Throughout the recent Asian Cup, Pies feared for Australia as they seemed to be heading down a dangerous road that England had gone down last summer. The Socceroos implemented The Masterplan (© Beckham, Lampard, Gerrard, A. Cole) of telling every man and his dog just how good they were before the tournament, not delivering on the arrogant promises on the pitch and crashing out trophy-less.
Book deals are harder to come by when you are not playing in the Prem, but Aussie moaner Vince Grella has shown his determination to finish the job off with the kind of five-year-old girl whining that England’s finest would normally commit to print. He said: “They all had a bad attitude. I’ve written the names of Oman, Iraq, Thailand and Japan down. And I’ll be tying that note to my little finger, so it will be payback time when we meet again (artist’s impression above!).”
He stopped briefly to dab his eyes with a hankie, before he added: “I don’t know what they had against Australia but it was a joke. When Iraq scored against us they were jumping around like kangaroos – that’s taking the piss. Oman scored a goal, then they go and celebrate in front of the Green and Gold army … that’s taking the piss. Then Japan called us a bunch of wrestlers before the game.
“They were winding us up and, as an honourable nation, their people should be ashamed of the conduct of the national team. They drove me insane with their remarks, I’d want to kill them before the game even starts. The way they acted wasn’t in the spirit of football. We have players in the best leagues in the world and I don’t even know the names of half their team.” [Via The Fiver]