Come on Archie!

As this season draws to a close, Tottenham are in real danger of actually getting into the Champions League. A top four club. A chance to be playing the likes of Barcelona or Inter Milan or Shaktar Donetsk. With just eight games left, Spurs are in fourth and a point up on Liverpool, three on Man City and six on Aston Villa. And the team has remained there in spite of a really serious run of injuries. At this point, Spurs would have been challenging for third or second if it wasn’t for those two loses to Wolves. Or the loss of Aaron Lennon.
The win against Blackburn last weekend was comfortable. Boringly so. But a win is a win. More on that later.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is three of those eight games are against the top three teams. And the recent form against Man U, the Gooners and Chelsea has been less than stellar for the last…oh…ten years. So it would be a good time to turn that around then.
To finish fourth, Spurs will probably have to win the five other games, starting this week at the home of the always difficult Stoke. They will then have to probably pick up a win and a draw against the big three. It’s a tall order, but it will establish the team’s bona fides this year.
There is also the little matter of the FA Cup replay with Fulham next week. A win there sets up a semi final match with Portsmouth, a team we should beat, especially if they suddenly stop paying their players, and then it is an FA Cup final for the first time since 1992. But let’s not get ahead of things here. Fulham and Pompey will not roll over.
The first game against Fulham was a dullish affair. The dreaded nil nil draw.
The nil nil draw is like the bad sex of football. Football really is like sex. It has a flow and a rhythm. Unlike say ice hockey, where the goals fly in sometimes out of nowhere, you seem to know when a goal is coming. There is a build up pressure, a sort of dance, with the pressure building as the movement builds toward a net stretching climax.
I am not alone in this feeling. Watch the film Trainspotting where the famous Archie Gemmill goal for Scotland against the Dutch is equated to sex. Although as it was a solo run, it is equated with wanking. So very Scottish then.
The comfortable win is like the date with the girl you kinda like, it’s good, it’s fun and you’re left with a warm glow. But then, where’s the fireworks? Where’s the freaky trapeze?
The nil nil draw has all the build up and pressure but none of the release. It’s the date with the virgin of sport, the coitus interuptus of football. I can’t think of any other sports that has no scoring. Perhaps it is good to have one of these once in a while, the make the other experiences so much more exciting.

Canada is an interesting country to be living in now. As a pseudo-Canadian I get to watch what has been going on over the last two weeks in Vancouver with a slightly detached point of view.
But Canada has seemed to change in the last two weeks.
It seems odd to me that a sporting event can change a nation’s attitude, but these Olympics have inspired a new type of patriotism in the country — a type of patriotism that is genuine, unforced and confident. I can’t remember when I heard Canadians singing their national anthem. But here they are all over the country singing along every time the country wins a gold medal. People are partying and having a great time and are unabashedly proud of the country, the athletes and games.
There also hasn’t been the navel gazing debate about it either.
Canadian patriotism has always seemed a bit odd. More marked by anti Americanism or anti British-ism than something unique and self confident. Canadians have always felt a tad embarrassed by the flag waving yanks and their My Country Right or Wrong braggadocio. Canadians have always envied the Australians and the pride they show in their country.
Canadians have inherited that British liberal embarrassment at displaying patriotism in anything other than an arch, ironic way. But the constituent British are very patriotic. They might think they are not but they can be as draped in the flag as any American. Watch the Welsh at a rugby game, the Scots and their golf the English and their football. The Last Night at the Proms is silly but it is all about patriotism. The main difference is that the Brits tend to be aware that there other nations in the world.
Canadians have always apologized for any overt shows of patriotism. But the national identity is changing. I think it began with the war in Afghanistan. Canadians have been proud of their troops and patriotic in honouring the dead. Suddenly waving the flag isn’t seen as fake and American.
It is also interesting that this new found pride is a ground up type of thing. No one is trying to organize this. Canadians are not being told to be patriotic or to get into the streets and wave the flags. This isn’t some TV generated phenomena. People are genuinely expressing themselves and unashamedly so. It is quite refreshing.
I was in India once and some Brit asked me where I lived. I said Canada. He said “Ah, the quiet achiever.” I felt like telling him to f off. Today, I would have.