Holy crap. There's no football to watch today......
Thankfully, due to the disgrace of Sunday's performance, I have cocooned myself into the foetal position for the last couple of days, only slowly coming out of my shell by sterling performances from mostly South American teams and also the Spaniards last night. So I have some catching up to do again...
Birchy, you have done the character assassination fairly well there, a career in the British press awaits, although you need to work on your ability to exaggerate the players' abilities and build them up immensely before any tournament also - just makes the fall all the more spectacular.. (and sells papers). I don't feel the need to build too much on top of that... I would stick up for Stevie G laa a little bit. He's clearly played out of position and he did seem to try..
No, shambolic defending, an inability to retain possession for longer than 2.6 seconds and our "star" player lacking in any kind of form resulted in our demise. A strange calm had come over me as soon as I figured out that our inability to beat Algeria meant we had to overcome Germany, Argentina, Spain and then Brazil to win the cup..... while I maybe thought we had enough to get through the first of those, maybe the Germans saved us from an even bigger embarrassment....
So what now? Change everything! The system's not working! There's no youth talent coming through, too much money, we need a new manager... Ironically enough, we are not alone in the hysteria - Italy & France managing to even out-do us in the disappointment stakes....
I say keep Capello. He's a great coach, clearly. I feel like he's likely learnt a few things about his players and how they react in a tournament environment.... and he's detached enough that he may make the unpopular decisions... such as dropping John Terry due to his form and the fact that he is a knob..... but mostly just the latter.
What are the other options? Hodgson looks like he's defecting to the dark side, which leaves 'Arry and errrr, Stuart Pearce? Not exactly a great stable to pick from, although giving 'Arry a go would be entertaining..... I can see it now, compulsory Racing Post delivery to the player's rooms on game day, maybe even a part share in a racehorse between the first XI and an attempted transfer of Jermaine Defoe to Germany (by virtue of a faked passport and brown envelope), only to buy him back again at half the price.
Enough of England. Enough. I can't bring myself to discuss the TV replay argument.... as the answer is just too obvious to everyone (and the lingering issue is something the US media simply can't get their heads around over here as to what is actually inside Sepp Blatter's head).
What I did find entertaining was the Tevez offside goal in the following game. Clearly, someone in the stadium technical department was still feeling a sense of injustice for the Ingerland and hit the replay button on the big screen.... all being watched by an increasing irate Mexican team who surrounded the erroneous referee. A super moment between the officials on the touchline, while not fluent in Uruguayan, I believe the conversation went like this......
"excuse my lino. I have eleven Mexicans going nuts at me - they're saying it was offside"
"well, look, we can double check on the big screen....... oh shit...."
"err, ok, not sure what it said in the FIFA manual to do here.... let me ignore the fact I've already given the goal and pretend to be in deep discussion with you, even though there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, while we cross our fingers these angry Mexicans just forget and walk away.... have they gone yet?..."
"no"
"crap. Ok, well, this has been a good chat, I'm going to pretend you saw something that 70,000 people didn't, and run assuredly back to the centre circle"
This joke of a decision gave Maradona the chance to act as peacemaker at a half time scuffle.... the man continues to pull out new tricks every game and is now one step closer to streaking when he gets back home.... while he also sprang a surprise with his substitutions, bringing on Gutierrez (previously the starting right back) to operate on the left wing!!... quality. Maradonameter rating: 5/10
Next up was Brazil. Apart from my boyish excitement at my bet on Fabiano top goal scorer / Brazil to win the world cup getting a further boost, I think David Pleat did sum it up very well. Disappointed with Chile, but they seemed to lose their composure as soon as they went a goal down as if they thought there was no way back..
Paraguay-Japan: Missed the game and watched the highlights, which I almost also missed as I blinked at the wrong moment.
The Dutch - did just enough again. Can they do that again next game though?. And then Spain, who were classy and assured - although Torres is patently not match fit - and Portugal, who in fairness did fashion some opportunities, but were woefully defensive again, with Ronaldo incredibly isolated up front. Birchy, had you put your 50p on the great one having a hissy fit and altercation with a cameraman, you would have collected.... I guess it's the thing to do for underperforming world stars this summer....
