Lawrotakesit tooVARwithhis constantgaffes
“Swede dreams are made of this,” said a BBC montage. “Who am I to disagree?” responded Gary Lineker. His later quip that Sweden “couldn’t hit an IKEA door with a hammer”, though, was a nightmare. As Switzerland lined up in the tunnel, Phil Neville revealed: “I’m not a fan of Shakira”. He failed, however, to offer an opinion on Switzerland forward Xherdan Shaqiri. Mark ‘goodness me’ Lawrenson outdid himself after insisting a foul was outside the box. VAR concurred and the correct decision ensued. Rather than acknowledge technology getting it right, Lawrenson defaulted to factory settings and moaned: “Oh my goodness me. Now I’m sorry, this is where I think VAR is wrong”. It took a confused Simon Brotherton replying: “But the foul looked like it was outside the area,” for Lawro to snap back to almost-life and mumble: “I got that completely wrong yes it was... sorry... exactly, got myself mixed up”. Raging about being agreed with? Textbook Lawrenson. Any lingering pro-England sentiment in Scotland evaporated as ITV deprived viewers of an England game with Ally McCoist punditry.
Scotland was represented, though, as Gary Neville described the Colombian coach who nudged Raheem Sterling as a “numpty”. “They’re at it. The Colombians are definitely at it,” said Neville after Lee Dixon accused them of “playing the nasty dark arts”.
“It’s not so much a footballing test, it’s an emotional test,” Glenn Hoddle suggested. I guess that’s one way of describing 90 minutes listening to Hoddle. Twice he referred to groups of players standing in a line as “a love train”, after which people all over the world joined hands and muted their televisions.
Colombia’s equaliser came roughly 30 seconds after Danny Murphy, on the BBC Sport website, said: “We’ve thoroughly deserved the victory”. Well played Danny.
As the game went to penalties, Mark Pougatch asked: “Hands up who feels sick?”. Look, I’m not Hoddle’s biggest fan, but that’s a bit excessive.
“We’ve suffered too much,” said a relieved Gary Neville.
Tell me about it.