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Well the Slovenia game has come and gone. Myself along with the rest of the USA ran the whole gamut of emotions during that contest. As per our Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) we fell behind a goal early, wasted numerous scoring chances, and then paid for our anemia in front of goal by getting caught out on the break. At the half down 2-0 many of the pundits and oatcakers believed our World Cup to be over – done and dusted. However, as per our SOP , we mounted a furious comeback, tied the game on two beautiful goals; one by the talismanic Landon Donovan and the equalizer by the coach’s son Michael Bradley. I was over the moon at this point to just be staring at an unlikely point from this contest when a tropical storm cut off the TV. Of course this was between the 84th and 87th minutes so I missed the highway robbery that occured. Luckily for me it has been replayed a million times since .. Needless to say that goes down as the worst call in the history of US soccer. (Had the referee been trained by Alan Wiley?) But no more time to cry over spilled milk. The scoreless draw between England and Algeria was just what the doctor ordered to give us a chance of moving on.

As for the next game, we win and we are in! Algeria will be tough, but they also have to play for a win if they hope to advance. If we can get the first goal I like our chances. We do not deserve to advance if we cannot win a game in the group. I’ll be pulling for an England win but they have a difficult tie against a well organized opponent. More to follow tomorrow …

It’s Wednesday now.  Following a hair raising few days for the England team, in a few hours our fate will be determined.  Will we go through or suffer the indignity of a group stage exit? 

The fallout after the Algeria fiasco has been as fragmented as the ‘performance’ itself was.  Immediately after the game David James indicated all was not well in  the camp.  A few days later John Terry, in full glare of the worlds media, implies he’s going to be an Arthur Scargill and confront the boss, but ended up looking more like Arthur Mullard as his colleagues seemed to be indifferent to or dismissive of his threatened revolt, and when FabCap referred to Terry making a “Big mistake” Poor old John Terry looked isolated and, to be honest, a bit silly, leavng us to ponder if he carries  bitterness towards his manager after being stripped of the captaincy.  Frank Lampard was charming diplomatic and articulate when he put the whole saga to bed.  For now the game is more important than anything and a win will put much of this on the back burner but in coming months expect some explosive chapters in otherwise dull updated autobiographies.   

Although the England camp is like the Brady Bunch compared to the French.  Anelka’s vicious outburst at the coach led to him being sent home.  Domenech changed his mind told him that he’d accept an apology which the French FA overruled that and instructed him to leave.  That resulted in the hopeless Domench being at odds with his employers, and the team director (whatever that is) saw a nasty abusive outburst from patrice Evra so resigned and in the middle of all this (or maybe at the end, it doesn’t really matter)  the players refused to train!!  Brilliant stuff!!  These shenanigens are the world witnessing the end of an era.  Since the glory of 98 and 2000 France have played in fits and starts.  In 2006 Zidane single handedly dragged them to the final where, in all fairness, had Zizou not had his headbutt moment, they may well have won another World Cup.   But Henry single handedly (see what I did there?  Good eh?) got them to South Africa and it may have been more beneficial if he hadn’t bothered.  Domenech has looked as effective as Peter Sellers’ hapless union official in I’m All Right Jack and his players haven’t looked willing to protect his legacy.  Not in a positive way anyway.   Time to create a fresh dynasty.  2016 they host the Euros.  Get your money on them.

 The next time I post here we’ll know if we’ve made it through.  Remember, at World Cups when England have gone to the final group match, we usually get what’s required to go through.   BUT also remember, this is the first time the host nation hasn’t got past the group stage so those chains are there to be broken.   Hopefully we are all happy on Thursday morning.   There’s only one way our players can put things right, and we all know what that is. 

COME ON ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS good luck to Australia .  It’s unlikely but you never know.

I watched our  2006 quarter final against Portugal  in the pub.  KO was 1am.  It was well and truly a night of two halves.  The first segment was the pre match part.  Much ale was consumed and Vindaloo And Three Lions were sung and much frivolity abounded.  The second part was from kick off onwards.  Where earlier people had danced jigs, waved flags and scarves, and paraded their jolly demeanour to all and sundry, the mood changed completely.  Joyous excitement was replaced by  unreal calm and anxious scowls at our teams inability to impose themselves on the game.  As extra time drifted towards it’s inevitable conclusion, which meant no immediate conclusion, Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows came into my mind.  You can be sure that when he wrote his darkly brilliant anthem for bitter twisted betrayed lovers, World Cup quarter finals were the last thing on Len’s mind!  But with another penalty shoot exit impending, the languid sinister mood of his tortured whispers accurately described the esssence of our slow sad shufffle across football’s bridge of sighs.

