Funny how Kelly said the exact opposite to me then, isn't it?

For the record: Kelly thought Suarez would be Uruguay captain v England (!); then got the team line-up completely wrong; then couldn't understand the background to the madness which followed the bite in any way. So he asked for my help... then said it should be me covering Uruguay, not him.

He's an absolutely magnificent correspondent on Argentinian football. However, Uruguay is not some adjunct to Argentina: as he discovered, and had the immense good grace to admit.

Also for the record: not a single soul in the English press got Uruguay's line-up or their tactics even remotely right. Meanwhile, because I actually read Uruguayan websites, I was blogging about it beforehand entirely accurately. What horrified me was, based on Gary Neville's comments before the game (he thought Forlan would play FFS), England didn't know what was coming either... despite it having been public knowledge in Uruguay from 48-72 hours beforehand.

Vickery? He knows infinitely more about South American football than I do. But Uruguayan football? Not on what I've seen. I think he gets the general blurb of it very very well (and on the WFPI, that's his brief, which he fulfils magnificently); but on the details, I sometimes know more than he does. I've been following Uruguayan football for 25 years - and I kinda *should* know more about a small country than he does about an entire continent.

Posted By: thebigfeller, Jun 3, 05:31:19