In Glory-you Basterds

The Italians waved arrivederci and the French exclaimed 'Sacre bleu' so it is time for the Sidler to once again take on football. Yes I know we've nearly come to the end of the group stages and not a peep from the man who's bored you all half to death about the World Cup for the last year. And for this I would like to apologise, but, the main reason for my silence is that I have been writing a blog over at . I haven't been covering all their matches but if you've missed it so far I shall be covering this afternoon's match between North Korea and Ivory Coast then Uruguay vs South Korea on Saturday afternoon and also Argentina vs Mexico on Sunday evening.

Of course that last blog, for this week at least, on Sunday may well be effected by my emotional over spill from Sunday afternoon's match- and any movie fan, or even Sidler on Football 'fan' will probably guess that I'm here to talk about Sunday afternoon.

First off England, we were dreadful, absolutely dreadful, in our first two games. You don't need me to tell you this but I have to reiterate just how shocking we were. It's a good job kitbag didn't assign me those two games as I'd have been hard pressed not to use swear words. We lacked the ability to out pass and out think sides we should be putting to the sword with ease. And it came down to one final game. Even me, the most passionately blind England fan, was starting to have some doubts. Not over Fabio, the media's reaction to his picking the team 'only' 2 hours before kick off has been a farce, but over the player's ability to overcome the fear.

And just as it looked like they would crumble under the pressure they put in one of the most convincing 90 minutes of football England produce. I'm not getting carried away but actually think of the last time they played so well for the whole 90 minutes, and not just 45 or 60 minutes, and it's difficult.

But now is the real task, ZE GERMANS ARE COMING! Germany started their World Cup campaign in a slightly different fashion to the English- they battered their first opponents, Australia, and had all pundits purring over their performance. Truth was though they were highly flattered by their highly disappointing opponents. This was proved when they lost to Serbia and only a 1-0 win over Ghana saw them progress as winners of Group D.

There will be many naysayers for England going into this 2nd round match, none more so than Franz Beckenbauer who believes that England can only play kick and rush football and that England messed things up by coming 2nd in their group to set up this match as 2nd round match and not a final. But of course I have faith, and ironically it is the Americans who have provided me with the belief that we can, no will, be victorious over the old enemy.

So why have the Americans given me the belief? Well firstly England have our own 'bear Jew', I may lose some of you here and if I have, GO AND WATCH 'Inglourious Basterds" it's an awesome film. But England's 'Bear Jew' is of course Wayne Rooney. Okay, so the boy Wayne hasn't come to life yet but what better place to do so than against Germany. He could really club them into the ground if he could just find form. He was of course looking a lot better in the match against Slovenia but an early piece of magic in the match on Sunday could reinvigorate the United striker and in turn the whole team.

England too have our own Apache in Steven Gerrard. He leads our band of real Englishmen into battle and helps leave a scar on the forehead of our opponents, well maybe not the foreheads but we really need Captain Gerrard to perform the way we know he can, at his marauding best.

Of course I'm not trying to say the German football team are Nazi's, or any Germans for that matter but the fact is you can't think of Germany without thinking that we've beaten them in 2 World Wars and one World Cup. Nor can you think of them without thinking of them dumping us out of the World Cup in 1970 or penalty defeats in 1990 and 1996. Football is war, and in England vs Germany it's a war with plenty of history.

Perhaps Fabio Capello should borrow a quote from Aldo the Apache for his team talk on Sunday;

We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are.
And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the battered, bruised, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us.
And the German won't not be able to help themselves but to imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our football boots, and the class of our goals.
And the German will be sickened by us, and the German will talk about us, and the German will fear us.
And when the German closes their eyes at night and they're tortured by their subconscious for the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of us they are tortured with.
Sooounds good?"

Okay so I changed the words slightly but we're not actually trying to kill them. Are we?