Italy then are first up, but after that we play Ireland, and we hope we can meet up with some old friends of ours over there who we met a couple of years ago in Murrays bar in Dublin (the one that shows all the football on the big screens). Do they sell Guiness in Poland? If they didn’t, they will now! Lots of it! And lastly of course Croatia, which is particularly exciting for my good friend Goran Arsic, who as you must know by now is actually Croatian. Goran has mixed feelings being drawn with Spain, but he is sure that we will be the two teams to go through. We may be standing at opposite ends of the ground for that one though!

We don’t like to think beyond that not to tempt fate, but in the quarter finals we could meet either England or France, which isn’t too bad either. True, England beat us a few weeks ago in a friendly, but as we said then, it is all part of the Marquis’s master plan to lull the opposition into a false sense of security! And France themselves are not the team they were when they had Zizou, Thierry and that little bald goalkeeper that everybody used to pat on the head! Gdansk doesn’t seem too bad either – we play all our games there at the group stage. It’s on the Baltic coast, not quite our own Mediterranean but we could have been stuck in some industrial town in the middle of the Ukraine! No, good feelings all round, and we are already saving up our slotties (the local currency, named, so Goran tells me, from their frequent use in slot machines they have over there?). Roll on next summer!

Barça of course didn’t have any problems against Zaragoza, but Madrid had a big match against Valencia, which they won 2-3. Was it a penalty by Higuaín at the end or not though? We saw it from all over the place, the front angle, the side angle, the top angle, the pentangle, the referee’s boot-cam angle (we made those last two up actually), but it still wasn’t clear if he handled it? Didn’t make much difference in the end though as the goal was given, so the rest is just discussing the sex of the angels, as we say over here. In any case Mou was clearly pleased by the result judging by the way he jumped on Callejón’s back! Callejón himself had a funny grin on his face as well when it happened – careful now, people will talk!

So what else went on? On Sunday little Muniain (“Bart Simpson” as they call him) got himself named in the European team of the week after he helped Athletic Bilbao beat Sevilla. He is not 19 until next month, and Del Bosque is already torn between calling him up for Euro 2012 or letting him go to the Olympics. The same goes for Thiago, Javi Martínez, Mata and maybe De Gea. What a lot of talent we have right now! The last match on Sunday between Granada and Mallorca was called off though after an assistant referee was hit by something thrown from the crowd, a disappointment especially for Martins, who had just scored a goal to dedicate to his little son, who is seriously ill. It turns out that the object was an umbrella belonging to a young immigrant, who said it accidentally fell apart in his hands as he waved it, leaving him holding the stick. A whole new meaning to flying off the handle?

Just think about it. When I was playing football in the school patio, my old friend Ricardo Solé used to hang on to the ball for minutes at a time. Barça (or Spain for that matter) would probably have passed it 20 times before “R-sole” (as we nicknamed him) gave it to one of his team mates! An amazing statistic, but what is even more amazing is that somebody actually counts the number of passes!

Our boys have had to travel a lot recently, one of the down sides of being Champions of the Universe, and there are some tired faces in the team after the long flight out West. San Iker is making a record 127th appearance, one better than the mythical and unforgettable Zubi wotsisname, but what is going on, half an hour on the reloj and the biggest mistake of his life! Plenty of time to clear, but he misses his kick and Brenes is gifted an easy goal! Are we hallucinating (Goran has indeed managed to procure some impressive looking “setas” from the nearby “bosque”!), or are we really behind? But it gets worse after that, and Campbell (come on there, is that a Costa Rican name?), gets a pass from Bryan (doesn’t sound Spanish either) Ruíz to score a second. Could it be that we are playing against a team of Scottish exiles?

Don Vicente makes four changes at half time, including Valdés for Casillas, who is surely in a state of shock? Villa is frantic, he has to prove to Guardiola that he can score goals after losing his place at Barcelona to Spanish champion ball-juggler Isaac Cuenca and failing to score against second division B team L’Hospitalet in the cup, and (has he bribed our coach to let him play 90 minutes in all the games?) he keeps on shooting at the goal of Keylor Navas (Levante reserve keeper) every chance he gets.