The shootout having reached it’s inevitable conclusion, the majority of the pub crowd quietly drifiting off into the night. My mate JD said exactly the precise words that were in my mind.  “We are never going to win it in our lifetime”  An accurate observation.  Those moments were as sickening and horrible as any  football moment I’ve ever had the misfortune to feel. Feeling as bitter as Len sounded, I drank three pints in about ten minutes.  JD and I sat mumbling to ourselves and each other, bathing in the aftermath of the delicious nightmare.  The scale of my misery wasn’t eased by the fact that, like now, I never expected to win the tournament.  At that point a Frenchman came to talk to us who was, well, too French.  He was so French we felt that he wasn’t French at all and was caricaturing a Frenchman for a laugh.  He was good looking stylish and had all the mannerisms of the French stereotype.  He was waiting for their game against Brazil and had come over to commiserate with us.  A really top bloke but it was hard to talk with him because of our depression and the scale of the Frenchness was hard to get past. A quirky end to a horrible night (and early morning) of stomach churning inevitable loss. 

SO to 2010.  I am yet to go the pub for an England game in this competition.  If we get knocked out could I feel as bad as I felt last time?  OR if we get knocked out would it help if I was surrounded by other depressed souls?  OR as this could be the last chance to get out and experience it should I just go?  OR, we might win and….no, that’s a ridiculous prospect.  What should I do?  To drink or not to drink?  That is the question.

Player Ratings First:

James – 6 – Did all that was asked of him but never looked confident and his defence looked like strangers to him.

Johnson – 5 – Can’t defend and he never showed any of his supposed attacking prowess. Unfortunately he’s all we’ve got.

Carragher – 6 – Even if he’s slow and clumsy, he did a decent job of getting the basics right, unlike everybody else.

Terry – 5 – Another shaky performance.

Cole – 5 – Was more willing to get up the flank, but was poor in his control of the ball and his he ultimately contributed very little.

Lennon – 5 – Struggled to get into the game and when he did, he made some very poor decisions.

Lampard – 4 – His tournament must end now if England are to progress.

Barry – 5 – Some good defensive play in the first half, but as the game went on his distribution got worse and worse.

Gerrard – 5 – Showed promise when he drifted into the middle, but you cannot, you absolutely cannot, just abandon your post like that with absolutely no discipline whatsoever. He was played on the left wing and he left that area of the pitch completely empty most of the time.

Heskey – 6 – Not as good as he was against the USA, but once again he was the only player in England’s attack to actually turn up and do a job. He gets more criticism than he deserves.

Rooney – 4 – The pressure seems to be really getting to him. When I’ve seen him in person, he has almost never given the ball away. This time, every time the ball touched him it would almost instantly return to Algeria.

Wright-Phillips – 5.5 – Just plain not good enough.

Defoe – 5 – Offered absolutely nothing.

Crouch – 5 – Barely touched the ball.

Let’s make no bones about it; this performance was simply not good enough. We weren’t stifled by a team that set out to defend, as Algeria had no such intention and were just as courageous as us. Like the USA, Algeria is a very poor side comprised mostly of players who play several levels below England’s superstars. The fact that one of their biggest stars, Madjid Bougherra, spent a large portion of his time at Crewe Alexandra and Sheffield Wednesday should tell you an awful lot about the quality of player that they have. Responsibility has to lie with both the players and the manager. You may disagree with the team that Capello fielded, I know I did, or even his system, but the 11 players out there should have been capable of scoring at least one against such a poor team. Lampard have several opportunities to put England players through on goal, but instead chose to take a hopeless shot from thirty yards or give it away, Gerrard cost the team width and balance by choosing to spend the entire game sitting in the middle and Rooney seemed to completely buckle under the pressure, having now failed to do anything productive in 180 minutes of football.

