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Filed under: world cup

International Football is Mostly Crap

Like many football fans across the globe, I was absolutely dreading a weekend without any competitive football. I say that knowing full well that we had the international break, so allow me to explain.

No club football means only one thing, a compromise. It means trading in your filet mignon for a greasy bag of fries and a McRib, it means handing over the keys of your Ferrari for a unicycle and a handlebar mustache. I would equate it to Tony Montana doing lines of the finest cocaine off of a lovely Michelle Pfeiffer’s perfect body one day, to huffing paint outside of Hooters off of Nick Nolte’s taint the next. 

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Before you think I witnessed a bad batch, let me assure you that I watched a fair few matches this weekend: England vs. Spain, Wales vs. Norway, Bosnia vs. Portugal, France vs. the USA, Holland vs. Switzerland and Ireland vs. Estonia. These matches included some of the best footballers to have ever walked the PLANET. You would think that matches with the likes of Xavi, Iniesta, Walcott, Dzeko, Ronaldo, Bale, Benzema and David Silva would in the very least be watchable, but most of them were about as cringe-worthy as watching Rick Perry trying to remember his grocery list. The only game that wasn't a total waste was the Ireland match, and that's because two players from Estonia got sent off (more on that later).

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Every few months, during the international break, we go from champagne football to bath-tub gin kick-abouts and I think its high time we all acknowledged that International football is mostly crap. While international matches DO contain some of the best players in the world, they also contain far more average players than do top tier club football competitions. Try to name me one Estonian player from the match against Ireland, or better yet, name me any Estonian player from ANY sport, ever.

International football basically follows a single formula: one team attacks, another defends with all its players, and millions of people watch only because they love their country and don’t want to waste the 5 beers they just drank with a fat stranger by the bar.  Try for a second to think back to the games from the last World Cup. You might have blocked most of it out, because it was some of the most atrociously boring football I have ever watched. The final between Spain and Holland was a drab 1-0, and Nigel De Jong’s foul on Xabi Alonso summed it up; it was a karate-kick to the heart of all the lovers of the beautiful game.

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When is the last GREAT international match you’ve watched? Think about it, seriously, think deeply…. Because there are hardly any of them!   The greatest games happen in club football, plain and simple. What’s more, is that clubs and club football make such enormous sacrifices to cater to the International Games. Every few months I hold my breath as an Arsenal fan, afraid to find out which of our players had their ankle’s explode after a merciless sneezing spell while on international duty.

Clubs pay gigantic wages to their players, only to have them come back tired and injured so they can play in a Mickey Mouse competition with average players and lone strikers. FIFA need to get together to incentivize better international games, and to get rid of all these pointless friendlies. Thank the gods of Football that Robin Van Persie is going to be rested against Germany.

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