Lots of changes otherwise from both teams though, and with the Costa Rica bus driver and gate fifteen ticket collector on the pitch we finally score, who else but Mancunian David Silver! Iniesta did it once again! So everything forward and trust in the Señor, and with the game in injury time Villa gets his golito at last from Cazorlita’s free kick – number 51 for those that are counting! That must be a relief for him! A draw has been saved, but after four defeats and two draws in the ten friendly games since we won the World Cup, are we really showing the form of World Champions? Could it just be though a deliberate ploy by the manager to lull the opposition in to a false sense of security? We hope so! Anyway, enough of that as it’s time to go back to Barcelona. Goran, I’m driving! With your sense of direction we would probably find ourselves halfway to Iraq if you take the wheel!

Goran had hitched us a lift this afternoon on a cargo plane through an ex girlfriend of his, but it didn’t look right after half an hour in to the flight when the sun was coming in from the side of the plane rather than the front. Goran put it down to global warming, and who was I to argue? He was the one who was good at geography at school!

Anyway, what to do? We still have a day or two before the match, but there is no way we can get to Costa Rica now. Maybe we can stay and see Accra, and watch a football match here? We find out that Ghana are playing Gabon on Tuesday, but somehow that doesn’t appeal, and the possibility of finding a bar which is showing the Spain game is more remote than Messi having a good game for Argentina, which is pretty remote! So Goran, use your contacts and try and get us back. If we are quick, maybe we can get to Córdoba to watch the under 21 side against Switzerland? “No problem”, says Goran, “now isn’t that in Argentina…”?

The England coach is of course our old friend Capello, and the match starts with Don Fabio parking the team bus in front of the goal. Just look at his line up, four defenders, but aren’t his two anchormen Jones and Parker defenders as well? This is “Catenacchio”, not English football! The Marquis has put out his best line up for this one, but even so there is no way through, we are banging our heads against a “murillo de ladrillos”! And in the second half what happens, Bentini heads against the post and Lampardo scores against Liverpool goalkeeper Queen! Even Silver, Francis and Towers can’t get past Cervo (Killer didn’t even get on), and we lose by the single goal! Goran and I get on the first plane back to try and get our heads back together. The world is turning upside down! (12.11.11)

Funny to see as well that little Jack Wilshire was too scared to ask Xavi for his shirt, and had to get Cesc to ask him for it. We know what it’s like though – we remember once that we bumped in to Gary Lineker and the Barça team at the Barajas airport when they were coming back from a game against Real Madrid. Goran and I were taking a long time to decide which of us could go up to our hero to ask for an autograph, but my girlfriend said “you two are pathetic”, and stomped up to him. “Oi, are you Gary Lineker?” she said. The affable fellow looked a bit shocked but said that yes I am, so she said “well autograph this match ticket. It’s for those two weeds over there who aren’t brave enough to ask you themselves”. By this time we were only two centimetres tall with faces red like tomatoes out of embarrassment, and we were seriously thinking about digging a hole in the concrete floor with our bare hands. So Jack, we sympathise with you, but then we hadn’t just played 90 minutes against him having made a first start for our country a few days before!

Anyway, it seems the king of Spain decided to step in to cheer us up a bit. What to do though? We don’t give out lots of honours over here like they do in England, OBI-one-kinobis or nightcaps (Goran tells me he thinks that the word is night-hoodies?), so? I know, says the king, we can make Del Bosque a Marquis! That’s even one up on your English World Cup winner, Sir Alfie Ramsbottom! Maybe a bit over the top though, it has to be hereditary, so all the little Del Twiglets will have to be Marquisisises too, but what the heck! That will be Felipe’s problem, not mine!

So we were woken from our siesta with the news that we have a noble coach! We make our way to the stadium expecting him to come out wearing a crown and an ermine cloak and all that stuff, but he looks just the same as ever! He doesn’t seem to have got the hang of this yet! Nothing seems to change him though, and its the same with the football, same team, patient build up, get kicked around a bit by a team with nine defenders and two goalies etc. Villa falls just short of the goal he needs to break Raúl’s record, hits the post and puts the rebound wide, Iniesta is substituted to a standing ovation from the Bernabeu (ironies of life!), but we could go behind as well until super-subs Navas and Silva combine to score.