I worry that the manager has fallen prey to one of Sven’s biggest weaknesses. We all knew with depressing certainty in Euro 2004 that no matter how poorly David Beckham played, he would be guaranteed to play the full 90 minutes. I get the impression that the manager thinks that certain players seem to do so well for their clubs and are so highly rated by everyone that they must play, no matter what. The fact is this: England have only one world class player, Wayne Rooney. The likes of Gerrard, Lampard and Terry are good players, but are massively limited and selfish in an England shirt. They stand out in the Premier League, but that is because they get away with murder thanks to the assistance of their superior foreign team-mates and the referee. All three can do the spectacular stuff, but are simply nowhere near world class. They get all the plaudits simply because they are English players who do the spectacular stuff for their side. Gerrard may still score screamers from the edge of the box in the last minute for Liverpool, but it’s no coincidence that he’s been powerless to stop their slide since the sale of Xabi Alonso. The manager must make some gutsy calls in time for the next game. He’s the man who shipped Ronaldo out of Real Madrid, so I don’t think it’s beyond him.
He would do well to learn from Stoke City’s example. On paper, most teams would probably fancy themselves against Stoke, but there is a rigid system packed full of players who fill a very specific role in that system. If players don’t fit in, they don’t get in the team. People may tear their hair out when the likes of Tuncay and Kitson can’t hold down a place, but the right players play in the right system and it works. For what it’s worth, I believe that England has the right system, but we are picking the wrong players for that system. The midfield is currently the weakness and 2 chances created in 180 minutes of football goes a long way to showing that. Gerrard finally seems to have hit form for England and he’s been sandwiched into the left wing position. On a good day, he’s ineffective there, and on a bad game like last night he’s completely free of discipline and just wanders about doing whatever he pleases, completely abandoning his post. Joe Cole, the only player in the England squad with experience of playing on the left wing at international level and one of England’s few creative sparks, seems to be behind Lennon, Wright-Phillips, Gerrard and Rooney in the picking order for the left wing position. This just does not make sense. Gerrard is probably England’s best central midfielder and is wasted out wide, keeping somebody who can play in that position out of the team (sound familiar, Stoke fans?). The odd one out is Lampard, who for all his superstardom is simply not good enough. I suspect some supporters will be unable to cope with the loss of somebody who is ‘obviously’ good, but if you cannot fit in, you are nothing to the team. Barry should partner Gerrard, but we’d be much, much stronger in the centre if Paul Scholes had been convinced to return. He’s done his job very quietly this season and he doesn’t get forward as much these days, but Scholes is still the best English central midfielder. He can receive the ball off the defence and his range of passing is then superb. England sorely misses somebody like him. Up front, the Heskey and Rooney partnership is probably the best we have, but their roles need to change slightly. Heskey should drop a little deeper and Rooney should focus on spearheading the attack as an out and out striker rather than falling back into midfield. At the very least, those small tweaks would us through to the next round, but Capello must have the guts to stand by his system and get rid of Lampard.

So what of last night’s game? I think ‘nervy’ is a bad description, but the pressure certainly showed. Every single player on the pitch was so desperate to stand out that they made some very poor decisions and were not playing for the team. Carragher nearly scored an own goal trying to unnecessarily clear a cross that was going straight to James, Terry headed a ball into a dangerous position when it was sailing out for a goal-kick. In attack, Rooney and Cole were guilty of taking on too many defenders, while Lennon was obsessed with fancy flicks instead of doing the simple job of getting down the line and putting balls into the box. Gerrard wanted to take the starring role in the middle rather than settling down on the left. Lampard went for long shots when there were better options while Barry did a decent job of winning the ball but tried ambitious passes that almost always failed. Perhaps Capello has kept the players on their toes too much and now they are desperate to stand out in case they lose their place. I think the old ‘fear of failure’ is starting to creep back in as well, something that Sven combated pretty well. This is going to be a very big few days and the manager must handle the players well. Clough always said that his players were at their best when they were relaxed and enjoying themselves and you’re inclined to agree. A bit of team spirit and camaraderie would not go amiss. It’s all well and good to see Rooney mouthing off at the camera last night and complain that the players are living in a bubble, but Capello must create a bubble for the players now, isolated from the prying eyes of the press and the criticism of the supporters. 6 days is no amount of time to create a hard working team ethic, but it is what must be done. They must learn to fight tooth and nail for each other and for their nation.

