TV Review - Wednesday 16th June - Spain v Greece

You'd think someone would have made the Greece win/Olympics connection before now, wouldn't you? "Greece is the word" and "Spain reign" are the first two of a feared avalanche of bad puns. Peter Schmeichel supposedly tipping Russia makes two return appearances, but less expected was Gary quoting Inaki Saez as wanting "sexy football", leading Ian to needlessly comment "I'm looking for a bit more to turn me on" before trying to chase Peter down for an opinion on how the game will turn out, which he immediately changes. "In the last four days we have seen the winners of Euro 2004" Steve Wilson sums up, standing up much as the commentators were yesterday alongside Mick McCarthy, whose unique approach to sentence building and seeming drinking from Peter Reid's tap on 5 Live the previous day has been much remarked upon. We're not stating whether this had any bearing on the moment he called Wilson "Mark", not that Steve did himself any favours with "Zagorakis is going to get a yellow card... or at least a talking to." For no reason whatsoever a '58 DAYS TO ATHENS' graphic, which Wilson refers to, pops up under the scoreline - less obstructive than ITV's million big top left hand corner DOGs a game, but still no need for it. Mick points out Helguera's shot from a free kick actually goes away from goal ("he's had a nosebleed" as Hansen would put it), but eventually Morientes scores after a mistake Mick "can't see who made that" even though Wilson has just named Michalis Kapsis as the guilty party. Steve then sticks his neck out with "they look a good side". News of Francesco Totti's charge comes in, and we get the incident in glorious teatime slo-mo followed by Lineker giving it the full "you swallow it". When did Wayne Rooney get clearance to start doing piles of interviews and promo activity? The less said about the kid doing kick-ups the better. Back at thhe game, what does "Raul is the only man in the penalty area, but he's often enough" mean? Mick adjudges the resulting header "a great effort... a great chance, but a poor effort" before spotting "a clip on the chin" and still getting hugely irate at a Greek player getting up as the Spaniards were putting the ball out. Worth noting the referee at an injury break signalling for a water bottle in the Peter Kay 'drink?' style. "And Casillas..." Wilson seems to lose the flight of the ball at a Greek corner but caught the Charisteas goal just in time, straining to be heard among the fans. "What have Spain got in their locker now?" McCarthy virtually calls for Charisteas' public execution for being helped off the pitch after injury before launching into the old favourite about "the craziest ruling". He goes on to talk about Joaquin's "chocolate foot". "Never seen a weirder way of whistling" is how Steve greets the final, well, whistle. Gary "tries to make an excuse" by suggesting Raul's easy header missed because the sun was in his eyes. "They'll be dancing on the slopes of Mount Olympus tonight" is at least original. And no, we didn't get that threatened pun avalanche at all, so be grateful for small mercies.