Day 19 and the second half of Brazil v Mexico was such a let-down that Jon Champion and Ally McCoist began passing the time by discussing Russian history. Ally, of course, had already provided one of the great co-commentating moments in history - “Kazan has come a long way since it fell to Ivan the Terrible in 1552” - so there’s really no holding him back now. He was even able to correct Jon when he suggested that the Bolsheviks had been chased out of Samara by the Red Army. Mind you, Jon was polite enough not to correct Ally when he claimed the 1917 October Revolution took place in 1977, just a year before Ally signed for St Johnstone.
If these exchanges don’t sound very enthralling then be assured, they were 18,000 times more entertaining than what was going on out on the pitch, which wasn’t a great deal. The only action of note - well, apart from Brazil’s two goals - was when Neymar went down like his ankle had been rolled over by a Red Army tank.
“I wouldn’t say that the reaction is commensurate with what happened,” said Jon so dryly he drew a chuckle from Ally, and then he told us that ITV’s resident ref, Mark Clattenburg, said it should have been a red card. Good, that’ll teach him! Except Clattenburg meant a red for Miguel Layun, not for the play-acting.
“Och, it’s absolutely pathetic,” said Martin O’Neill come full-time. “His pain threshold is just incredibly low - I wouldn’t like to see him coming out of the doctor’s surgery after getting a flu injection.” (Even Slaven Bilic smiled). “He’s a top quality player, he’s a top quality actor.”
There were no less unimpressed over on RTE with Neymar’s ability to annoy as much as thrill. “He’s wired in such a way that he’s absolutely okay with attempting to seek an advantage by trying to con a referee, by stitching up an opponent by falsely making out that he has been hurt more than he has been,” said Richie. Nail on the head, that.
“I beg to differ.”
Hold your horses, Hope Solo had arrived in town for her stint as a pundit with RTE.
“I think it might be a cultural thing,” she said, “it’s part of south American football, part of Brazilian football.”
Richie, and Keith Andrews alongside him, opted to be courteous to their new guest so resisted saying, ‘ah now, you should watch the English Premier League’.
The highlight of the day’s Neymar debate though, came on the BBC at half-time in the Belgium v Japan game when Gary Lineker, with as straight a face as he could muster, asked Jurgen Klinsmann for his view on play-acting. Rio Ferdinand fought back the giggles while Jurgen expressed sympathy for Neymar, because he gets clobbered so often. If he’d condemned him Rio would have needed his sides re-stitched.
Any way, earlier on Hope had been fairly hopeful of an upset in our first game of the day. “Do you think Mexico can do it,” asked Peter. “Si, se puede,” she said, and for a moment Peter wasn’t sure if she’d sworn at him or asked for directions to the Montrose canteen.
“I am cheering for Mexico,” she said, “but not because corporate America and Landon Donovan and US Soccer tells me to,” she clarified, Keith’s face saying ‘what, is, she, on, about’.
Over on ITV Mark Pougatch delivered the team news: Marcelo was out for Brazil because the mattress in the team hotel had banjaxed his back. Mark was bemused. “I’d imagine you have Roy bouncing on the beds to check every mattress,” he said to Martin (‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’), Martin reassuring him that this wasn’t part of Roy’s assistant duties, but conceding the image was an excellent one.
The game. Jon described Neymar’s goal as “muck and nettles”, which was a little harsh considering the fairly exquisite exchange of passes between himself and Willian in the build-up, Roberto Firmino rendering the outcome done and dusted in the closing minutes.
Brazil through, then, Hope telling Peter that their semi-final meeting with France was the one she was most relishing. Peter pointed out that they had to get past Uruguay and Belgium/Japan first, but she was having none of it, Brazil v France it would be.
So, Belgium v Japan. Belgium, Martin Keown told us, are "the Harlem Globetrotters of football," so he fully expected Japan to be slam-dunked. Come the 52nd minute: Japan 2, Belgium 0. This World Cup is a thing of complete and utter bonkers loveliness.
And it got even better. Come the 74th minute: 2-2.
And then the most glorious breakaway goal you might ever see.
Japanese hearts? Crushed.
Belgium: “Si, se puede.”
