{"id":1090,"date":"2022-10-29T18:52:20","date_gmt":"2022-10-29T18:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/?p=1090"},"modified":"2022-10-29T20:16:27","modified_gmt":"2022-10-29T20:16:27","slug":"world-cup-countdown-22-days-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/?p=1090","title":{"rendered":"World Cup Countdown: 22 days to go"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Not so much sneaking up on you as quietly breaking into your house at night and rearranging your furniture for no reason, the World Cup is just a shade over 3 weeks away. Let&#8217;s do a countdown within the countdown: The opening titles of each 90&#8217;s World Cup from BBC and ITV, ranked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>#6 &#8211; ITV, USA &#8217;94 &#8211; Gloryland<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screenshot-2022-10-29-at-18.01.19.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"830\" height=\"516\" src=\"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screenshot-2022-10-29-at-18.01.19.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1091\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screenshot-2022-10-29-at-18.01.19.png 830w, https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screenshot-2022-10-29-at-18.01.19-300x187.png 300w, https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screenshot-2022-10-29-at-18.01.19-768x477.png 768w, https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Screenshot-2022-10-29-at-18.01.19-483x300.png 483w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 830px) 100vw, 830px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Facepainted children advertising Panasonic is probably the high point, though at least they don&#8217;t go <em>too<\/em> hard on the American stereotypes, limiting it to just the bald eagle and the Stars &amp; Stripes. There&#8217;s no actual football on display, just a few shots of various players celebrating a bit, and then one massive group bundle shot at the end. The song, &#8220;Glorlyand&#8221;, performed by Daryl Hall and the Sounds of Blackness, is presumably supposed to be a rousing number, but is a caustic mix of euro-pop and gospel music more terrible than anything on David Hasselhoff&#8217;s greatest hits. (Speaking of which, the song &#8220;Hot Shot City&#8221; is particularly good). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"World Cup 1994 ITV title sequence\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mS8ZIavd23E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>#5 &#8211; BBC, France &#8217;98 &#8211; Pavane<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We enter through the doors of what is supposedly an upmarket French restaurant, but it looks suspiciously like the set of Ocean World from the <em>Crystal Maze<\/em>. The focus remains on the interior furnishings, whilst a few classic World Cup moments play slightly blurred in the background: the Pele header, the Cruyff turn, Gazza crying. The focus then shifts to wine, with Alan Shearer appearing in 8 glasses all at once, Zidane and some others appear in 4 glasses. Baguettes. Waiters. Napkins. Finally the camera tilts up to the sun streaming through a stained glass manifestation of the trophy itself.  This was dull, and had rosbif fingerprints all over it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"BBC World Cup 98 opening titles\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mqYCxC9LHus?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>#4 &#8211; BBC, Italia &#8217;90 &#8211; Nessun Dorma<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, yes, it&#8217;s a &#8220;classic&#8221;. And of course, Pavarotti&#8217;s fearsome tenor delivery is mesmerizing. But we&#8217;re not judging this on nostalgia or music choice alone. There&#8217;s no hint of football for the first 30 seconds of this, which is taken up by shots of artwork and two ballerinas dancing around a giant, floating orange, which <em>eventually<\/em> turns into a football, or something approaching one. We finally get some action, and it&#8217;s slow-mo shots of Pele celebrating, the Cruyff turn, Maradona dribbling. There&#8217;s a diving header. Marco van Basten foreshadowing Alan Shearer&#8217;s hand-raised-whilst-running celebration. Brief shots of Irish, Scottish and English players celebrating, before ending on Marco Tardelli&#8217;s iconic running, arms-pumping, emotionally wrecked face celebration from 1982. Simple enough, I suppose, and definitely classier than the &#8217;98 effort, but I think English memories of the run to the semi-final have lionized a pretty tame visual effort.