Lewis Carroll, ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ from ‘ Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There’

In the run up to Blatter’s coronation we’ve had all kinds of lurid tales including some concerning our unsuccessful World Cup bid: principally the suggestion that the FA Cup could be re-named after Dr. Nicolas Leoz (the president of CONMEBOL) and the attempt by the execrable Jack Warner to exploit the Haitian earthquake by demanding discounts for broadcasting rights that were not his to offer. The representative from Argentina (who I am not even going to bother to name) apparently suggested the Falkland Islands should be returned to Argentina.

From a purely British point of view, there are a number of people who emerge from this mess with any sort of credibility. It’s easy to be wise after the event, but it looks like Lord Triesman was right all along, despite having undermined his position by falling head over heels into a honey trap set up by an odious rag that we continue to boycott. The FA and Scottish FA will be the only football associations to abstain from voting this afternoon and Prince William has also backed the decision to do so.

However, what happens today is ultimately of no concern to Blatter and his henchmen who – rather like some of the other notorious European dictators throughout history – won’t tolerate any dissent and are more than happy to hang their own supporters out to dry.

As a keen amateur historian, some of the statements coming from both sides (and this means you, Geoff Thompson) are beginning to sound like the dialogue that went on between Hitler and Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia in 1938: appeasing those b*stards didn’t work then and appeasing this bunch of crooks won’t work now.

It’s time to pick up the ball and leave. Football should be coming home.

For good.

In some respects the French campaign in South Africa was so wonderfully dysfunctional that it’s hard to imagine any other team self destructing with such panache; at least Italy nearly made it to the second round although at least they have some previous when it comes to underperfoming in Africa.

The sanctions the French FA imposed on their squad in the aftermath of both the performance on the pitch and the histrionics off it look like a classic case of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted.

Tonight’s friendly can be seen from two contradictory angles. On the optimistic side, it’s an opportunity for both sides to field players with minimal international experience who wouldn’t normally make a contribution in the hope that a couple of them will make a breakthrough. From a negative point of view, the game will feature ’experimental’  (ie under strength) sides and concludes a year that arguably could and should have been more successful for both sides. That’s certainly the way French manager Laurent Blanc seems to see it (some knowledge of French required).

The problem we’ve got – again – is goals. Montenegro’s clean sheet was the first time that we’ve failed to score at home since February 2007, when a goal from Andres Iniesta was enough for a Spanish win at Old Trafford. Fab’s hands have been tied with the usual crop of withdrawals and injuries, which is why the (ahem) ’troubled but talented’ Andy Carroll of Newcastle will probably start up front; presumably he got the nod before Cardiff City’s Jay Bothroyd because Cardiff aren’t in the Premiership…yet.

The only other confirmed starters are Sunderland’s Jordan Henderson and Arsenal’s Kieran Gibbs – when there’s some kind of news about what the team actually is, we’ll have it here.

With just under two weeks to go before the announcement of the host nation for the 2018 World Cup, it’s fair to say that – for whatever reason – our chances of winning the bid are slightly worse than they were at the beginning of the year.

The incident concerning Lord Triesman was regrettable even if there may have been something to it; the perception of the Sunday Times enquiry into vote buying may have damaged the bid even though it seems public perception refuses to blame the journalists, who were right to investigate what was happening.

So the decision to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia will be made by a discredited body that won’t even have enough time to investigate itself before announcing where the next two competitions will be held.

Don’t hold your breath and be prepared for more disappointment. However, if by some miracle we actually win the bid, then mine’s several pints of Bombardier.

Update: starting line up against France:

Foster, Jagielka, Ferdinand, Lescott, Gibbs, Walcott, Henderson, Barry, Milner, Gerrard, Carroll.

Didn’t Ferdinand Lescott-Gibbs discover the Zambezi?

This will be the first time we’ve played ‘El Tri’ since 2001 (a 4-0 win at Pride Park in Derby if my memory isn’t playing tricks on me) and the Mexicans don’t have a good record in England: we’ve won all four games played here and they have yet to score. Despite that, we actually have quite a lot in common with them: until about half way through the qualifying campaign they were managed by Sven-Goran Eriksson and in the last four tournaments they have qualified from their group only to be unable to get past the second round. So…umm… actually quite a lot in common then.

It used to be quite rare for Mexicans to play abroad (Hugo Sanchez is the only name that springs to mind) but that’s changed. The provisional squad named by Javier Aguirre contained ten players who play their club football in Europe: captain Rafael Marquez and midfielder Jonathan Dos Santos play for Barcelona, defenders Francisco Rodriguez and Carlos Salcido (five yellow cards and a sending off in qualifying) are team mates at PSV Eindhoven and strikers Guillermo Franco and Carlos Vela play in this country for West Ham and Arsenal respectively.  However, the most intriguing Mexican prospect for years will probably be playing at Bloomfield Road, Blackpool next season: Javier Hernandez (who will only be 22 on 1^st June) joined Manchester United recently and is arguably the best striker to have emerged from the country since Sanchez. I’ve not seen him play, but if I was Dimitar Berbatov I’d be on the phone to my agent if Hernandez starts banging them in during the tournament.

Hernandez is more of a long term goalscoring prospect as Mexico don’t really have a dominant striker – the apparently ageless Cuauhtemoc Blanco is 37, neither Franco nor Vela have really done the business at international level and Nery Castillo wasn’t even named in the provisional squad. The short term solution appears to be Alberto Medina, who didn’t play at all in the qualifiers but has scored in two of Mexico’s last three friendlies including the 1-0 win over Chile last Sunday.

I’ll go for an England win, but if we stop the Mexicans from scoring then I think we can look forward to both the Japan friendly and the first game of the finals against the USA with a lot of confidence. Another point to remember is that the Mexicans are tight defensively and have a decent track record in the World Cup – it would not be a huge surprise if they beat South Africa in the opening game – and so we may have to be patient. And no booing Jamie Carragher either.

In other news, Gary Linekerdecided to leave The D**ly M**l as a football columnist this week…Diego Maradona ran a journalist over (as far as we know it wasn’t one from the Mail)…Michael Ballack and Lassana Diarra won’t be playing in the tournament, which is a shame as I really wanted to use ‘Ballack’s Out’, ‘Never Mind The Ballacks’ or ‘What A Load Of Old Ballacks’ as article titles. It’s also a shame that we won’t be treated to a French player running around with ‘Lass’ on the back of his shirt, but you can’t have everything can you ;-)

There’s also another Facebook group here. If anyone can point us in the direction of any more fan groups, online petitions and such then we’ll be pleased to contribute, pass on any details we get and generally join in; the more the merrier after all!

As fans we’ll all be watching and hoping that the England team can become World Champions this summer: some of us may be lucky enough to be in South Africa in person. As fans we were all hoping that in eight years time we would not have to travel so far. Now hose hopes have been damaged but not destroyed so as fans we need to show the Daily Mail how angry we are but we also need to show the various decision makers exactly how much we want the World Cup in England in 2018.

So instead of finishing off by posting Terry Venables pretending to be Elvis or an advert for a Danish brewery featuring an ex-Scunthorpe United player dressed in a suit of armour…over to Sir Laurence Olivier and William Shakespeare.