The World Cup starts this week, but that still isn\u2019t soon enough.<\/p>\n
Because the tabloid content machine has already gone completely insane. We don\u2019t even think the start of actual World Cup<\/strong><\/a> matches can save us, frankly, but it\u2019s the only thing that has any chance at all.<\/p>\n At the very least, it might stop quite so many \u2018stories\u2019 emerging out of Daily Express reader polls. And at this stage, we\u2019d take that.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Clarification of the day<\/p>\n Lovely work here from John Cross in the Mirror<\/strong> just making sure absolutely everyone knew he was just making a little joke. If there\u2019s one thing we know about comedy, it\u2019s that it\u2019s always a good sign when you have to explain jokes.<\/p>\n Thomas Tuchel\u2019s latest messaging is about England having \u201c14 potential starters.\u201d Blimey, if England can start with three extra players then they really will win the World Cup.<\/p>\n No, what Tuchel surely means is that England have got eight nailed-on starters and six vying for three positions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Love that \u2018surely\u2019. Yeah, thanks Crossy, we got it. We didn\u2019t actually think the successful football manager Thomas Tuchel<\/strong><\/a> was genuinely planning to try and start games with 14 players.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s the World Cup!<\/p>\n For no good reason, here\u2019s a selection from the top headlines in the \u2018World Cup\u2019 section on The Sun\u2019s<\/strong> website.<\/p>\n \u2018GODDESS\u2019:\u00a0DAZN host Eleonora Incardona stuns in bikini as she enjoys pre-World Cup holiday with Italy star boyfriend<\/p>\n WORLDS APART: What happened to \u2018World Cup\u2019s hottest fan\u2019 who mysteriously vanished after stadium camera exposed her X-rated secret?<\/p>\n ROCK N KNOLL: World Cup 2022\u2019s \u2018sexiest fan\u2019 Ivana Knoll now making her own way as DJ and mixing it with music royalty<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n We really need the games to start now please. Before our resolve fails and we actually find out what happened to \u2018World Cup\u2019s hottest fan\u2019 who mysteriously vanished after stadium camera exposed her X-rated secret.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Snub knows<\/p>\n We hope Pep Guardiola is feeling okay this morning after receiving this harrowing news, courtesy of the Daily Express<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Pep Guardiola snubbed as greatest manager in British football history named<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Thoughts and prayers at this difficult time, Pep.<\/p>\n What\u2019s gone on here then? Regular Mediawatch readers will be delighted to know this is another Daily Express story concocted entirely on the findings of a Daily Express poll, something that is therefore always absolutely guaranteed to contain record-breaking levels of common sense and viable content.<\/p>\n And on this occasion\u2026 it actually does contain a common-sense conclusion. Which is alarming, in a way. Express readers have concluded that Sir Alex Ferguson is the best manager in British football and that Guardiola is second.<\/p>\n Hard to really argue with that \u2013 and it is indeed a view shared by this esteemed organ<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Obviously, a sane and entirely uncontroversial outcome to a Daily Express poll is of absolutely no use to the Daily Express. So they\u2019ve had to be completely weird about it.<\/p>\n At the most basic level, \u2018snubbed\u2019 is an incredible word to describe \u2018voted second best at a thing ever\u2019.<\/p>\n But they don\u2019t stop there. This bit is just completely mental.<\/p>\n Gary Neville\u00a0and Jamie Carragher, known for their fierce disagreements, both conceded that Guardiola is one of the best managers to have graced these shores\u2026 but what about everyone else?<\/p>\n Express Sport readers disagreed with the ex-Manchester United\u00a0and\u00a0Liverpool\u00a0stars, with those who voted having opted for Sir Alex Ferguson as the standalone winner instead.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That\u2026 that\u2019s not disagreeing? Even a tiny bit? If we can\u2019t all agree that being voted second in a poll of the greatest managers in British football very much counts as \u2018one of the best managers to have graced these shores\u2019 then what even are we all doing?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Poll hacks<\/p>\n And talk of Daily Express<\/strong> polls becoming Daily Express news stories brings us inevitably to this.<\/p>\n England WON\u2019T win the World Cup as Thomas Tuchel receives miserable verdict<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Ah, that\u2019s a shame. No point going through with the whole palaver now. Just bring them home.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll cheerfully admit that this one caught Mediawatch out. Not because we thought it was actually going to be anything real or meaningful or that Tuchel and the lads really might as well fly back to save themselves the effort and embarrassment of actually playing the tournament itself now their hopes of success are so clearly over \u2013 we\u2019ve not totally lost the run of ourselves \u2013 but because we thought it was going to be a completely different bit of ridiculousness.<\/p>\n What we thought this sky-falling-in headline was going to be about, you see, was New Zealand boss Darren Bazeley<\/strong><\/a> coming out after their game the other day<\/strong><\/a> and saying \u2013 entirely correctly and uncontroversially, and having carefully caveated everything with equally correct statements about how both teams approached a warm-up game in stifling heat on a dodgy pitch \u2013 that:<\/p>\n \u201cEngland were good today, but they need to be better to go and win the World Cup than they were today, even though they won the game.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That would have been bad enough, because very obviously nobody could possibly think that the way England played in that game was the performance of World Cup winners; the important thing is that England were never going to even attempt to put in the performance of World Cup winners in a warm-up game in stifling heat on a dodgy pitch because that would be the behaviour of lunatics.<\/p>\n But no, it\u2019s actually worse than that. Even though we were in full Daily Express poll mode, we still didn\u2019t twig that this was just another f*cking Daily Express readers\u2019 poll.<\/p>\n And that \u2018miserable verdict\u2019?<\/p>\n Express Sport readers don\u2019t believe Tuchel will be able to end 60 years of hurt, with a whopping 84 per cent of those who voted saying England won\u2019t win the World Cup.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s\u2026 absolutely fine? If anything, we once again find ourselves so uncomfortably aligned with the Daily Express reader hivemind we\u2019re reconsidering all manner of life choices.<\/p>\n While we\u2019re fascinated by the three per cent of respondents who took the time and effort to tick the pointless if essentially only honest box of the three available (\u2018Don\u2019t know\u2019), that still leaves 13 per cent saying England will win the World Cup.<\/p>\n And England having a 13 per cent chance of winning this World Cup seems, if anything, a touch high. But certainly not wildly out of whack at all. It amounts, roughly, to a 7\/1 chance and that is very much the kind of price you\u2019ll find available with your favourite cheerful banter-prone high-street bookmaker.<\/p>\n\n
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