GOD OF RAIN .....

I am not a big fan of these international matches, I love the major tournaments, the World Cup, Euro's, African Cup of Nations and Copa America, but the qualification matches leave me cold and the break in domestic football that comes along with them is incredibly frustrating. In Europe, the September and October qualification matches come just when the major leagues are getting going and teams starting, or looking to find some consistency and then we break ! Not really sure what the alternative is, but at least we can forget about them now until 2013. We have 14 full rounds of EPL football between now and New Year, when we break for the FA Cup, so hallelujah !

Of course being a Brentford supporter I should be used to frustration by now, one season outside the bottom two divisions in my lifetime ,they should never have been relegated that year btw and it still hurts twenty years later ! Coasting at Christmas, they somehow found a way to get into trouble, then looked like they had got out of the mire before eight minutes of injury time at home to Notts County and again before that most miserable of days at Ashton Gate, on reflection, sorry, I cannot put myself through this again ! So will leave that story there.

I did post a free preview on Facebook yesterday and I hope you all saw it, it wasn't the greatest preview of all time, or all week, but it was a winner inside 51 minutes, which is more use than a stadium roof in Warsaw. At least I felt I really got to know Italian referee Gianluca Rocchi yesterday and how his mind works ( !), I loved the look on Roy Hodgson's face when Rocchi walked straight past him without even a sideways glance following the referee's first televised kick about !

I saw someone had updated his Wikipedia page to read .....

Gianluca Rocchi (born 25 August 1973 in Florence) is an Italian association football referee and God of Rain.

Good Luck.