We鈥檝e had complaints from one or two quarters claiming that our coverage of Wednesday鈥檚 semi was influenced by sour grapes towards Portugal for having beaten England.
If that was the case, we鈥檇 be permanently sour during the latter stages of every tournament. There was no antipathy from us towards Brazil in 2002, nor Portugal in 2000 or 2004 for that matter.
Our pundits and production team first took issue with Portugal in this tournament following that horrible game with Holland, several days prior to the Rooney/Ronaldo shenanigans...
Continue reading "You dive me crazy"
LONDON - Time to vote for your .
If you enter (by phone/text) there's a chance to win a signed England shirt and a behind-the-scenes tour of Match of the Day, and most of the money (70p+ out of 拢1) goes to .
MUNICH - Not long left in the International Broadcast Centre now - is there anything else you would like to know about the 大象传媒 production here?
In the meantime, we've received plenty of emails asking about Match of the Day's on-screen graphics so I asked one of our graphics operators Alex Rice to explain more..
Continue reading "About the 大象传媒's World Cup graphics"
NUREMBERG EN ROUTE TO BERLIN BY TRAIN (6.5 HR JOURNEY!) - Portugal鈥檚 reputation as the World Cup鈥檚 pantomime villains was confirmed in their semi-final defeat against France.
Cristiano Ronaldo was a target for the 鈥渂oo-hiss鈥 brigade, while we could have spent the entire match shouting 鈥渉e鈥檚 behind you鈥 at the fourth official whenever 鈥淏ig Phil鈥 Scolari wanted to debate yet another decision.
Continue reading "In defence of Portugal?"
LONDON - Cristiano Ronaldo - - was apparently leading in the .
He appears to have been overtaken by , the Villarreal player from Ecuador, who England beat in the second round.
Something funny going on?
Continue reading "Best young player of the World Cup?"
HELMSTEDT - There is always a bit of risk in accepting an invitation to a stranger's house.
So we weren't quite sure what to expect when blog reader Stephan offered us beer and a barbecue at his mate Sebastian's place while watching the France v Portugal semi-final.
Continue reading "German hospitality"