• Like, was the Fifa smart in adopting the phrase, ‘A Time to Make Friends’, as its official motto for this tournament, when scar tissue and shattered shin bones testify to the very opposite?

• Like — and I am prepared to stand corrected — I don’t think pulverising the pelvises of one’s opponents conforms to anyone’s idea of friendship.

• Like, the situation between England and Portugal, after the former’s inelegant exit from the World Cup, is almost similar to that which prevailed between the Honduras and El Salvador back in the late 60s, which ended — let us not forget — in aerial bombardments and the deaths of 6,000 people.

• Like, shouldn’t the UN Security Council be informed about this imminent threat to world peace?

• Like, isn’t it kind of ironic that even as Italy celebrates its entry into the finals, prosecutors in Rome are busy inquiring into a particularly nasty match-fixing scandal involving four of its top clubs?

• Like, isn’t it kind of ironic that even as France celebrates its entry into the finals, the match is going to be the swansong of French football as we know it, with three of its greats kicking into the sunset?

• Like, isn’t it unfortunate in the extreme that this World Cup could equally have been termed the Euro Cup?

• Like, won’t it be great if African football gets a shoe-in, in time for the next World Cup in South Africa?

... contd.