No terry is not a top international player. Cole is a very good dribbler but needs to learn when to pick the time to dribble. He loses the ball too many times by running into brick walls and also his awareness regarding passes needs to improve. Rooney has the potential but not a top player yet. Lampard not even close. Gerrard is good but not that suited to being a top international player. No, they don't. Germany took a 2nd/3rd string team, without ever playing with each other before, and still were comfortable and won. A good team = czech republic or croatia. England are average. My god, if we took this team to zagreb, I wouldn't like our chances of winning. We wouldn't get embarassed like england did, but we wouldn't win or even draw IMO.
The World Cup is still the most important tournament for most footballers. I'm also sure that Wenger would prefer to argue that international football simply offers a different kind of challenge compared to club football if he were training a national side instead of a club side. In any case, with regard to Klose's achievements outside of the german league, he has scored ten World Cup goals. There are few people who have scored as much or more than Klose at this level (and there will likely be fewer after the next World Cup): Ronaldo, Müller, Fontaine, Pelé, Kocsis, Klinsmann, Rahn, Cubillas, Lineker, Lato and Batistuta. No "just above average" player is likely to be on such a list. Moreover, I think it's more than a little myopic to determine the class of a player by whether (you're aware that) some english club recently made a "solid offer" for Klose or not. The english league is the richest and perhaps even the best in the world, but there are still more world and international class players playing outside of it than in it.
While Germany won and while there were times during the game where they looked comfortable with the ball, I wouldn't go so far to say they were really "comfortable" all in all. It was at least as much the inadequacy of the english finishing and their poor goalkeeping as the german performance which secured the victory.
Don't blame robinson for that. Blame terry and ferdinand more. Robinson stood where he should have stood. Schneider's cross was mishit and it was going in, and because of the bad awareness from the central defenders, no matter where he punched it kuranyi would have got it. Yes germany didn't keep possession as well or as consistently as they do with non-C team players, but still, germany were comfortable. England created chances yeah. So did germany. Kuranyi had 2-3 good ones. Metzelder had 2 open headers. Yes england did create more chances. But germany had the sense of being more in control of the game. Especially the last 10 mins when they denied england anything by keeping possession, and in the first 12 minutes of the 2nd half with really good movement and linkups.
He's not that suited to the international style of game that's all. Where teams attacking differently to the EPL. Bernd schneider is paid 3 times less than ballack. But ballack is not better than schneider. Lampard and terry put together earns more than the entire germany XI at wembley, but look how the game went. Lol, salaries is really not the place to start if you want to argue.
I cant second that. I agree if on the individual technical level Germany was slightly better when the initial shakiness disappeared but the goals were in both cases not out of combination or results of co active play to reach the goal area. If you are controlling a game that means not just to destroy any attempts from the opposition. It means that you got the initiative to bring on attacks and after that win back the ball. I have to confess that it was not Germany to do so. First there was only England playing what resulted into deserved lead. Than it was more a exchange of blows but suffering from poor co ordination of the kids. The second halftime was without a doubt dominated by England frightened because time was running out. Germans got chances but never ever of that quality the ones the English had. I don't want to talk the performance of our kids down but it was in my opinion not a clear win. It was rather unexpected, enjoyable though but really not predictable. England had far more participation both in game play and in creating chances. Not using them well...that was the crucial point.
It seems to me that most other places Robinson could have punched the ball to would have been better than directly in front of Kuranyi. Granted, the English defenders didn't react much but they couldn't really have done much either because Kuranyi was closer to the ball than them, which they probably realized pretty quickly. Could and should they have anticipated where Robinson was going to punch the ball to and move themselves there? I don't know. They probably believed Robinson would catch the ball or punch it over the bar in any case. As to Germany being in control of the game, there were a few periods of this though not of domination. But there were also periods where Germany was struggling and where a better opponent than England might well have scored, and there are probably some better teams in Europe than England.
I disagree on the second goal. There was a good combination beforehand. Lahm played a crucial role in that and it was clear that Germany went for the long distance shot. A better opponent would have attacked Lahm and Pander earlier, but it was still a good play.
You need to stop focusing only on the $$. When you are able to see that, then you might be able to have an intelligent argument. How much a player earns for his club, does not mean jack shit if they cannot perform at the international level. I say this because after all, we are discussing how the “highest paid defender in history” allowed a B team walk into the “fortress” that is Wembley and score two goals!! It doesn’t matter what he did last week for Chelsea, or what he will do next weekend – this past Wednesday, the English National Team lost!
To be honest I thought both teams looked poor. Germany were just less suicidal in their mistakes. It's not as if anyone from Germany could claim the first goal was a result of good play by the German team. Other than that, there wasn't a great deal between the sides. Both teams would have lost to an average premiership side on that performance.
Okay in this case its true there was nice passing. But somehow it did not look like it was meant to lead to a range shot. It looked more like a casual chance to aim without being harried. Nevertheless outstanding goal.
This one includes the beginning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_gtWM5Gf0s And here I found a picture of the English choreography: http://www.flickr.com/photos/darrenandpalmyra/1217704530/
Sure, probably right, the backbone of the English National Team with the world’s most expensive defender losing against an average premiership side with all the foreigners...I can believe that!!
The more I watch that goal the more I think that Schneider actually wanted to hit the ball like that and didn't mishit it.
He is the most overrated defender in England and he is playing only because he is the captain of your team.
Terry has great spirit, but his defending qualities are simply not world class. The Premier League the best League in the world? This is so true as counting the English Nationalteam to the top teams. Just a little comparison of the top 5 leagues for the last 10 years: Primera Division Champions League titles: 4 | runner up: 2 Uefa-Cup titles: 3 | runner up: 2 total: 11 (6 clubs contained) Serie A Champions League titles: 2 | runner up: 3 Uefa-Cup titles: 2 | runner up: 2 total: 9 (5 clubs contained) Premier League Champions League titles: 2 | runner up: 3 Uefa-Cup titles: 1 | runner up: 2 total: 8 (4 clubs contained) Bundesliga Champions League titles: 2 | runner up: 2 Uefa-Cup titles: 1 | runner up: 1 total: 6 (4 clubs contained) Ligue 1 Champions League titles: 0 | runner up: 1 Uefa-Cup titles: 0 | runner up: 2 total: 3 (2 clubs contained) The English just have to realise, that they are not the best in the world. There is even no olympic team sport, where England is better in (football, basketball, ice hockey, handball, volleyball, field hockey...)
I think he did. You look at the camera shot from over his shoulder. Robinson comes way off his line and gives him the whole goal to look at. Complete blunder.
Welcome nicephoras, its nice to see that we can always expect insightfull comments from you in the Germany forums