Written by Oscar Pye-Jeary
Flags of our Fathers – Gearing up for the World Cup takes little motivation. It just needs a little ignition, and the euphoric optimism of drunken people with flags and plastic hats will do the rest. Last night’s warm up/send off friendly with Mexico was all about getting the Wembley crowd to forget the domestic season just gone, and fully engaged, ready and patriotized for the festival du foot that awaits us in South Africa. The powers that be had ladled it on thick with a record breaking attempt to make an all encompassing St George’s flag out of men in (thankfully large) T-shirts, and as Baddiel & Skinner’s anthemic No.1 blared through the PA system, and the faithful struggled to remember which version this was, or any of the words that weren’t the chorus, it was hard not to get caught up in it all. There was even a spontaneous ovation for some soldiers who’d arrived late to their seats and should anyone have forgotten how great a chance we stand this summer, they needn’t have looked further than the back of the person in front of them, as the shirts themselves reminded us of our brave boy’s glorious achievements en route against the mighty warriors of Andorra, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Why if that didn’t inspire us all to believe then what would? …No seriously. What would?
Same as it ever was – Not the football. Because in a fitting way, the night prophetically encapsulated the most overwhelmingly likely experience of World Cup ’10 for us English, and indeed the shared experience of all England fans at international tournaments for as many years as can be helpfully suffixed by the words “..of hurt” in the seemingly never-ending re-released versions of Three Lions. Essentially, one long optimistic carnival of red and white, inflatable balls and Mexican waves, unavoidably let down by England’s inability to cobble together any type of interesting football. For the first 45 minutes Mexico ran rings round us. Pretty useless rings as it turned out, but pretty rings nonetheless.
Read the rest of Oscar’s article at Football Fancast.com
i watched mexico play of us the pitch for nearly 50 minutes. fact, milner can not play in the cenre of of a two in center mid. glen johnson is better at right back than any other player we have at that role. he likes playing with king or carra because at least he knows when he can bomb forward. baines not good enough fact, walcott passing is piss poor ans should be on the bench, rather have lennon or milner down the right or left. ferdinand looks slow on the turn. can you really tell me carrick looks world class, he should not even be on the bench, this team should start the first game.
JAMES
JOHNSON TERRY KING COLE
LENNON GERRARD LAMPARD MILNER
ROONEY CROUCH
SUBS;
CARRAGHER, PARKER,, DEFOE, WALCOTT, GREEN, A, JOHNSON, FERDINAND,
england were awful, simple as that. They only won because Mexico’s defence was poor. Most of the time they played us off the park. Brazil, SPAIN, Argentina, Holland, France, Italy will destroy us. WE have no chance with these players.
What I can’t figure out is how those players can play so well in Europe yet not perform internationally, against essentially the same level of players.
Seems to me we should simply go with the players who have the followint 2 qualities – abundance of skill, endless determination.
Just look at the starting line-up.
Milner as DM with Gerrard on the left of the midfield trio. Ridiculous.
It doesn’t matter how good the coach is meant to be, if you pick right-footed players for the left hand side, guess what?
They’re going to under-perform.