Ultimately, few players played well. Heskey was average at best when it came to doing what was expected of him and Carragher was better than Terry, but that really is as good as it gets. The midfield was absolutely dire and chance creation was minimal. It’s unlikely that we’d have taken any chances that were created because the top English goalscorer last season had to come all the way back into the middle at actually touch the ball. Ashley Cole would probably have been more effective on the left if he had a left winger to help him out, rather than having to do all the work on his own. England failed to outshine the Algerians in a game that was ultimately a stalemate. Great if you’re Algerian, a disaster for England. This was simply not good enough.

My team for Slovenia:

James

Johnson Terry Dawson A. Cole

Lennon Gerrard Barry J. Cole

Heskey

Rooney

Thank goodness that game will be on the BBC. If I have to listen to another 90 minutes of commentary from those idiots at ITV I may end up putting the television through the window. Everything ITV do is amateurish, cheap and pathetic, be it their football coverage or shows such as the X-Factor. There are too many adverts to make it watchable, but when you listen to Tyldsley, Beglin, Southgate and all the rest trying to talk about football, you realise that the adverts are actually the best bit. Tyldsley and Townsend are so incapable of tactically analysing a game that when somebody suggests something novel like changing the system, they become like a dog with a bone and will just not shut up about it, despite it being apparent that it will simply not happen. In the studio, the panel just spout some extra nonsense to go with it all. The fact that Adrian Chiles, a decent bloke whose forte is a more informal, jokey programme such as Match of the Day 2, is fronting the supposedly ultra-sleek and professional World Cup show says it all. The BBC’s standards are pretty low as well, embarrassing even, so thank goodness for the insights of Mick McCarthy.

Somebody please shut them up.

England can beat Slovenia and fulfill their potential, but they must play the right players for the system.

This World Cup has been underway for nearly a week and the most amazing shocking thing is the refereeing so far…..it’s actually been quite good!!    There have been a couple of goals that may have been given offside but overall it’s been competent which is pleasing.    This time FIFA seem to have gone easy on the new directives that are introduced on the eve of compettitions which serve only to confuse players and refs alike.  Which means Domenech can only blame balltitiude and vuvuzelas for France’s lame tepid clueless unimaginative trudges.  The big question is how he’s managed to cling onto his job.  He’s nearly gone and few French football fans will be sorry.  When Thierry handled them to the finals there were even some French fans who were disappointed because it meant another six months with him in  charge.   Although the point has to be made, their players don’t emerge from this with much credit either.  They never showed any desire  to go out and make the difference and win either game.  Suicidal against a technically proficient well disciplined side like Mexico.   But all isn’t lost.  France could yet go on to lift the trophy and, now I’ve praised the refs, Algeria will beat England  in controversial circuimstances. 

When South Korea pulled the goal back against Argentina it was refreshing that the South Americans continued to move forward.  Too many sides would have taken the cautious route and sat resolutely on what they had.   They got the reward too.  In the hullabaloo surrounding Messi it’s pleasing that Higuain got some acclaim.   It’s hard not to feel though that when they face higher class opposition the defence could be exposed and the lack of Cambiasso could yet prove costly to them.  Another entertaining aspect of Argentina’s games is Maradona patrolling the touchline with the air of an evil genius.  It seems a matter of time until he does something crazy.   When they face trouble you can imagine him dashing on the pitch and digging a hole or  doing an Ozzy Osbourne and biting a bat’s head off or something. 

England tomorrow morning!!  James is replacing Green in goal.  Why?  What has Green made a mistake or something?   Gareth Barry’s return is welcome but he’ll experience a strange kind of pressure.  Usually long awaited comebacks are for strikers.  There no pushovers at this level but Algeria is a game we can reasonably expect to win.    Lets blow the cobwebs away and get the job done.  COME ON ENGLAND!!  (although I’ll be pleased enough with a dirty crappy 1-0 with the goal a deflection off a passing dog!!)

Player Ratings First:

Green – 4.5 – Had two big saves to make, one of which he dropped in his own goal and the other of which he got very lucky with.

Johnson – 5.5 – Untroubled defensively, but he was massively frustrating on the ball. Every time it came to him in the England half he was so slow to move it on that it inevitably went sideways and any attacking impetus was lost.

King – 5.5 – Never really looked all that assured and he never really inspired confidence.

Terry – 6 – Steady performance.

Cole – 5.5 – No troubles in defence, like Johnson, but his distribution was shockingly poor.

Lennon – 6 – When he got the ball, he was our only direct attacking threat. Not perfect by any means, but plenty to build on and a much better option than anything else we’ve got.

