TV Review - Thursday 17th June - France v Croatia

Not wanting to waste time, we get the England goals straight off the bat ("the teenage terror"?) Hansen reckons they played "brilliantly", which is more than most Englishmen will think. That polished off in four minutes, about three times less than ITV would in that position, we get onto the mutual French appreciation society, Ian referring to his "mate in the camp", who may be Thierry himself, and seemingly suggesting to Alan that Zidane would "bite your legs". "In a perfect world France would win 6-0 here" is Alan's verdict. Lawro and Barry debate whether ref Kim Milton Neilsen is naturally bald or has a crew cut before settling down into a game where one team, as for large parts of the England game, one team is so dominant in possession without actually doing anything that, according to Lawro, "I end up counting the number of players - I'm sure there's 15 sometimes." After a foul on Zidane lasts about 25 yards Lawro's in natural ecstasy - "What an absolutely fantastic stepover... Wait till you see this. (pause) Maybe you won't." Ah, the wiles of local directors. "Love to show you the replay of a foul, don't they?" he rhetorically asks a minute later, still fuming silently. We do get hundreds of replays of the goal, just to check who got the last touch you understand. We imagine Barry would have exploded if Gallas hadn't screwed up a straight header from four yards after Zidane's flick ("nonchalance par excellance!" "Ah oui"), but at least nobody cared about it. "You can purr, but you're not quite on the edge of your seat" is Barry's somewhat downbeat opinion - hang on, you were relishing the prospect of a hammering earlier! The similarly themed punditry is briefly enlivened by chanting fans right outside the window, greeted by a "you can go away, chaps, if you like" from Gary. "You can mock Tudor if you want" is much smarter, Strachan accusing the Croatian of being "untidy". How did Gordon get to speak to David Beckham? Much is made of a "bad touch" in a Zidane montage, while conversely 'CROATIAN CAUTION' gets a clip of its own. Motson pops up on a mighty satellite delay to expand on his commentary thought with "the teenage terror made the Swiss roll". Barry gets his wish in the second half, and "I don't want to be anti-French, but it's what the game needed... "do they now go back to trying to defend to get a point out of it?" "Absolute certainty" replies Lawro with no small amount of, well, certainly. Cue... 2-1. And still he moans, this time "the need to replay free kicks is something the director clearly loves". And on - "I've seen everything now, a replay of the referee showing the yellow card" He'd already missed one. And hurrah, after 68 minutes we get the first sustained complaint about The New Interpretation Of Offside, although it did seem to be against Zidane when Henry was dribbling past him. This shouldn't mark Lawro out as the purest application of sense in punditry, though, given the moment when he takes his turn to pass comment on the ball - "It's a disco ball, isn't it? When you were in discos in the 70s you'd see those." Er, yeah. "Well claimed..." Barry praises Barthez just as he collides with his own defender and lets go of the ball. It's that kind of second half for France, also summed up by "a turn that left Henry on his backside!" Lawro declares two Croatians taking each other out "an oof moment", which Croatia nearly have a more tangible version of right at the death. Afterwards, among general incredulousness, Gary links into "our own cameras" catching Zidane's impromptu team meeting which Gordon reckons is him telling the others they can't rely on him again, to which Ian does a hair loss joke. Gary raises the tone with the observation "I don't know if UEFA have a new directive about the backpass rule, maybe you have to do one against France now", and then ruins it with "he (Mornar) must have springy shinpads". Mmm. After the England highlights again Wright declares the second Rooney's as "he's hit the shot". There's a new Sport Relief trailer with Ron Manager and David Beckham hoping that if he sits there long enough it'll finish quicker, after which Ian criticises the tournament so far, which they should really have mentioned earlier. Been quite good today though, all told.