Own goal

摘要

There is a certain mix of anger and emptiness with which any football fan is familiar. A player makes a stupid mistake, and your team is needlessly 1-0 down. Many English fans are suffering from a new strain of this ailment. The country's football chiefs are bidding to host the World Cup in 2018 and until a few days ago seemed at last to have found some form. It was a bright idea, for example, to send David Beckham, a fine if ageing player and a global brand in human form, to present the 1,752-page "bid book" to FIFA, the sport's global governing body, on May 14th.