A 1-0 win, same score as the Euro and World Cup finals, but Colombia are no Germany or Holland, and we have to do better if we are to win the Euro again. Meanwhile Goran has written to the king asking if he could make him a Count for his services to football reporting, or maybe even better a Viscount, who we suppose is in charge of vice? You are a bit of a count already, I tell him. Did I say that right?

Mourinho is one of the few people who have been on both sides of the fence, as he was at the Nou Camp many years ago as assistant to Sir Bobby Robson. But since then he has been a thorn in their side, coming to Barcelona with Chelsea and Inter Milan and knocking them out of the Champions League both times. Now he is back with the dreaded enemy, and there hasn’t been a build up in Barcelona like it since Figo grew horns and a tail and left paradise to join the “dark side” (well the white side actually!).

Love him or hate him though, Mourinho has already turned things round at Madrid, building a team who are brimming with confidence. He has already set the record for the best start by a new manager, but at the same time he got himself sent off in the cup for insulting the referee, and almost came to blows with Sporting coach Manolo Preciado after an interchange of insults.

The game has been switched to Monday night of course as the local Catalan elections are taking place on Sunday (watch out by the way for Barça’s ex-president Joan Laporta, who is standing for his own Catalan independence party with a porno actress on his team!), and the local police say they don’t have the resources to look after the polls, and act as Mourinho’s bodyguard. Whatever happens, it’s going to be a memorable night. We just hope nobody gets killed!

Of course we are bidding for the 2018 World Cup together with Portugal, our neighbours and eternal rivals. If they haven’t already got a theme song we can suggest maybe “enemigos para siempre”, sung by internationally famous singing stars from both countries. In Spain we have many, Josep Carreras, Julio Iglesias and his son what’s his name, and the fat lady who did it last time with Freddy the Queen, but we are not so sure about Portugal? We looked up in Wikikity-tickity-pedia but the only name that came up was Bruce Buckley! Who? Doesn’t sound Portuguese to us! Then there was Sabrina who sang in the 2007 Eurovision song contest, but we thought she was Italian and she must be almost 50 by now (years old, not chest size… but then maybe she could be that as well?)! could be a different Sabrina?

Anyway, we will know if we’ve got it in two or three weeks time, but this game didn’t help. Goran and I arrive at Lisbon airport a bit nervous – we haven’t been back here for over 20 years, when Goran threw away a cigarette end in to an old rubbish bin, and whoosh – it started to burn. The next day we saw on the news that the whole town centre had gone up in flames, but it couldn’t have been us, could it? But nobody stops us on the way through, and it’s on to the impressive Da Luz stadium for the match.

This one though is looking like a preview to the Barcelona Real Madrid derby game, with Pepe, Carvalho and Cristiano Ronaldo in the Portuguese team (luckily Madrid wouldn’t let Mourinho be part-time coach, or he’d be there as well), and the eight Barça players in our squad. Of course we have our Real Madrid players too, Casillas, Ramos, Xabi Alonso, Arbeloa, Raúl Albiol, so it was all one big happy family. We start off alright, Iniesta shooting wide and Silva heading past the post when it would be easier to score, but then Ronaldo gives us a fright with a lob over the head of Casillas in to the net. Luckily Nani had the lights out in his brain, and he runs in and gets his head to the ball as it is crossing the line. Offside, and Ronaldo is so cross he takes off his captain’s armband and throws it on to the ground, just like a baby throwing his rattle out of the pram! Pity his poor mother when he was young!

Anyway that was just a warning, but we are still asleep, and before half time Martins scores for Portugal. Del Bosque brings on World Cup players Torres, Cesc and Marchena at half time, surely that will improve things, but no, two minutes later Postiga turns the ball towards the goal and Ramos forgets that we changed ends at half time and scores in his own net! It gets worse, Postiga scores again, and although we have chances, Ramos, Cesc, Cazorla and Llorente, it is Portugal who have the last laugh, with Almeida making it 4-0 on a breakaway at the end!

We leave the ground without saying anything, too embarrassed to admit we are Spanish. Can we really carry on the joint bid after that? But then we think about it, and we did knock them out of the World Cup in the summer, and that was the one that really counted. We burst in to song, “enemigos para siempre…”. This might just catch on!