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At least they got it right at the end

By Tony Attwood

I wonder what this is all about

The WC is almost over and so the injury crisis begins

Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino were booed by the crowd at he world dcup final as the president of the United States attempted to crash himself in the Spain celebrations yesterday. Of course he is quite used to that as he marches from event to event bulldozing his way in. But to be fair, it wasn’t quite as bad as he gets elsewhere, so maybe those present thought he had some sort of right to be at the event – although maybe others noticed it was the first game he had actually turned up to, despite changing the red card rules earlier in the tourney.

But as it was, it was a repeat of last summer’s Club World Cup at the same stadium after Trump presented the trophy to champions Chelsea and tried to crash land himself the celebrations to the bemusement of the players. As with everything else, the old boy simply doesn’t seem to get it, whatever “it” happens to be.

The problem is he doesn’t learn. Or maybe that’s to our advantage. Mind you it seems Declan Rice didn’t learn either and really should have stayed at home and got himself fit – but maybe he will learn the responsibilities that come with his high status from here on. Saka on the other hand, when he played in England’s last game, looked good and ready to return to proper football. Otherwise I think the whole thing is best forgotten.

And perhaps the one thing we can hope for is that Infantino genuinely seems to believe he delivered a great WC so maybe he can disappear down it at some stage… And for me, for the first time, Wayne Rooney (who seems to have improved quite a bit with age) was right in his verdict on the whole thing, “It was crap”.

Just to add to the fun Ally McCoist is reported as having said it had “mentally scarred” him. But I imagine in fact the pundits and reporters will all be back in the blink of an eye, forgetting the whole WC farago and getting one more into the issue of football instead. The President of the US won’t notice what a load of tripe it was, and off we will go once more for the next show. I can’t actually remember who won, but I suppose someone did and I am not sure it matters.

But I do think it was an event in which the Daily Telegraph newspaper in Britain excelled itself in terms of headlines, and it managed to do this right up to the end. Here are a few from their website on monday morning after the whole thing was over. You would need a subscription to read the full story on the newspaper’s site but if you copy any of them into Google you’ll find most of these articles reproduced elsewhere without any fee payable.

Spain win World Cup in triumph of football over Argentine thuggery

The 17 ridiculous things that happened during the World Cup final

Ungracious in victory, disgraceful in defeat: Argentina attack Spain with kicks and punches

Nahuel Molina throws punch at Spain captain Rodri as Argentines lose disgracefully

Donald Trump refuses to leave stage during World Cup trophy lift

US president performs near repeat of awkward scene at Club World Cup final; plus, boredom in VIP seats as Infantino’s luck runs out in final

But it is over and now we can get back to football.. Although at least in the newspapers that I glance at in the morning, there isn’t too much of that going on at the moment. Still I suppose it will come back soon.

Although I really can’t leave the subject without offering the saddest of all the headlines:

“Fifa to announce record $15bn World Cup revenue, smashing expectations.”

Which of course means that Uefa will be using this model in two years and Fifa wil be replicating it in four years for the next world cup, by which time the media will have forgotten just how much of a promotional show this has become, The only good thing one can say is that our club continues to foucs on their own affairs, and so once they get their playeres back will be considering exactly how they are going to win the League in May. Although I rather think that they have been thinking about that since the end of last season.