Tales From The Terrace: Lateness and Boredom

Hello one and all. Apologies for the lack of TFTT last week, I was too busy to write, so time to sum up the last two weeks in this weeks edition.
Don’t know about you lot but the international break is one of the most boring times of the football calendar, but don’t worry, it will be getting far more boring in the next 8 months before the big climax of the long awaited Brazilian World Cup 2014. The tournament has the potential to be one of the greatest world cups ever. Held in the incorrectly labelled ‘home of football’, the quality of players on show may prove to be a prestigious event. Hopefully though, there will be plenty of Chelsea players on show, and the inevitable future player or two there as well. So, just who has qualified so far?

• Brazil (the hosts) qualify with potentially Oscar, David Luiz, Ramires and maybe Willian representing their country.
• Argentina
• England – Lampard, Cole, Cahill are likely candidates to play for England with Bertrand, Chalobah and McEachran unlikely.
• Spain – Azpilacueta, Torres and Mata look set to attempt to retain their World Cup Title
• Netherlands – Patrick van Aanholt could be set for a surprise inclusion and in the case of Marco van Ginkel, who knows.
• Belgium – Hazard brothers, Courtois, De Bruyne and Lukaku.
• Germany – Schürrle (who scored a rather beautiful hat-trick last night)
• Japan
• Australia – big Mark Schwarzer could make an appearance for the Socceroos.
• Iran
• Costa Rica
• Italy – the lack of Italians at Chelsea makes me sad.
• South Korea
• Switzerland
• Colombia – A strike force of Falcao and Jackson Martinez. Wow.
• Chile
• Ecuador
• Honduras
• Russia – A rare Yuri Zhirkov could be sighted.
• Bosnia Herzegovina

With plenty more to still qualify, the line up already looks good but I’m not here to talk about the World Cup or about how well the Chelsea players did on international duty because quite frankly, I’d rather have a moan about being bored.
I am very much a club over country man (probably because Chelsea have a far better chance of winning something than either England or Wales). I don’t ever get the excitement watching either of those countries than I do when I watch Chelsea. The prospect of watching Juan Mata and Eden Hazard swiftly interchanging outweighs watching James Milner. I hate international breaks because they deprive me from Chelsea. Sure, watching the players do well for their country is lovely, but it’s not the same as watching them in a blue shirt awkwardly grind out 1-0 victories. Nothing drags you closer to the pits of despair before propelling you into feelings of euphoria quite like Chelsea. My club, my love.
2 weeks between games is depressing, and with no transfer window to keep us entertained, all kinds of column filling and idiotic crap tends to fill the tabloids because they need to publish something so they might as well cause a dressing room divide whilst doing so. One of the more eyecatching items of ‘news’ this week was that no deal was in place for Lewandowski to move to Bayern 19/05/12 Munich, and stories suggesting that Pep had cooled on the idea of another pure number 9. I have tried my best to keep my feet on the ground over this news although the thought of Lewandowski joining for free is purely erotic and frankly makes my trousers tingle.
The first part of news shouldn’t come as a surprise though. A player can only sign a contract with another club 6 months before their current one expires (source: Football Manager) so the fact Lewandowski hasn’t signed for Bayern is a bit of an obvious idea. Hopefully Bayern cool their interest and we poach up Lewandowski because if there is one thing a supporter of a majorly rich club can do, it is dream big.
I’ve digressed. Anyone who follows me on twitter will have been made aware of how bored the international break has been with tweets ranging from expressions of distaste to international fixtures to the downright surreal. In a bid to pass time, plenty of us have been looking for stuff to do and the best thing I’ve learnt this international break is that I do a whole lot more work than when club football is on. Although now the distraction of FIFA 14 is an everpresent, a complicated game with changed features hasn’t made it the most popular game, but the fact stands that for the first time in a very long while, Chelsea are excellent on the game. Eto’o is somehow still insanely fast, Willian is practically Messi and Hazard remains incredible. A FIFA game where Chelsea are actually really good is a collectors item for sure.
In other news, Lukaku is scoring and grass is green. Nothing to report really.
Club football returns this weekend with Chelsea making the trip to Wales to play newly promoted Cardiff City Blue-but-really-wear-red-birds. Should be a giggle, and I eagerly await the return of club football, life just isn’t the same without it.