Firstly to my great happiness, West Ham pulled off the miracle no-one saw coming, did anyone have Jonathon Spector to get the first goal combined with a 4-0 West Ham win on their betting slip? (£1150 to you off a £1 bet if you did) The sheer delight of beating one of the biggest club sides in the world was tarnished by people saying 'it was only the league cup' and 'how many players did they rest?’ Anyone who watched the game (or watched West Ham this season) would have seen that there was no Scott Parker, the heartbeat of the side and without some people would suggest whether West Ham would be playing Championship football this year. But without him West Ham rose to the occasion, inspired by an early disallowed goal, Spector on a mission and even Tal Ben Haim playing acceptably and the season was suddenly looking upwards despite still being bottom of the Premier League.
2nd shock!
Russia and Qatar!
Yes, as the rest of the country was playing in the snow or trying to fight against it (Britain shutdown once again). I was at work checking my phone every two seconds hoping to see who had won the World Cup bid for 2018, but instead of an ecstatic 'We got it!' text it was instead a much more muted 'its Russia'.
This, as most people will know, doesn’t explain the whole story- if i start on my own opinion about Fifa and world football's general opinion of the English game i won’t stop. But perhaps an even bigger shock was the text i received 10 minutes later. 'Qatar got 2022!'
Perhaps slightly naive to even consider their bid beforehand and assuming that USA or Australia would win, i didn’t even look at what the tiny middle-eastern country intends to build and what an event it plans to put on in 12 years’ time. It is very ambitious and very impressive falling into line perfectly with what their motto intends to do 'Expect Amazing'. Even without a great (if any) football history it'll be interesting to see how the Qatari side perform in 2022 and its effect on middle eastern football in general in the future. Both of these successful bids will both be scrutinised by rival associations and media outlets until both countries have hosted their tournaments and thereafter. Will this bombardment of pressure from all areas influence Fifa to reform or independently review their own voting system or own family, time will tell.
To my own personal sporting life, i will be doing the Bushy Park Parkrun tomorrow morning www.parkrun.com- snow permitting! Which will hopefully bring a bit of sporting normality back to my week after cloud nine on Tuesday night to the disappointment on Thursday afternoon, but who knows if these sporting shocks continue then i may well be talking about how i smashed my parkrun PB in my next post. Now that would be a shock!
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