First the Germans have a go at Beckham's wife, mother, sister and children, then an Argie player wears boots celebrating cheating Maradona's Hand of God goal against England in 1986, now the Spanish are calling England striker Peter Crouch - who is a huge 6 foot 7 inches tall - a "two metre asparagus". Not only that, but the Italians have called him a "stork" and who's tall even to have his photos put into a family scrapbook.
Looks like we have the usual Continental European inferiority complex towards the English.
Hail to the two metre asparagus
By GLEN OWEN, Mail on Sunday
18th June 2006
Tall order: England's Peter Crouch is 6ft 7 inches tall
Peter Crouch thought he had heard all the jibes about his 6ft 7in frame - 'beanpole', 'bambi on ice' plus those hilarious inquiries about whether it is 'snowing up there'.
But even Crouchy has never before been called an 'espárrago de dos-metro' - a 'two metre asparagus'.
The description, coined by a Spanish journalist writing about England World Cup campaign, is one of an array of unsporting insults hurled at our lanky hitman - despite his crucial late goal against Trinidad & Tobago on Thursday.
The writer, from El Pais, called the England team 'flat, grotesque and contaminating', adding: 'Eriksson decided to make Crouch, a two-metre asparagus, the constant reference point'.
Equally bizarre - and unkind - was the man from Italy's La Repubblica, who said the team had won through to the knockout stages 'thanks to a big stork (maybe with avian flu) called Peter Crouch, whose football sounds as bad as his name and whose photos can't be published even in a family scrapbook'.
Even countries which share our language have been reaching for peculiar descriptions of Crouchy.
Sports Illustrated in America, dismissed the team's gameplan as being 'content to kick the ball from side to side a bit, then hoof one over the top, hoping it might find the noggin atop Peter Crouch's gangly frame' [[the English aren't yet in such a dire situtation as to take footballing tips from the Yanks who haven't won any games yet]].
O Jogo in Portugal called him a 'battering ram' which broke Trinidadian resistance after 'Beckham managed to put some spice into the dish that England began heating up', while Argentina's La Nación condemned England's 'boring' football, blaming it on 'Crouch, that really tall and thin muse'.
Other baffling verdicts from the world's Press included:
• 'No one knows what fate has in store for the English in this World Cup, but yesterday Her Royal Highness's subjects entered the competition on tiptoe' - Le Parisien, France.
• 'England played without any good smell or taste' - Sportski Zurnal, Serbia (who were thrashed 6-0 by the Argies).
• 'We continue to ask ourselves many questions about this team which has more big names than big ideas' - L'Equipe, France (who's national team drew 0-0 with Switzerland and haven't yet scored a goal in the World Cup since 1998).
• And perhaps most cuttingly: 'They want to win their first World Cup for 40 years. They're not going to like that' - Bild am Sonntag, German (who's team is also underperforming and would surely get beaten by England should the team meet in the next round).
dailymail.co.uk
Looks like we have the usual Continental European inferiority complex towards the English.
Hail to the two metre asparagus
By GLEN OWEN, Mail on Sunday
18th June 2006
Tall order: England's Peter Crouch is 6ft 7 inches tall
Peter Crouch thought he had heard all the jibes about his 6ft 7in frame - 'beanpole', 'bambi on ice' plus those hilarious inquiries about whether it is 'snowing up there'.
But even Crouchy has never before been called an 'espárrago de dos-metro' - a 'two metre asparagus'.
The description, coined by a Spanish journalist writing about England World Cup campaign, is one of an array of unsporting insults hurled at our lanky hitman - despite his crucial late goal against Trinidad & Tobago on Thursday.
The writer, from El Pais, called the England team 'flat, grotesque and contaminating', adding: 'Eriksson decided to make Crouch, a two-metre asparagus, the constant reference point'.
Equally bizarre - and unkind - was the man from Italy's La Repubblica, who said the team had won through to the knockout stages 'thanks to a big stork (maybe with avian flu) called Peter Crouch, whose football sounds as bad as his name and whose photos can't be published even in a family scrapbook'.
Even countries which share our language have been reaching for peculiar descriptions of Crouchy.
Sports Illustrated in America, dismissed the team's gameplan as being 'content to kick the ball from side to side a bit, then hoof one over the top, hoping it might find the noggin atop Peter Crouch's gangly frame' [[the English aren't yet in such a dire situtation as to take footballing tips from the Yanks who haven't won any games yet]].
O Jogo in Portugal called him a 'battering ram' which broke Trinidadian resistance after 'Beckham managed to put some spice into the dish that England began heating up', while Argentina's La Nación condemned England's 'boring' football, blaming it on 'Crouch, that really tall and thin muse'.
Other baffling verdicts from the world's Press included:
• 'No one knows what fate has in store for the English in this World Cup, but yesterday Her Royal Highness's subjects entered the competition on tiptoe' - Le Parisien, France.
• 'England played without any good smell or taste' - Sportski Zurnal, Serbia (who were thrashed 6-0 by the Argies).
• 'We continue to ask ourselves many questions about this team which has more big names than big ideas' - L'Equipe, France (who's national team drew 0-0 with Switzerland and haven't yet scored a goal in the World Cup since 1998).
• And perhaps most cuttingly: 'They want to win their first World Cup for 40 years. They're not going to like that' - Bild am Sonntag, German (who's team is also underperforming and would surely get beaten by England should the team meet in the next round).
dailymail.co.uk