Gerrard – 7 – I think that this must have been Gerrard’s first good game for England since he played against Germany at Euro 2000. He did a decent job of getting from box to box, making himself an effective part of our ‘back eight’ and doing a good job when he had the ball.

Lampard – 5 – Completely anonymous, he never got into the game.

Milner – 5 – I can only think that the pressure of the occasion got to him, because his cameo was bizarre.

Heskey – 8 Man of the Match – The missed chance was the only blot on his performance. He held the ball up well, won it in the air and was the fulcrum of our team. Once he went off, the game was dead.

Rooney – 5 – Did not turn up.

Substitutes:

Wright-Phillips – 4 – An absolute liability and no better than Walcott. Every time he touched the ball it went straight back to the USA.

Carragher – 5 – none of our centre-backs are especially quick, but Carragher looked slow and out of touch.

Crouch – 6 – Little time to make any impact, but when he came on our attacking threat effectively ended.

I’m yet to look at the Sunday newspapers, but I imagine that there’s some degree of panic mongering and that Rob Green has become something of a scapegoat. I can imagine all sorts of puns involving ‘Soylent Green’ of ‘Putting Green’. There’s no point rounding on the England team after this performance, though. That’s the sort of behaviour reserved for fickle gloryhunters. This performance was by no means up to scratch, but there was plenty of potential and with some minor tweaking, as opposed to a complete overhaul, England should qualify from the group with ease. There were a number of positives.

The first was how effective England was when the USA had the ball and tried to launch an attack. Capello has a reputation as a pragmatist who can build a strong defensive unit and it showed last night. I never had any confidence in our centre-backs, but whenever the USA had the ball, England dropped back and formed a virtually impenetrable back eight. As soon as the USA had the ball in the England half, they had two options: they could either play it back to their defenders who would panic and give it away or they could take a shot from thirty yards. It’s something that’s gone largely un-noticed in the aftermath of the game and I suspect that Capello will be very pleased with the defensive side of his team.

Gerrard’s performance was another big bonus. Normally for England the manager persists with him because he’s such an effective, talismanic figure for Liverpool, but he completely fails to deliver. It’s always been hard to say why; it could be a lack of motivation, being partnered alongside an unsuitable player or just struggling in an unfamiliar position. He seemed really fired up last night and I suspect it had something to do with him having been handed the captain’s armband and having become the team’s leader on the world stage. Hopefully, he may be thinking that he can be the same talismanic captain for England that he is for Liverpool. He tracked back well, his tackling was good, he won it in the air and there were no problems with his distribution. He had a quieter second half, but there can be no real complaints with his performance.

After Heskey’s man of the match display last night, I think that we have the right system, but we need to tweak the personnel a little. I can appreciate the argument for playing 4-5-1 with Gerrard behind Rooney, but it is not one that I can advocate. When we played it long, Heskey generally won it, held up the ball and brought other players into the game. That was when we created chances. When we tried to play possession football, the same thing happened over and over again. We’d start from the back, play it across the back four and run out of ideas. Johnson would get the ball in a position where he could press forward and work with Lennon to get the ball in the box, but he was too indecisive. He ended up trapping the ball, getting surrounded and playing it sideways. Cole tried to press forward with the ball, but his distribution was uncharacteristically poor. If we are to play possession football, it must be with an emphasis on keeping the ball in the opposition half so that they are under permanent pressure. There’s an awful lot to be said for Stoke’s approach of getting the ball into the box at every opportunity. What England was playing was not effective possession football, it was tippy-tappy. Worse still, it was tippy-tappy that always had the same end result, the long ball up to Heskey. They may as well have saved five minutes and just played it long in the first place. This is why I fear the 4-5-1 system. Neither of our central midfielders was coming deep to receive the ball off the defenders. They were both jostling for the starring role and were hoping that somebody would come in and do such menial work in the way that they have become accustomed to when playing for their clubs. The defence were completely isolated and ultimately we ended up with only one way of getting the ball forwards. The difference with playing Gerrard behind Rooney is that we’re left with nobody to win these long balls and we’ll just end up giving it away every single time.

