Eder in the playground

Official World Cup films. Bit shit, aren't they? I've not felt that bad since Linekar scored those penalties against Cameroon in 1990.

John Adshead seemed a bit of a character though.

Yesterday Once More

The 5P music blog brings the blogosphere news of why July 3rd, 1982 was the most important day in the history of eighties:

Best album of the eighties reached its rightful place.

Best number one single of the eighties drove a welcome wedge between Stevie Wonder (with Macca) and Survivor stateside.

On the same day, a Norwich band by the name of The Happy Few did a Peel Session - which you can hear here - and I thought I was Eder* when kicking a ball six hours a day . . . and I probably needed my haircut.

A day late but that don't matter: what the hell ever happens on July 4th anyway?

Footnote

*July 3rd 1982 was the day after Brazil had dismantled Argentina 3-1, to put the holders out of the World Cup. July 5th was still to come.

Historias de fútbol (1997)

Farewell Espana '82

As my all time favourite International tournament is replaced by a new favourite, a timeout should be taken out to remember the brilliance that was Espana' 82:

. . . the French midfield . . . Schumacher's GBH in the semi final . . . Tardelli's goal celebration . . . the Kuwati pitch invasion . . . Narey's toe poke . . . Boniek's hat trick . . . Brazil in the early rounds . . . Gentile mugging Maradona . . . that Keegan header . . . Gerry Armstrong's goal . . . fucking great World Cup.

Panini-Zufallsbekanntschaft #6

Jean-Marie Pfaff (Belgium - Spain'82)

He played over sixty times for his country, and was part of the Belgium team who were runners-up in the '80 Euro Championship and who finished fourth in the Mexico World Cup of '86, but Jean-Marie Pfaff is best known today for introducing the slang word, 'pfaffing', into the English language.

Goalkeepers have been known to dither over crosses ever since the first ever Scottish International was played way back in 1872 but, for some reason, Pfaff's 27 second moment of madness in a Belgian cup game back in 1979 seems to have captured the footballing zeitgeist of the time. It doesn't seem right, manifestly unfair, but apparently David James has a shrine to Pfaff in his locker at Fratton Park by way of a small thank you for taking his place in the English language slang dictionary.

Trying to think back to Belgium's participation in the '82 World Cup but the best my memory bank can come up with is Boniek's brilliant hat trick against Pfaff and others in the knockout stage of the tournament.

Now that I think about it, combining football pub talk and counterfactual history I wonder what would have happened if Poland had won the World Cup in '82? What would the ramifications have been for Polish society and the political climate at that particular time, coming so soon after the suppression of Solidarność?

Panini-Zufallsbekanntschaft #1

Paul Breitner (West Germany - Spain'82)

Come on, if that isn't a good sign for this series I don't know what is! First random pic to be thrown up by the 11 Freunde page is Paul Breitner of all people. It would only have been more perfect if the random panini sticker generator had delivered Breitner circa 1974 . . . at the height of his revolutionary maoist glory.

I've already been here before with Breitner on the blog, so it's probably best if you just click on the link rather than me having to repeat myself.

I will, however, reiterate again that it turns out that the beard in the pic was a bit of a fraud because prior to the '82 World Cup in Spain he took the cash and shaved it off. Shame that, 'cos the sticker pic gives off a dishevelled Paul-Michael Glaser vibe. If only Bernd Schuster hadn't threw his toys out of the pram after the Euro Championship in 1980, he could have been the Hutch to Breitner's Starsky. Apart from anything else, that would have ensured no German pop career for David Hasselhoff.

Now that I think about it, despite Breitner scoring West Germany's consolation goal in the '82 Final, I always associate him more with the 1974 Final. I think West Germany in '82 and I think Briegel, Schumacher, Littbarski and Rummenigge. Breitner - like his youthful maoism - already came off as a seventies anachronism.