World Cup diary: The French look very good. Damn.

Still going on, is it, the World Cup? There have been some fine games and some poor games with surprisingly thrilling conclusions. Ronaldo, with possibly the worst haircut I have seen on a human being ever, provided a wonderful chipped cross for Portugal to equalise against the USA; neither team, one suspects will trouble the big boys and I doubt the Portuguese will get out of the group. Good! Russia may also fail to do so and have been exactly as boring as Russia always are when it comes to the final stages of a World Cup. Belgium, meanwhile, look rather less menacing than all the experts suggested they would be. The one big disappointment for me in this tournament, other than England deservedly going out after their worst performance in sixty years, is the French looking horribly competent. That is down largely to the excellent manager, Didier Deschamps, who pruned from his fractious team the dickheads and the dorks and instilled a certain solidarity. On paper, they are not noticeably better than either England or Spain.