This must be the first little tweak to the current 4-4-1-1 system. One of Lampard and Gerrard must be dropped or moved asides because the two simply do not work in the middle together. Neither of them will come deep, receive the ball and start an attack. They want to finish the attack and take the plaudits for their part in a vital goal. Last night we were crying out for a player like Gareth Barry to just sit back and take the ball and move it on. This role has recently been mastered by Paul Scholes at Manchester United, who sits on the halfway line, demands the ball off his defenders and then players a pin-point 30 yard pass to a team-mate. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be convinced to come out of retirement and so the only viable alternative is Barry. I think the way forward is to play Joe Cole on the left, put Gerrard and Barry in the middle and drop Lampard. Somebody has to miss out for the good of the team. We’ve then at least got two ways of getting the ball forwards and hopefully that would allow us to bring the likes of Lennon into the game more. For now, though, I can see no sense whatsoever in getting rid of the only get out ball that we had tonight and the only player to play really well. The fact that he was our only get out option when we had the likes of Gerrard, Johnson, Cole and Lennon on the pitch is something that seriously needs addressing.

The other change that needs to be made is in goal. I am not going to go over the top in criticism of Rob Green. He made a horrible, horrible mistake on the big stage and his confidence will now be shot to pieces. I don’t know if he’ll be able to pick himself up in the next few days, but I get the impression that there could be a disaster on our hands if we pick him again. Unfortunately, there is also a pretty persuasive argument for not swapping goalkeepers. Whoever comes in will know that there is an incredible amount of pressure on them not to make the same kind of stupid mistake the Green did, else they’ll be out of the team and a national villain. To be honest, Capello could and perhaps should have avoided this whole situation before the World Cup even began. At Stoke this season, I have seen a number of perspective England goalkeepers. Joe Hart for Birmingham was virtually single-handedly responsible for the 4 points that Birmingham took from Stoke this season. Paul Robinson produced a string of good saves home and away. Rob Green, however, had a big part in the three goals that Stoke scored against West Ham this season (as did Matthew Upson for that matter) and got away with dropping a long throw onto Fuller’s head last season when the referee disallowed the resulting goal. Whenever I have seen Green his positional sense has been questionable, he has been uncertain on crosses and he has failed to inspire any kind of confidence in him. Joe Hart has matured into a good shot-stopper who has added the ability to command his box to his repertoire. He is the in-form goalkeeper high on confidence and he should have been tried out in the warm up friendlies and he should have played yesterday. It’s no use going over the top on Green; he’s out of his depth and should never have been picked.

Finally, Capello needs to take a long, hard look at his two centre-backs. King was poor and may well miss the next few games through injury. Neither he nor Terry looked very good in the air, either. This didn’t surprise me with Terry, as I’ve seen at first hand that despite the bravado, he’s not one of those defenders who will eat up absolutely everything played high into his own box, but I thought King would cope better. The biggest concern, however, was pace. Terry and King are slow, but their immediate back-up, Carragher, was horrifyingly slow and it nearly cost us a goal. Upson is no better and I’m afraid that I don’t know enough about Dawson to suggest that he’d be a better option. If King is injured, I think that Carragher is over the hill and Upson just plain isn’t good enough, so I suppose it would have to be Dawson who came in. He’s young and inexperienced, but it’s an opportunity for Terry to show off his leadership skills and guide him through.

In short then, a disappointing result and performance, but no real disaster. It showed that the system we are using is the right one, but that we need to make slight changes. Capello is a smart manager who will learn from his mistakes and will hopefully get it right next time out. He doesn’t seem to be the sort to shy away from the big calls, but I have a horrible feeling that both Lampard and Gerrard will feature in the next fixture. I think that there will be a lot of emphasis on the fact that the England team weren’t too far away from where they wanted to be last night but that there is room for improvement all over the pitch.

My team for Algeria:

Hart

Johnson Terry Dawson A. Cole

Lennon Gerrard Barry J. Cole

Heskey

Rooney

P.S. What an absolute pleasure it was to have Mick McCarthy as the pundit for Nigeria’s game against Argentina. Having a manager currently plying his trade in the Premier League gave a far greater insight into what was going on on the pitch than anything that Lawrenson or even the unbearable Beglin have ever come out with. If only he commentated on England’s games.

Just a brief first blog here. As a lifelong supporter of Stoke City and England, I’ll be watching every England match at the World Cup and analysing it on here in the aftermath. The games between South Africa and Mexico and France and Uruguay have been fairly disappointing so far, but I have no doubt that there will be some real fascinating and entertaining matches on display.

