England v Germany

[Yellow Fang]

Some chap on R4 this morning was saying the changes of altitude might be playing a part. He said that the South American teams, who are doing well this tournament, are used to playing qualifiers at widely varying altitudes. He also said that the England team spent several weeks aclimitising at high altitude, but that this became a problem at low altitude when their blood wouldn't flow so freely for being so syrupy. So even if they weren't tired, they felt tired. He contrasted this with the US team who just arrived in South Africa a few days before and played very well.

 

[Bad Company]

If the English players were tired after a long season in the Premiership how come foreign premiership players seem uneffected? For example Carlos Teves seems be doing OK.

 

[User169]

Mangaman. Money came into the game after 66". Although Ill grant you not on the level it is now. I can remember the outcry, When Allan Clarke became the first 100,000 pound player,it was said then and how true it was, that the floodgates would open.

Is that right? I thought it was Denis Law in 1961 when he moved to Torino.

 

[lukesdad]

Is that right? I thought it was Denis Law in 1961 when he moved to Torino.

Clarke was the first 100,000 player within the domestic game.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Did anybody watch Fulham's European run last season. That's exactly what Hodgson has (had?) got them doing.

It's what Arsenal do too - but with hardly an English player to be seen. The problem for British players (and I am deliberately expanding to include all the home nations) starts much earlier though. I know things are supposed to be changing at kid's level with more 'Brazilian-style' training and games - let's hope so.

I was thinking about England's supposedly talented midfield: Lampard's foremost talent is feeding of the front players and shooting from distance. Gerard's is the long diagonal pass. Both of these require (or look good) when you are in a team of cultured, intelligent players, whom you can feed off. So when he's playing with the like Torres and Xavi Alonso, Gerard looks great. When it's Heskey and Milner, not so much. And when Lampard has Drogba in front of him and Carvalho behind (for example), he can take long shots with confidence, but in the England set up, it looks more like desparate peppering of the goal (even acknowledging that he should, finally, have been given a goal at this World Cup).

 

[dellzeqq]

apparently we have about 2500 qualified coaches and Germany has 30,000.

I accept that there is a general malaise within English football, but this was a strikingly poor set of performances from a team that had, when all is said and done, wiped the floor with Croatia, and looked pretty organised all through the group stages.

My take on this, for what it's worth, is that

- Rooney wasn't as fit coming back from injury,
- Gerrard's brain had been fried by a ghastly season which had affected him in a more personal way than, say, Mascherano,
- Terry is feeling the years and the accumulation of bashing about that a player of his combatative spirit will inevitably suffer
- Lampard does brilliantly in Chelsea's power game, steaming through a defence disrupted by Drogba, but doesn't contribute a vast amount to the international side
- Ferdinand got injured, and Upson just isn't as good as Ferdinand
- the rest of the team aren't actually top drawer
- our defence didn't cope too well with fast-moving teams and the kind of slick passing that is a rarity in the Premiership
- and, last but not least, there appears to have been bad feeling within the camp.

And the Germans were just better than us.

 

[hackbike 666]

We made Germany look like Brazil.

 

[pubrunner]

With regards to the issue of tiredness, it was stated that Maicon, the Brasilian right back, had played 63 games for his club prior to the World Cup and he certainly does not look fatigued. This is a poor excuse for a poor performing, overhyped team. That said, when did John Terry become such a bad defender? There must be some reason for his and others completely abject performance.

Yes, there is a reason.

There has been a split within the England players. It could be that John Terry believes that another player is being hypocritical because of the way that he (the other player) has acted. I'm very reluctant to say more than that on this forum, but I'm certain that a major revelation will come to light soon. I expect that the 'other' player will soon sign on for a foreign club.

http://www.football.co.uk/blogs/5010/902129.shtml

 

[soulful dog]

I really enjoyed this game, it was pretty entertaining for a neutral

Seriously though, I know England qualified with ease for this World Cup, but why is it being viewed as such a disaster when the team didn't even qualify for the last major tournament - qualifying for this one and then progressing from the group, isn't that a sign of progress?

Ok the team and a few individual players perhaps didn't perform as well as they could have, and I know it's mainly the media that over-hype things, but you hear a lot of fans on radio phone-ins talking about the England team was a disgrace, etc, etc. The fact is, England made a slow start, but they were improving, they should have been level with what looks to be a pretty handy German side after going 2-0 down, and all this OTT reaction to the exit is crazy. You'd think it was France or something!

 

[marinyork]

I really enjoyed this game, it was pretty entertaining for a neutral

Seriously though, I know England qualified with ease for this World Cup, but why is it being viewed as such a disaster when the team didn't even qualify for the last major tournament - qualifying for this one and then progressing from the group, isn't that a sign of progress?

They just weren't good enough for euro 2008. From the 2016 tournament England will probably qualify for every tournament ever after though because UEFA are doing the sensible thing of having it as 24 instead of 16 teams (with a large squeeze as it's so trendy to have co-hosts). This doesn't benefit England necessarily though because it'll give the nations that miss out on qualifying in the past far more experience of top level competition and this will probably make future WC/EC tournaments/qualifiers even harder.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Yes, there is a reason.

There has been a split within the England players. It could be that John Terry believes that another player is being hypocritical because of the way that he (the other player) has acted. I'm very reluctant to say more than that on this forum, but I'm certain that a major revelation will come to light soon. I expect that the 'other' player will soon sign on for a foreign club.

http://www.football.co.uk/blogs/5010/902129.shtml

I was reading in The Sun (so it must be true) that there was a bit of a falling out between John Terry and Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher. Apparently, JT wanted to stage a pre or post-match huddle. I suppose the Liverpool contingent thought JT was trying to usurp the captaincy role. Beckham smoothed it out apparently. I assume it's Gerrard that JT thinks is being hypocritical.

Personally, if I was Capello, I would be thinking of binning JT. Apart from having a bad game against the sausage eaters, he's causing trouble.

 

[chigman]

Yes, there is a reason.

There has been a split within the England players. It could be that John Terry believes that another player is being hypocritical because of the way that he (the other player) has acted. I'm very reluctant to say more than that on this forum, but I'm certain that a major revelation will come to light soon. I expect that the 'other' player will soon sign on for a foreign club.

http://www.football.co.uk/blogs/5010/902129.shtml

I've been getting some text's tonight to say something big is about to hit the fan. For the moment though they are still only rumours, we'll see.

Steve

 

[4F]

I've been getting some text's tonight to say something big is about to hit the fan. For the moment though they are still only rumours, we'll see.

Steve

Anything to do with Steven Gerrard doing a John Terry ?

 

[chigman]

Anything to do with Steven Gerrard doing a John Terry ?

steve

 

[Smokin Joe]

Just remembered an article I read in the Guardian by David James just before the World Cup began. He said that someone had recently given him a DVD of the 1966 final and it was like watching pub football compared to today's game.

I wonder how the members of the '66 squad would describe Englands performance last Sunday?