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"BBC Italia &#039;90 World Cup title sequence\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vqzz7B7V2IE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>#3 &#8211; ITV, France &#8217;98 &#8211; Rendez-vous<\/strong> <strong>&#8217;98<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Opening with a firework-strewn Eiffel tower, we segue into an amusing if somewhat incongruous sponsorship bit for Vauxhall. A few more <em>clich\u00e9s Francais<\/em>: an old bloke wearing a France &#8217;98 cap, tour de France, the Eurostar, vineyards. <em>Boules<\/em>. It then shows us a hand-animated billboard of real Ronaldo running, which morphs into actual footage of real Ronaldo running, and suddenly we&#8217;re in amongst the action. Shearer shoots and (preusmably) scores. Michael Owen scores. Shearer celebrates in the rain. Owen celebrates in the dry. There&#8217;s a few more random bits of stock footage and a French traffic warden (or something &#8211; I know there&#8217;s a special name for them but I can&#8217;t remember it). John Collins scores a penalty against Brazil and Craig Brown leaps for joy. It sort of tapers off a bit towards the end, but the soundtrack of Jean Michel Jarre &amp; Apollo 440 is just cheesy greatness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"ITV World Cup 98 opening titles\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xT6lraEDizM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>#2 &#8211; ITV, Italia &#8217;90 &#8211; Tutti al mondo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re entering earth&#8217;s atmosphere as the lines of a football pitch start appearing along with a truckload of balls. The ball spins towards us, and it&#8217;s the classic pentagon\/hexagon ball design. On the pentagons, images of various historical players are superimposed &#8211; Bobby Charlton, Pele, Johan Cruyff, Roger Federer. (Yes, I was surprised as well). The ball spins away. We&#8217;re now settled in a geostationary orbit above Italy, and there&#8217;s loads of balls bouncing everywhere, hitting the dots that presumably represent the various stadia locations being used for the event. Someone starts whipping in crosses for Michaelangelo&#8217;s <em>David<\/em>, who nods them in like a prime, naked Duncan Ferguson. The mascot, <em>Ciao, <\/em>knocks in a sweet half volley. There&#8217;s still time for one more statue, I think it&#8217;s <em>Apollo and Daphne<\/em>, to get in on the act, lobbing a ball somewhere like a bored neighbour throwing next-door&#8217;s ball back for the thousandth time. Finally, we get some classic Italian cars parked in a somewhat cavalier manner outside the Colosseum, and that&#8217;s it really. The song is great, very Depehce Mode-y, but fits the kitsch opening titles perfectly. It&#8217;s a really neat little package, just let down by a lack of actual, real football and not just statues doing headers (though that bit is great). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"ITV World Cup Italia 90 opening titles\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8gH_OxIMjXI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>#1 &#8211; BBC, USA &#8217;94 &#8211; America<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Crucially remembering that, to introduce a football programme, it&#8217;s common sense to show football action, and, like, goals. Of course, it&#8217;s <strong>USA! USA! USA! <\/strong>so there&#8217;s a litany of visual cliches &#8211; Statue of Liberty, White House, Mickey Mouse, but we also get a montage of goals, fouls, Jack Charlton grinning and Pat Bonner doing the head-tilted &#8220;careful!&#8221; expression. Bernstein&#8217;s &#8220;America&#8221; from West Side Story gives it a huge amount of drive. Presumably because England weren&#8217;t in it, the higher profile producer dweebs at beeb couldn&#8217;t be arsed, resulting in a coherent, exciting set of opening titles. Excellent stuff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"BBC World Cup 94 opening titles\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zjggbZIOgcQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Today&#8217;s feeling: <\/strong>Out in the groups after Diana Ross makes amends for the &#8217;94 opening ceremony and scores the only goal from the spot to knock England out. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not so much sneaking up on you as quietly breaking into your house at night and rearranging your furniture for no reason, the World Cup is just a shade over 3 weeks away. Let&#8217;s do a countdown within the countdown: &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/?p=1090\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1090"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1096,"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions\/1096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.30yardsniper.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}