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FA CUP FINAL VIDEO REVIEW - June 1997

How depressing is this video? Let me count the ways.
  1. The actual match. Watched on fast-forward, you barely get a glimpse of the goalposts in the entire game, and when you do it's mostly goal kicks.
  2. With the benefit of freeze-frame, Festa's disallowed first half equaliser, which would have thrown the match wide open, is clearly shown to have been onside - what's more, the ball travels fully 15 yards from Stamp's pass before the linesman raises his flag. What was that rule about "when the ball is kicked" again?
  3. Di Matteo's cynical, disgraceful professional foul on Juninho in the second half looks worse every time you see it.
  4. The only exciting moment in the whole game (Di Matteo's goal) is shown in the opening credits. Just two hours to go, then.
  5. The eternally hideous spectacle of fully grown professional athletes bouncing up and down on the spot to dismal showtunes like Chelsea's even-worse-than-usual Cup Final record, only this time for even longer than usual.
  6. An hour's extra footage on the tape, but all of it made up with insufferably tedious pre-match interviews with the Wembley groundsman, idiot supporters and a load of footballers who can't speak English.
  7. The usual knocked-up-in-half-an-hour-with-a-Letraset production values.
  8. No action at all from any of the either side's genuinely thrilling matches in the previous rounds.
  9. Having to look at Bryan Robson's haunted face all the way through.

Looks like nine ways, then.

VERDICT: Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, in football form.

NO STARS

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