Worried moi?
Ok so England are through to the quarter finals of the World Cup and at the risk of sounding small minded i hope to fuck they don't get any further. Not least because they barely deserve to have gotten as far as they have got. No wonder Sven doesn't want to drop Beckham he might be getting slower and slower but he can still rely on that trusty right boot for a truly world class free kick or cross ball. it might be all the lad has but he uses it to good effect. As a team though i agree with Terry Butcher in that he helps constrain other supposedly world class players from being a more fluid and effective unit.
So far they have been laboured and a grind to watch, and in Mexico and the Ivory Coast two more impresive teams have gone out already. It is about winning games and not how you do it but i hope that whoever goes on to win the World Cup does it with some style and flair. England seem to be trying to take Greeces approach at Euro 2004 as a template, it might work at times but it sure aint pretty.
As for luck, they have had a good measure of that when it's mattered, it continued again last night in a crazy match which saw their quarter final opponents Portugal get two players sent off and possiblt one ruled out with injury. England havn't improved much at all as they went on but they getting there. I hope Portugal minus Deco and Costinha play like they can and get these clods out of the tournament so we can enjoy the skills and thrills of Brazil, Argentina, Spain et all battle it out for the top prize in football.
posted by Just Some Guy @ 11:34 AM
4 Comments:
They are getting closer and closer but they are still not as good or as bad as the manic depressive English media seems to think they are.
I think they have a great chance to beat Portugal but might not have the wee bit of fluency needed.
Will be funny to see Ian Wright's greeting face when they do go out.
If they win it(!!!), I bet Scotland will be voting in an independence referendum within two years ;-)
i daresay we'd cope but i think i'd be in bed with depression for a fortnight after. Which surely can't healthy but it's the way it is.
Goalie aside they are quite a solid unit, my fear is the lad Rooney hits form and makes the difference, certainly if their luck keeps carrying i'll worry.
Portugal should beat them,they still worry me with lack of quality strikers. Pauleta bangs a few away but not seen him produce on the big stage. Brazil or france in semis also in theory beat them and Argentina or Germany on current form should also take them.
So why am i worried?
Maybe it's a side effect of exposure to the English media (BBC & ITV), they talk them up all the time and sub-conciously we start to believe it ourselves.
However, trying to look objectively, an unbiased route to the final might be...
Portugal sans Deco might not be strong enough - Englands new 4-5-1 system will be hard to break down and allows Lampard and Gerrard to both break forward.
If they get there, the Semi will be an ageing France (Ribery or Henry could cause problems though) or an out-of-sorts Brazil.
Only in the final would they come up against a team that I'd be sure would beat them ARG, ITA or GER but in the final anything could happen...
Meanwhile Scotland have 3 of the last 8 left in the WC in their Euro Champs qualifying group.
bah.
I think every team still there is probably better than England. They have had a fairly easy passage so far. They've had luck and it should run out , however Rooney is the one player that can make a big difference to England and he is getting fitter. If Gerrard, Lampard also click into gear they might with a dose of luck fluke it.
As for our group, it was a group of death before these finals it's no more or less so after, It just is. If we improve a bit we can rise to occasion and get through it, if we don't improve we'll not do it. We will also need a fair dose of good fortune.
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