England are good aren't they? Top side, big name players with international reputations, a manager who won the Carling Cup, wow, everything would appear to be in place for World domination!
Except, like the bad guys, girls, hamsters, mice, cats and radioactive jelly in a children's cartoon, England's bid for global domination is always doomed to fail as a result of incompetence, arrogance and the inability to follow a simple plan.
Steve McClaren - the manager who once tried to argue his young players at Middlesbrough had benefited from a 6-0 defeat at Arsenal - believes we should have won the game on Saturday.
Yes Steve, well done, you’re right, England should be beating Israel, home and away, hell, they should be beating them if they threw down some jumpers for goalposts on the moon and played zero gravity soccer
Two things first. It would have to be called soccer because we’d need NASA to get there and the jumpers would be thrown down and attached to the moon’s surface so they didn’t float away. And you thought I was just been flippant and hadn’t given this any thought!
But no Steve, we didn’t win did we? We didn’t even really look like we would win either. We didn’t play well, we didn’t look like a world class team packed with stars, we looked like a bunch of over-hyped egos who are just as likely to clash as they are to pass to each other.
No, actually, come to think of it, England played like a poor Middlesbrough team with a manager who always thought 0-0 was a good result away from home. Oh yes, that’s right Steve, that manager was you wasn’t it.
Of course, after two points from a possible six and a fourth blank in front of goal in five games, the manager is bound to take a bit of a hammering. But, even if I was in the dugout, England’s supposed stars should be beating Israel.
It doesn’t take a tactical genius, or even a coaching badge, to outclass teams like these. Football is simple. You tackle, you pass, you move and then you try and put the ball into the goal. England, though, tackle, run, pass backwards, hoof forwards, pass sideways, don’t move, look for Wayne Rooney, go backwards, hoof forwards, don’t move..... You get the picture.
How many times did the likes of Frank “surely this tubby lad needs to be dropped� Lampard and Wayne “I thought he was supposed to be good� Rooney shoot when they could have made an easy pass to a better-placed teammate? How many times did players get in each other’s way because they all want to be the “man� on the ball? How many times did long ball roll off the pitch with Andrew Johnson scampering after them before looking a little lost?
Terrible, awful, depressing. It was so bad that I had to keep flicking over to the cricket to watch England play Kenya. Now, we all know that England’s one day side is pretty bad, but at least they can efficiently dispose of a rival nation with a fraction of the resources and investment in an international match.
Still, if we beat the mighty Andorra on Wednesday, certain media organisations and bookies will probably instantly make us favourites to win Euro 2008 again! The sensible money, however, should be on us failing to qualify.
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