ON THE WAY TO BERLIN - With , would it not be a travesty of justice for Italy to walk off with the World Cup trophy on Sunday?
It鈥檚 a question I鈥檝e been putting to in Germany all this week. Not surprisingly, they dismiss the question out of hand.
MUNICH - Contrary to popular belief, England have not been knocked out of the football tournament going on here in Germany. In fact, I just saw them convincingly win their latest game 5-2.
Their passing was slick, their skills put the opposition to shame and, at the final whistle, they saluted the crowd and hugged the Israeli/Palestinian team they鈥檇 just played off the park. Confused? You shouldn鈥檛 be because this is what we鈥檝e come to expect from the .
DORTMUND - Imagine interviewing one of Germany's biggest sporting legends. Imagine interviewing him straight after Germany are dumped out of the World Cup.
Boris Becker rocketed in my estimations though. The guy was clearly gutted but he stuck to the commitment and talked eloquently for our Match Of The Day highlights programme.
DORTMUND - I said on Tuesday that I did not want Germany to win the World Cup.
As I sat in the stadium in Dortmund on Tuesday evening I was stunned by the manner in which .
MUNICH - If the World Cup semi-final between Portugal and France is half as eventful as the pre-match press conference, it is destined to become an all-time classic.
Rarely have there been such scenes of chaos, confusion and a little touch of ill-feeling as there were when Portugal boss "Big Phil" Scolari and his French counterpart Raymond Domenech met the media deep in the bowels of the Allianz Arena.
DORTMUND - For the second time in four days I was there, in the thick of it waiting for the boiling atmosphere to bubble over and the party to start.
But again the atmosphere was killed in a second - the second it took Fabio Grosso to and into the net to set Germany on the way to World Cup semi-final defeat.
MUNICH - Being a fairly Anglo-centric person (despite being mostly Welsh) I never thought I'd see defeat mean more to England fans until I saw the Germans here tonight.
Everybody had a German flag painted somewhere on their anatomy and you couldn't get a decent seat anywhere as every bar, restaurant and kebab house in this part of Bavaria tuned into watch what many believed would be another step towards a football dream and a nation's rediscovery of collective well-being.
The 大象传媒 is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
