As I recall, someone also mentioned the krauts might be stuck with a weak group of players,that not much could be expected out of also. Ist das richtig nicht?
Mea Culpa on that one....although I do believe two of the four semi-finalists would be considered "northern european"......LMAO at the posters who just KNEW that a south american team would win the thing....
Well, South America certainly had a great run up until this weekend. It is a bit of a surprise that Uruguay, winner of the play in match with Costa Rica, is the team that made it through.
Well they can keep all those damm bikes, as long as we win from them in the final. That sweet taste would be more than enough
Not really, I mean the team that ended up in that part of the bracket really had a huge chance of ending up in the half final. If England just had finished first in their group they would have faced Holland now. I'm sure of that.
Europe is the dominant federation and has been for decades. In 6 of the past 7 world cups at least 3 of the 4 semi-finalists have been european sides.
Not so sure mate. If we were playing the way we were this time last year, then yes we were probably odds on for a SF place, however, at our current state Netherlands would beat us easily. Our defence was horrible against Germany, even though we were robbed of a goal, if it had made a difference we would not have gone much further.
That makes no sense. What makes you think that an England that couldn't top a group with Algeria, Slovenia and the USA would so easily win vs. Ghana and Uruguay?
The same guy talking about common sense, who was absolutely sure that England would go much further at a World Cup than Germany?
ever since Holland played a friendly against England I've been impressed with them. They managed to absorb everything Holland threw at them. It only became 2-2 because of two individual mistakes by English defenders. Other than that we created 0 chances. Before this WC I said on this very forum that Holland would win from Brazil but lose from England in the half final. If England would have made it first out of their group I would still stand by that statement. Footbal is decided by moments. Green making an idiotic mistake and England has 1 point instead of 3. So they finish second. They make an equaliser against Germany but it is not counted. Because of that they have to take risks and let Germany be a team this WC that knows how to punish just that. We have seen them against Argentina. We have seen them against Australia. If that goal was counted I still believe England could have won the game. I believe England had an excellent chance of winning it all because they are a quality side. With a bit more of luck they would have done it.
Ya know, with a few moments, Algeria or Slovenia might have made it through to the semi-finals. Just sayiing. If you read the England boards they are saying: 1. Lack of squad depth in key positions. 2. Too many superstars, not enough piano movers. 3. Poor goalkeeping 4. Poor tactics 5. Poor overall team selection 6. Not enough leadership from senior players
Goals change games and Lampards "goal" could well have changed that game....at 2-2 at half time it becomes a totally different senario.
No no no, because the Orange team is going to do an "Uruguay" that year by beating Brasil in the final
Yes, there have been a lot of discussion about where it went wrong for England.. In hindsight, I think some of the selections were wrong by Capello. Taking SWP instead of Adam Johnson or Walcott was probably the wrong choice, as we didn't have a left footed player to play on the left.. I think that overall the squad depth was not an issue, we have been missing Hargreaves for a long time, so had to rely on an unfit Barry who was not brilliant. We also lost Ferdinand and King within 45 minutes of our first game, and then lost Carragher to suspension, so we had to play our 5th choice CB. We started brilliantly, but everything went downhill after Green's error.. I would like to know what would have happened if he hadn't made that error.. Overall I just think that the tactics needed changing. The Heskey-Rooney partnership that managed to get us over 30 goals in qualifying just didn't work, Rooney was off form, and I think that Capello should have switched Rooney to a lone striker as he played so well for Man Utd there this season. Of course, that is no excuse for the shocking performance against Algeria, and some disastrous defending against Germany.. I just cannot understand how we can defend so badly especially on the first goal. But yet again, everyone will look back on this game and say 'what if?' Lampard's 'goal' would probably have changed the game if it was given, we had them penned into their box just before half time and even hit the cross bar.. I am confident that at 2-2 we can win the game. But for whatever reason, we decided to throw everybody upfield with more than 30 minutes to go, leaving us open for counter attack.. this is what you do when there are 10 minutes left! By the time they scored the 3rd, it was game over.
Well nice recap, but this is what concerned and dedicated fans do after a loss. They tend to look for all kinds of reasons why things didn't go smooth. In fact it is never a smooth ride. It's decided by a few moments that either go your way or not. Moment one was the green error, moment two was the disallowed goal. England has had an almost perfect qualification. They also scored lots of goals. If they had finished first, Ghana and Uruguay would have been perfect opponants to get back into that form. Maybe Rooney would have start scoring and they would have been able to grow into the tournement. I know what I saw when we played England. Bert v Marwijk said it to. We were all impressed and I won't chance my opoinion about them now results don't back them up. England is a quality side and they could have won it all. Now they have to replace a lot of stars for Euro 2012 because of age and that's quite sad. Gerrard deserved something more.
You know Holland never failed to get out of the groups stage at a WC, yet we have had the strangest results against country's like Egypt and Saudi Arabia in them. Before a WC people think their team will smooth trough the group stage but in fact it's always tough. Algeria was pumped up and energetic. It's not easy to win those games.
Yes, and I also think that we struggled because they were very organised with 5 at the back, and they were very hard to break down. The pressure was all on us because of the first game. Slovenia was the only real team that we played well against, and they were probably the most attack minded of the 3 teams. I don't think that we'll see massive changes in our squad, I think that Terry and Lampard may well be dropped to the bench, Green, Heskey, Carragher, King, SWP and possibly more may be dropped for younger players. I'm more excited for our upcoming generation, with our u17s winning the Euros this year and our u21s reaching the final, and of course there are a lot of very gifted technical English players coming through at Arsenal under Wenger, so the future is bright. Probably our best generation of players for a long time has let us down again, so we have to give youth a chance now.
I'm looking forward to seeing Joe Hart in goal, Keiran Gibbs as back up to Ashley Cole, Adam Johnson, Jack Wilshere e.t.c