I’ll be back with my report after the game against the USA. I’m afraid to say I have a horrible feeling about it, but I’m sure that Capello’s England will prove me wrong.

Since South Africa’s bid to host the 2010 World Cup was successful in 2004 it hasn’t always been a smooth road.   In fact at times it has been violently bumpy.  So many doubters (including me) bemoaning South Africa’s hosting as a legacy of advanced madcap Blatterism.  There have been question marks over everything.  Would the stadiums be ready?   Will the lights stay on?   How will the thousands of visitors travel?  Will they be safe when they do so?  Was the talk of England being secretly approached and asked to step in true?  In fact, was there any truth in the rumour Australia had been approached and asked to step in?   Even today, the horrific news of the death of Nelson Mandela’s great granddaughter adds yet another layer to the story.

Watching the fans gathering in Johannesburg is special. Of course, we can easily relate to the spectacle and colour when excited fans congregate for football, but there is another aspect to it this time.   This also symbolises a changed nation. The tyranny of apartheid is in the past and the next month is the biggest moment in African history.  Has the planet ever been so focussed on that continent as it is now?  

After the internal wrangling and political stunts we can soon observe something much more important…..the football!  Enjoy the beautiful football.  Oh by the way, enjoy the ugly football too!!    

In 2 hours  54 minutes and 58 seconds we land on planet football.   ENJOY!!!!

The Munich air disaster cast a dark shadow over England’s 1958 campaign. To lose such brilliant young players was a tragic loss.  

However, sympathy should be limited when you consider that, despite being allowed a squad of 22, England chose to take 20…leaving two spaces vacant. Sympathy decreases further when you bear in mind that Stanley Matthews and Nat Lofthouse were left behind. Stan, despite being 43 was still at the peak of his powers and sent fear through opposition defences. Lofthouse was also in great form having scored two to beat Man Utd  in the FA cup Final. A barnstorming centre forward, the Lion of Vienna  frightened opposition defences. Stan crossing to Lofthouse could be a formidable weapon, yet they were ignored. 

So why didn’t they make the squad? WELL, one theory was that Lofthouse being a physical centre forward didn’t present an appropriate image for the FA. As for Stan, in 1950 after England’s exit Stan had been fascinated by other teams play…especially the South American sides, and decided to stay in Brazil to watch and learn. The FA blazers resented this and warned him he’d have to pay a heavy price for such gross insubordination. That would explain it partly BUT, if that was the case, why was he in the squad for 1954?   In short, we don’t know for certain why we chose to take a squad two men short….omitting our two most potent attacking force in the process and treating the tournament with contempt. WE can only speculate in exasperated disgust.

The baflling omissions of 1958 show that despite a snazzy website and encouraging females and ethnic minorities into the game the English FA have a damaging legacy of detached stuffiness to shake off.

The quarter finals are by any historical measure a good performance for England and the problem is that some  people seem unable to get their heads around that. Our record since 66 isn’t great. In the last 44 years we have reached a World Cup semi a Euro semi and several World Cup quarter finals. In the same period Holland have reached two WC finals and a semi and won the European championship. Bulgaria have reached a WC semi. Sweden have got to a WC semi and a Euro semi. Poland have reached a WC semi and finished 3rd in 1974. Soviet Union reached two Euro Finals. Belgium have reached a Euro final and a WC semi. Turkey have reached a World Cup semi and a Euro semi.  And, of course, Greece were European champions. That’s only looking at the middle ranking sides from Europe. In 2008 and 2002 the Germans were considered to be poor yet still reached the final of those competitions.

So since 66* our record, when compared to other European football nations, gives new meaning to the word average. Yet people got annoyed because, for example, we’d never ‘win anything with Sven.’ Its unlikely we’ll win a competition whoever the manager is! We’d all love to but  actually expecting England to win a tournament is wishful thinking. There’s no great tradition to justify that sort of demand. In a tournament, if we get through the group we’ve fulfilled expectancy. Personally, I always look at getting through the group then take it from there. Usually as soon as we face a side with genuine aspirations to win the tournament we get knocked out.  1990  was great fun but, with all respect, Belgium and Cameroon weren’t contenders to lift the trophy.

I’m certainly not saying we shouldn’t try to win tournaments I’m just saying that we should keep our hopes in perspective. But 44 years never stops me dreaming!!

*our record before 66 wasn’t great…Bela Horizonte anyone?