Well it's been a while since my last rant on here.. I shall no doubt try to catch up on all the comings and goings at a later date, but first to more imminent matters.
England have almost sneaked into the Quarter-Finals of Euro 2012 - as group winners no less - and now face Italy on Sunday.
The usual hype surrounding England has been noticeable by it's absence this time round and you can't help but think that this has taken the pressure off all concerned. Quite whether this was a masterstroke on behalf of the FA in appointing Roy Hodgson and crushing any pre-tournament optimism remains to be seen.
You suspect that if they had gone with the tabloid clamour for Harry Redknapp then the pressure would have been cranked up a few notches, what with Redknapp's glorous history in European football like that time Spurs got embarrased at the San Siro only for Gareth Bale to score a hat-trick so they didn't lose by quite so many. Or that time they got annihalated at the Bernebeau and, well that was that really.
Roy Hodgson does have a better record, somehow getting Fulham to a European final was impressive and much was made of his ability to speak a number of foreign lanuages when he was appointed. The fact that this is probably the one job in World Football that this is rendered pretty irrelevant was somehow less of an issue.
One of the main advantages that Hodgson has this time for England, rather than his ill-fated time in charge at Liverpool is that England don't have to play Blackpool, which provided something of a blind-spot.
England have actually progressed relatively serenely through the group stages, compared to previous competitions. A creditable draw with France, although there subequent collapse at the hands of Sweden prehaps shows that the French are perhaps not the force they should be considering the players at their disposal.
A bit of a roller-coaster win against Sweden was again unexpected.. it's sometime since I can remember an England side coming from behind to win in a Tournament Finals game, although blowing a lead in the first 2 games is probably not a good sign.
The final group game against Ukraine and the return of Wayne Rooney was actually more straight-forward than I imagined. Rooney was pretty poor on the day, but that is to be expected with a lack of match sharpness following his suspension for the assault on the the chap from the Balkans, Montenegro was it, it was a couple of years ago now so I forget.
So we actually won the group, thanks to the French / Swedish capitulation and avoided Spain. Hurrah - no we only have to beat Italy. Admittedly an easier proposition, than the European and World Champions, but this will not be easy.
They still have the best keeper in the world in Gigi Buffon - a keeper who only allows himself 2 or 3 mistakes a season apparently, although you can probably count on one begloved hand the mistakes he's made in his career. Although the sight of him does generally remind me of Luis Garcia crashing one into his top corner in 2005.
They also have Antonio Di Natale who is something of an awesome finisher and whose name rather delightfully translates as Tony Christmas.
Of course they also have Mario Balotelli who we are all now fully aware of following his antics - there really is no better word for it - this season at City.
But they are not the team that they were then they won the World Cup in Germany, the likes of Totti and Del Piero are no longer around - and this hopefully opens a chink in the door for England.
For once we have a younger looking squad - attacking options with the likes of Carroll, Wellbeck and Walcott all chipping in with goals so far. Hodgson's suprise gamble of taking Oxlade-Chamberlain, has seemed less of a gamble by actually giving him a game - unlike the Walcott fiasco in 2006.
So can we actually knock out one of the top sides in World Football from a tournament for the first time since the 1960's. Actually, we did did beat Spain on penalties in 1996 - but we were VERY lucky that day. But the odd victory over Belgium and Denmark are not the hallmarks of a world class national side.
I would be delighted if we got past Italy, it's not as important as if say Liverpool had a game against.. well anyone really, but it would be a nice suprise.
If we then got through to face Germany - well that will be a story for another day.
