Day 13. It's been 48 hours since we last saw a live game of football - is this a record? And, funnily enough, soon after the drought ended a Cocu in an orange jersey, by the name of Philip, appeared on the pitch and rattled the Yugoslav crossbar. Now surely that's a record. Harrowing, that's the only word for it (apart from galling). The only good thing to be said about this spell of cold turkey is it left us with some time to think and reflect on what we'd seen so far. Between ourselves, though, in Telly Venables' case, too much time.
Tel used the two rest days to lie back and think of England and where it had all gone wrong. Appearing on ITV's On the Ball on Saturday morning, he displayed a wicked sense of humour by insisting "we are getting better", and then went on to explain how important it is for Kev Keegan to learn how to diagnose England's big illnesses and not worry too much about the little ones.
"It's like going to the doctors and you feel unwell and you've got a life-threatening disease in your chest and you've got a sprained wrist and he looks at you and he finds the sprained wrist but that's not going to save your life - unless he analyses what the real problem is you're going to die," he explained. Hmm. Is it any wonder English footballers look confused half the time? Mark Lawrenson, too, thinks sprained wrists are the least of England's problems, telling Ray Stubbsie Stubbs on Saturday's Match of the Day that there was a huge gulf in class between Kev's lads and the rest. Dion Dublin was having none of it.
"I disagree, there's not a big gulf at all - we've just got to get it right," he said.
"Jesus wept, you'd get more sense out of your average Tellytubby," said a nodding Lawro to himself. While not wanting to be unkind, Dion is struggling in this tournament, with his glowing praise of Hierro, for his fab display for Spain against Yugoslavia, perhaps his lowest point (err, Hierro didn't actually play), but in fairness to him he knows a good player when he sees one, picking Figo in his team of the tournament for his "inventation".
Portugal v Turkey and Italy v Romania. It can only be a matter of time before the first punch is thrown between Eamo and Chippy. The gist of their chats these days go something like this: "I like Davids." "Me too." "You do?" "Oh yes, marvellous player." "Well, I've changed my mind, I think he's rubbish." "I'm not surprised you do, you're a twit." "You're an even bigger twit". "No I'm not." "Yes you are." "No I'm not." Etc.
Day 14. Holland v Yugoslavia. Big Ron Atkinson (BRA) was in fine form on ITV. "Slobodan Komljenovic was lightening slow there, wasn't he," he said, as only BRA could. No love lost between him and Ruud Gullit, though: "Ruud made a point in his pre-match ramble . . .," he said. Preamble Ron, preamble - unless you're just being bitchy about Ruud's waffling. Holland were triffic, but that still didn't explain why their supporters began singing the Furey Brothers' seminal tune The Red Rose Cafe during the second half. Answers on a postcard.
Full-time. Ruud was chuffed. Happy with the tournament too. "I also haven't seen too many players with barbed wire in their shoes," he said. Couldn't disagree. France v Spain. Why don't Spain start as they finish? Raul? Poor lad. If he'd been in Croke Park he'd have scored a point. Might make the Kildare team for the Leinster semi-final replay, if he can dig out a relation in Naas. By the way, when Nicolas Anelka was about to come on as a sub for France in the 82nd minute he . . . smiled. Is this a record?
