Poor football!
Some of my friends, colleagues and I went to the big screen at Regency 'Club 13'. One of my friends is not a big football fan but kept asking where England's skill, tactics and passions were - I actually couldn't answer.
The first two German goals were just a sad joke. I was pleasantly surprised when we scored, then the "goal" - leaving aside we deserved to lose, this was a key moment and when you are talking about referees / linesmen at the World Cup, then you have to talk about these guys being the refereeing equivalent of top international players. To miss the ball that was 3 feet over the line is beyond incompetence. The laughable thing is that, the ground has a big screen and about 10 seconds afterwards the whole ground can see the "goal". Funnily enough, the same linesman gave Rooney offside after about 2 minutes when he was clean through and had clearly been played onside by a German player.
I guess once we were chasing the game the inevitable happened. Was it Barry who was chasing the German winger for the 4th goal - I have never seen a player quite so slow. When Germany started knocking the ball around to "holes" it really was the ultimate humiliation. Capello has surprised me at this World Cup, he is incredibly limited tactically, when he brought on Wright Phillips and Heskey to "chase the game" it actually beggared belief. The biggest single problem is that the team was built around Rooney, I cannot remember a player of any international status playing as badly in a World Cup as Rooney has, frankly we could have played any 1st or 2nd or 2nd Division forward and it would not have weakened the team.
The saddest thing is that, come August Rooney, Terry, Barry will be playing great games against Wigan, Blackpool, Stoke etc and will be back thinking they are great players.
The England team will have some people greeting them when they come back and then we will play a meaningless friendly against Belgium or someone, win 5 -0 and everyone will say "England are back". The truth is that these players are earning a fortune at their clubs and they have been given a status in our society they do not warrant.
England were pitiful at this World Cup because they were less of a "team" than I have ever seen, USA/ New Zealand / Australia have very limited numbers of players to choose from but they showed how to work as a team.
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