The Rain in Spain (and other matters)

Spain 1 Iceland 0



“Where’s the match being played?” Sam asked me when we crossed at the bottom of the main staircase in the Centre on Wednesday evening. Good point. I have noticed over the years that Spain makes the most of its varied geography when organising home international fixtures, and usually if the opposition is from a hot country like Morocco or Cameroon, the match will take place somewhere where Spain might benefit from the weather conditions. Thus, the African nations often find themselves playing in Galicia, the north western region of Spain, at Celta de Vigo, or Deportivo de la Coruña, where the weather is likely to be cold, wet and windy.

On the other hand, should the opposition hail from far northern climes, Estonia, say, or Finland, then they will probably be entertained down in Seville just after sundown, or maybe Málaga, or even in the Canary Islands.

So given that Spain’s opponents on Wednesday were Iceland, I checked it out, feeling sure that they would be playing somewhere a long way to the south. Of course to English-speaking ears, the name of Spain's opponents is synonymous with the cold, even though the name actually means 'island'. In Spanish, 'ice' is 'hielo', and Iceland, 'Islandia', which has no connotations of cold whatsoever. All the same, it is located well to the north, so I was quite surprised to find out that the game would take place in Palma de Mallorca. This information came to me from the website of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, which also informed me that there was a strong likelihood that the match would be off, as it had been pouring down on Mallorca all afternoon, and the pitch had a lot of surface water.

There would, the report concluded, be a pitch inspection at 21.30, for the game was to start at 22.00, not terribly late in Spain, but what's the betting that all good Icelanders are snuggled down with their teddy bears by then? The report followed the new rule, which I noted three or four weeks ago, when the Charlton website published a picture of some empty seats to accompany the news that tickets were now on sale for the Watford game. This rule states that news stories on websites must be accompanied by a picture, however banal; and this one was no exception, as you can see: a fine view of Mallorca’s pitch, with rain falling onto it, and a TV cameraman quite possibly filming it, for otherwise why is he there? (I am aware that in these days of equality, it might be a camerawoman, but somehow it doesn't look like one, and the figure is in unrelieved black, too).

In the event, the game went ahead and I and a number of my work friends watched it at our usual bar. Had any of us been interested enough, the Andorra - England game was on down at the pub if we could have been bothered to take ourselves off down there, but we weren't, so we didn't.

We all agreed quite soon that the referee should have abandoned the whole thing, as small tidal waves were caused whenever any of the players changed direction, and long through balls became a thing of the past.

About 10 minutes in, I remembered Charlton defender Herman Hreidarsson, an Icelandic international, after someone wondered aloud who these guys were, and where they normally plied their trade. So I told my colleagues about him, and they asked which one he was; but I couldn't find him, not surprisingly, as I found out later in the week that he hadn't been playing at all. It wasn't easy to identify the Icelandic boys, anyway, because they did not have their names on their shirts. "Too long, probably", said Steve, but I thought they could have solved that one by accepting the fact that all of their names end in 'sson', and then they could just have shirts with the rest of their names on. The Spanish football commentator must have been relying on the Icelandic team to have their names on their backs, too, for he did not mention a single one of them by name. We enjoyed the game though, especially towards the end when it looked as though plucky Iceland might hold the Spanish side, but the result, I suppose was fair enough as Spain had dominated throughout. But who is the Iceland goalie? He was terrific.

Charlton 2 Newcastle 0



Ambrose, ZZ and Bent jumping for joy after ZZ's first goal for Charlton

Moving on to matters Charlton, which I have not written about lately, I am not going to trot out my usual excuses about marking exams or not having been too well. Sometimes a blog piece just doesn’t suggest itself. All I could think of after Charlton beat Newcastle 2-0, thirteen days ago now, (for although the foregoing stuff about the Iceland game was written the day before yesterday, I once more find myself delaying my lunch in order to post a piece before Charlton kick off again) was that I was very pleased, and it was great that new loan signing Zheng Zhi had done so well. That alone, in my opinion, is not enough for a blog, or indeed any other kind of piece, despite what the people in charge of the BBC Football web page might think. And especially so when I am usually among the first to lambast the BBC and the other sports sites for their non-stories of the "Ferguson hopes United will win" variety, or the other thing they do where they ring a player and ask him a question, and turn his answer into a news story: "Melchester Rovers third-choice goalie Jerry Finn thinks Arsenal can still come second in the Premiership".

So, I thought, I’ll store the picture of ZZ celebrating his goal until I have a hook, as we professional writers call it. Yet all I have found in the intervening period is a fascinating story that Michael Owen will stay on at Newcastle, "even if they don’t qualify for Europe".

Even if they don’t qualify for Europe? This would surely mean that they are just a couple of games and a goal or two short of doing so. Whereas in fact it is not entirely out of the question that Newcastle might end up qualifying for the Coca Cola League. As things stand at present of course, Charlton are more likely to do that, but then Charlton fans haven’t been talking nonsense about getting into Europe. Anyway, ZZ’s goal celebrations make a nice image, and so by way of compensation for my long absence, a second pic.

A six-pointer this afternoon in SE7, as Wigan are the visitors. Hope springs eternal.

Also, I have just started a ten-day break from the Centre, and decided a little while ago to stay in Madrid and sort things out around the house. Both Antony and John, and possibly Sam, will be around as well, and Rory and Sean, though off to Oporto, will be back on Wednesday. So it looks like being a reasonably enjoyable week, and there'll be time to blog a bit more too. Maybe a special quiz edition, as we aren't having a quiz this Monday.

Crikey, kick off in 10 minutes, and I'm starving...