World Cup Bone on the Box: Now there’s a long wait for more England failure

Is that it then? Looks like it. The bad news is there’s 23 months now to wait until another major international football tournament, writes Steve Bone.
The MaracanaThe Maracana
The Maracana

The good news? It’ll be 23 months before England get knocked out of a major international football tournament.

Let’s start by looking at the game many said was ‘pointless’. The one nobody wanted. Yep, Germany versus Argentina.

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It was on both channels so there was only one way to watch – the build-up on ITV, the game itself on BBC.

As far as the pundit panels went, ITV won Brazil 2014 hands down, I reckon.

The left-field line-up of Dixon, Hoddle, Wright and O’Neill somehow just worked.

A crazy answer to a crazy Adrian Chiles question was never far away.

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Example: MON’s suggestion during the Brazil-Netherlands game that there could be 22 better Brazilian players ‘attached to the moon’.

On the Beeb, I liked Gary Lineker as anchorman but their pundits were dull.

We needed less of Hansen, Shearer and Ferdinand; more of Waddle and Murphy.

The decision to put them in suits for the final, when the ITV boys were in shades on the beach, summed up the dreariness. You’d have thought they were covering a state funeral.

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For the game, though, it was always going to be a quick switch to BBC1 to listen to Guy Mowbray (best commentator of the tournament in my book) and Mr Grumpy, Lawro.

One can only hope that by the time Euro 2016 is with us, ITV will have ditched Tyldo and Townsend and installed our Pompey pal Sam Matterface or Joe Speight as their No1 man on the mic.

Other things we could have done without from this World Cup: the camera on a string and camera in an airship bringing us angles no-one wants; Phil Neville, the ‘countdown to kick-off’ clocks; Clarke Carlisle, and England.

But don’t say it hasn’t been fun. And see you back here on June 10, 2016.

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Oh and by the way, Germany beat Argentina 1-0 in the final, courtesy of Mario Gotze’s extra-time goal. But we didn’t cvare about the actual football ... did we?

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