Inside Track: Thomas Tuchel will do well to emulate Mike Bassett’s World Cup feat
Inside Track with Joe Carroll
Prepare for a televisual onslaught on the build-up to the World Cup. (By the way, ‘televisual’ is a word I didn’t know existed until hearing it used in a brilliant episode of Fawlty Towers, the one in which a guest, played by Bernard Cribbins, makes one too many demands of Basil and is unceremoniously dumped from the hotel, his face covered in white, gooey stuff.)
The onslaught will be led by the BBC and other stations, and, of course, will centre mainly on the England challenge.
There should be some mention of Scotland as well, and while it will be mostly all about football, there might also be some programmes on related stuff, quizzes, comedy stuff, songs, etc.
My hope is that one of my favourite films will get a run. (If you really want to know, the others are the Naked Gun series, Blazing Saddles, Airplane, all comedies, and a Hitchcock classic, Rear Window.)
Ever see Mike Bassett: England Manager? No, it wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, or anything like that – they don’t give nominations to a spoof, and that’s what this is. It’s funny.
Ricky Tomlinson, extraditing himself from the Royle Family armchair, plays the title role.
His assistant is a car salesman who is more interested in flogging secondhand motors to the players than helping to get them ready for the World Cup, which takes place in Brazil. Bradley Walsh is a ball boy.
By some fluke, England qualify for the finals. Leading up to one of the qualifiers, Bassett writes his panel on the back of a cigarette packet and passes it on to the secretary to notify the players.
He can’t believe when two overweight veterans, Benson and Hedges, turn up on match day.
It doesn’t go well for the manager in the early part of the finals. His assistant walks out, but not before having an altercation with Mike and landing one on his jaw.
Mike then goes off and gets drunk with one of his players on the eve of a crucial match. He gets caught, and, as a result, is expected to resign.
But after reciting Kipling’s IF at a press conference, he says he’s staying on, and defiantly declares that his team will be going 4-3-4, sparsed with some fruity language. (If I’m spoiling it for anyone planning to see the film, tell me to stop.)
England win to qualify for the semi-finals, at which stage their run comes to an end.
But having been savaged by the tabloids back home during the finals, Mike returns to a hero’s welcome.
Watch it, and see if it gives you a laugh.
Now for the real thing, coming up next week. The betting is out, and Spain are favourites, at 9/2, to win the tournament. France are on 5/1, England 6/1, and Argentina and Brazil both 8/1.
It’s 11/1 and better the rest.
Uzbekistan, Jordan, Iraq, Curacao, Haiti, and others, are 1,000/1, which is 4,000 points lower than that available about Leicester to win the Premiership a few years ago. (Curacao reminds me of the stuff we used to rub on greyhounds to keep them limbered up).
At those outsiders’ odds, the bookies are, as they say in the betting game, ’keeping them (the outsiders) for themselves’. In other words, pricing them at odds unattractive to the punter.
If they trebled those odds, they wouldn’t have takers. For one thing, whereas Leicester finished first in a field of 20, there are more than double that, 48, in the World Cup line-up.
I often heard it said before a Gaelic football match that “if we can get the ball up to our full-forward, we have a chance (of scores, and winning)”
Yes, soccer is a much different game, but the principal is the same for Thomas Tuchel’s England: If they get the ball up to Harry Kane......
The Bayern Munich No 9 has just put a brilliant season behind him, finishing the Bundesliga’s top scorer with 36 goals, 17 clear of the next best.
He got his side’s three goals in the Cup final, with Bayern completing the double.
If you think Kane can carry his best goal-scoring form across the Atlantic, topping the charts there as well, you can have odds of 7/1.
Kylian Mbappe, who finished top marksman in Spain, is favourite at one point lower, while Lionel Messi is a 12/1 chance, just ahead of the Premier League’s top man, Erling Haaland (14/1).
No Harry Maguire in the England squad, but another player who’s no doubt pleased to have often had his name on these pages over the years is heading out.
Kevin de Bruyne is in the Belgium squad, and having had it easy in the draw, The Walloons are odds-on to emerge from their group.
At 34, Kev will have to make it pay this time if he’s to realise his World Cup aim.
His former Man City and Belgium colleague, Vincent Kompany, is having a good time of it since moving into management.
Interestingly, he succeeded Thomas Tuchel at Bayern Munich, and with Harry Kane knocking them in from all angles, the former international reigned over the German giant’s double this season.