to draw defenders before shooting, our attacking midfielders seem to shoot on sight from outside the area, not troubling anyone expect the fans in the stands behind the goal. Hard graft can take you a fair way - but it is no substitute for skill and ability.

Back in the days when Murray Walker was the voice of motor sport and a stalwart of Formula One Grand Prix it was always a running joke in my household that whenever he began to contemplate victory for whichever driver was leading at that time he had given them the kiss of death. You could be sure, even if there only remained a handful of laps, that the leader would spin, their engine would explode or their tyre would suddenly develop a puncture.

So it was last night with England! How I groaned in the pub when, with seconds left before added time and the score at 2-1 to England, Clive Tyldesley began to lament about how long the national side had waited to overcome the Swedes (for the record since 22 May 1968…and counting…).Surely now, he said, England would beat the team of their manager's home country for the first time in nearly forty years. Surely, I said, that meant we would draw. Then Sweden's throw-in was somehow deflected past Paul Robinson to level the match. My mind flashed past Kevin Keegan's prediction that David Batty would score against Argentina as he began his run-up in the penalty shoot-out in France '98 against Argentina. I saw Collingwood being told to play for the close with only 13 overs left in last summer's Ashes, before the wickets began tumbling. Tiger Woods again plays a twenty-foot birdie on the eighth in the 2002 Ryder Cup to swing things back to the Americans after the BBC had told its viewers it was surely in the bag for the Europeans. It had happened again. The commentator had cursed the outcome.

Fortunately for England it made little major difference. The draw with Sweden was still a job done for the side but a win would have given them a much needed buoyancy. Die-hard England fans now must hope they took enough inspiration from an impressive first-half domination to carry them into the knock-out stages so that the team can develop the form they have promised in patches but yet to really deliver. Let's just hope it's not so good that John Motson calls it football to win a World Cup…

Any of you who know me will be aware of my vaguely disturbing competitive streak. Especially those of you who have seen me hit myself over the head with a shoe whilst playing darts - despite the fact that I was winning at the time. It's no surprise, then, that during the World Cup my competitive instinct should rear its head once more. What is more surprising is the way in which it happens.

When I say the World Cup does strange things to you, I don't mean the way in which Togo-South Korea becomes a match-up of considerable, life-affecting significance that cannot possibly be missed. Here, I am referring to the fact that a friend invited me to join a World Cup Fantasy Football League a few weeks ago. I'm also referring to the fact that my cricket club is running a World Cup predictions competition. These two facts have greatly altered how I watch the World Cup.

My competitive streak is not aided by the fact that one of my best friends, who doubles as my arch-enemy of games in all manner of games, has for the first week or so been my main competitor. Thus when watching Germany play, I cheer when Bastian Schweinsteiger is on the ball, but jeer if Michael Ballack happens to be in possession. The consequences for my fantasy team should he show a moment of inspiration are too terrible to bear thinking about.

At least competing in a fantasy league like this means that supporting one team over another is still a fairly easy task to manage. A prediction competition with hefty rewards for predicting the correct scoreline throws the armchair supporter into a real moral quandary. When you have 2-1 predicted as your scoreline, is it acceptable to cheer for the team you don't support once the score reaches 2-0? Can you be taken seriously as a fan when your allegiance changes depending on who put the ball in the back of the net last?

Worst of all, the general fervour created by both the sense of anticipation in England, the easy availability of attacking football, and entering these blasted competitions means that even when I don't particularly care about the outcome of a match, I can find myself shouting angrily at the screen. Why do I think Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a "muppet" for missing an easy goal when I don't care about the result of the match at hand at all - and insofar as I had any group interest, it lay in a draw or Ibrahimovic's Sweden losing? There's something enthralling about this festival of football - but it is becoming worryingly absorbing. At least there are no disappointing England cricket or rugby performances to raise my blood pressure further. Oh, wait a minute…

Simon Barnes has been writing a World Cup blog for the Times. To read it, though, you'd think that being paid to write about football - and have the experience of being in Germany for a true world festival - was anything but a pleasure. Take this post, for example, where he complains about the noise being made at his place of work. For all his protestations that he is enjoying what he is doing, he comes across as a Victor Meldrew character.

Contrast this with the following piece by Chris Young, of the Toronto Star. He still gets across the difficulties of finding a suitable place to write, but conveys the sheer enjoyment of being privileged to watch exciting football in a party atmosphere.

Barnes would be well-advised to show a little more enjoyment. There are thousands around the world who would kill for his job - I'm one of them! Sounding a little more gracious at the wonderful opportunity he has would not go amiss.

In yesterday's Spain vs Ukraine game, Clive Tyldesley produced what I think must be the definitive piece of commentary from the tournament. Spain's Senna scored a screamer from outside of the area, only for it to be disallowed for a prior foul. At the point the ball found the back of the net, Tyldesley cried "BOSH!!"

From now on, I am going to give a (figurative) "BOSH!" award for any particularly hard-hitting piece of play, but particularly thumping goals. Today's award goes to Steven Gerrard for his goal - pinged in from the edge of the box on his wrong foot.

While on the subject of the Spain-Ukraine match, did Gianluigi Buffon have some money riding on it? The decision to award Spain a penalty whilst sending the Ukrainian defender off was nothing short of an abomination. Although we now know that feeling someone's shorts is a sending-off offence…