Thankfully, due to the disgrace of Sunday's performance, I have cocooned myself into the foetal position for the last couple of days, only slowly coming out of my shell by sterling performances from mostly South American teams and also the Spaniards last night. So I have some catching up to do again...
Birchy, you have done the character assassination fairly well there, a career in the British press awaits, although you need to work on your ability to exaggerate the players' abilities and build them up immensely before any tournament also - just makes the fall all the more spectacular.. (and sells papers). I don't feel the need to build too much on top of that... I would stick up for Stevie G laa a little bit. He's clearly played out of position and he did seem to try..
No, shambolic defending, an inability to retain possession for longer than 2.6 seconds and our "star" player lacking in any kind of form resulted in our demise. A strange calm had come over me as soon as I figured out that our inability to beat Algeria meant we had to overcome Germany, Argentina, Spain and then Brazil to win the cup..... while I maybe thought we had enough to get through the first of those, maybe the Germans saved us from an even bigger embarrassment....
So what now? Change everything! The system's not working! There's no youth talent coming through, too much money, we need a new manager... Ironically enough, we are not alone in the hysteria - Italy & France managing to even out-do us in the disappointment stakes....
I say keep Capello. He's a great coach, clearly. I feel like he's likely learnt a few things about his players and how they react in a tournament environment.... and he's detached enough that he may make the unpopular decisions... such as dropping John Terry due to his form and the fact that he is a knob..... but mostly just the latter.
What are the other options? Hodgson looks like he's defecting to the dark side, which leaves 'Arry and errrr, Stuart Pearce? Not exactly a great stable to pick from, although giving 'Arry a go would be entertaining..... I can see it now, compulsory Racing Post delivery to the player's rooms on game day, maybe even a part share in a racehorse between the first XI and an attempted transfer of Jermaine Defoe to Germany (by virtue of a faked passport and brown envelope), only to buy him back again at half the price.
Enough of England. Enough. I can't bring myself to discuss the TV replay argument.... as the answer is just too obvious to everyone (and the lingering issue is something the US media simply can't get their heads around over here as to what is actually inside Sepp Blatter's head).
What I did find entertaining was the Tevez offside goal in the following game. Clearly, someone in the stadium technical department was still feeling a sense of injustice for the Ingerland and hit the replay button on the big screen.... all being watched by an increasing irate Mexican team who surrounded the erroneous referee. A super moment between the officials on the touchline, while not fluent in Uruguayan, I believe the conversation went like this......
"excuse my lino. I have eleven Mexicans going nuts at me - they're saying it was offside"
"well, look, we can double check on the big screen....... oh shit...."
"err, ok, not sure what it said in the FIFA manual to do here.... let me ignore the fact I've already given the goal and pretend to be in deep discussion with you, even though there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, while we cross our fingers these angry Mexicans just forget and walk away.... have they gone yet?..."
"no"
"crap. Ok, well, this has been a good chat, I'm going to pretend you saw something that 70,000 people didn't, and run assuredly back to the centre circle"
This joke of a decision gave Maradona the chance to act as peacemaker at a half time scuffle.... the man continues to pull out new tricks every game and is now one step closer to streaking when he gets back home.... while he also sprang a surprise with his substitutions, bringing on Gutierrez (previously the starting right back) to operate on the left wing!!... quality. Maradonameter rating: 5/10
Next up was Brazil. Apart from my boyish excitement at my bet on Fabiano top goal scorer / Brazil to win the world cup getting a further boost, I think David Pleat did sum it up very well. Disappointed with Chile, but they seemed to lose their composure as soon as they went a goal down as if they thought there was no way back..
Paraguay-Japan: Missed the game and watched the highlights, which I almost also missed as I blinked at the wrong moment.
The Dutch - did just enough again. Can they do that again next game though?. And then Spain, who were classy and assured - although Torres is patently not match fit - and Portugal, who in fairness did fashion some opportunities, but were woefully defensive again, with Ronaldo incredibly isolated up front. Birchy, had you put your 50p on the great one having a hissy fit and altercation with a cameraman, you would have collected.... I guess it's the thing to do for underperforming world stars this summer....
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