World Cup 2010

[yesteryeargames]

I love it that all the so called fans are all negitive the moment things dont go to plan,

And Heskey is a good player he did everything right apart from score i dont understand why people hate him so much? if everyone got behind him it would do him the world of good and build his confidence to score more

if we had kept it at half time we would have gone onto win 2 or 3-0 no doubt

[Team Andromeda]

As far as I'm concerned if he did it in the 92nd minute then fair enough but our super squad of world class players had 45 mins+ to get another goal and couldn't, and this is against a team we should comfortably be beating. So I blame them, the outfield players.

That's the trouble . England keep thinking we're better than all these so called lower teams and well... you're not. England haven't got that many world class players Is dire at holding on to the ball, and trying to play the passing game , its long ball football, and GOD knows... I seen enough of that in the Championship.

England are a very ordinary side, and up front really lacking. You're better than Greece though

[Jebus]

And Heskey is a good player he did everything right apart from score i dont understand why people hate him so much? if everyone got behind him it would do him the world of good and build his confidence to score more

So the huge wages he recieves and pride for playing for England isn't enough to motivate him? Come on, he's not a young lad, he's an older player with a bit more experience. He does a job, but he's a striker in a front 2 and he needs to score more goals.

England haven't got that many world class

You really think that? How many "world class" players should national team have exactly?

[Team Andromeda]

You really think that? How many "world class" players should national team have exactly?

A National side should just pick the best players they can choose from, and well to me England haven't . World class is really open to ones interpretation though Up front England are lacking and the passing game poor .

Though instead of everyone slamming Green, people should give credit to the USA. They played with passion, run their hearts out, and at times played very good football.

[nakamura]

I must admit I fully blame Green for his mistake. It was totally avoidable.
I hope the press don't flame him though. The team tactics were far worse than that.
Capello is another in a long line of negative managers we have had. Getting rather sick of it now. We have plenty of pace and strength when you look through our squad yet we play so safe.

Rooney doesn't need Heskey at Man Utd, why does he need him for England?

[prinnysquad]

I don't get the hate for Green either. Every keeper I've seen makes bad mistakes - even the best. I've seen howlers from Cech, Friedal, Jussi, and a host of others. Fundamentally it's no worse than Heskey going to head the ball and completely missing it (which he did twice yesterday), or someone kicking fresh air, but because it's in the most glaring area of the pitch with the worst possible outcome, suddenly he's more hopeless than any outfield player who makes a dolly.

I also don't get this 'his save wasn't that good' mentality. A hard shot that close is rarely going to produce the prettiest save. His positioning was right, he stood up, his hand was in the right place, he made the save. If we're going to start categorising it as a save where ' the ball hit him' rather than him actually making the save, then I'd say that David James is the best exponent of this over the years I've ever seen. For ages there's been a running joke amongst my family and friends about a 'David James Save' - where the ball twats him in the face, he's clueless about what's happening, and it's heralded as an 'astonishing' stop.

Let's just remember Green made one mistake yesterday. Just one. A massive one, but no worse than most outfield players make every game. It wasn't a catalogue of errors. Thanks to Muppet Show's Keep the Bastards in the Dark style of team selection, the fringe group of players will have had very little time to mentally prepare for the game. This cannot be good for the mental side of the team.

[merf]

is it just me or do others still feel ashamed every time we walk out at the world cup with a foreigner in charge, makes us look like some african or arab country.

shouldn't need rules in place as should be a matter of national pride but international footy is about country v country, not who's got the deepest pockets.

in the highly unlikely event of any success it totally devalues it for me.

[Nu-Eclipse]

is it just me or do others still feel ashamed every time we walk out at the world cup with a foreigner in charge, makes us look like some african or arab country.

I know where you're coming from, although some might misconstrue that statement in the wrong way. Not all African and/or Arab countries have foreign managers (Egypt spring to mind), but in some cases, the structure and knowledge that outsiders with good experience can bring to a team can be invaluable in some cases. A lot of these teams have FAs that are in total disarray, lest we forget.

In an ideal world, an Englishman would be in charge (and it would appear that Stuart Pearce is being groomed to take over from Capello), but let's face it - recent English-born England managers haven't been good enough, have they?

My only issue with foreign managers managing England is that we should've had a Capello/Hiddink-type figure from the off - a proven winner. Sven was/is distinctly average as a manager, and a proven gold-digger to boot. Adam Crozier screwed up big-time with his appointment.

[teenagewasteland]

is it just me or do others still feel ashamed every time we walk out at the world cup with a foreigner in charge, makes us look like some african or arab country.

shouldn't need rules in place as should be a matter of national pride but international footy is about country v country, not who's got the deepest pockets.

in the highly unlikely event of any success it totally devalues it for me.

I don't think so. I think it's just a measure of international football today. About 1/3 teams at the world cup have a 'foreign' manager.

[Team Andromeda]

I don't think so. I think it's just a measure of international football today. About 1/3 teams at the world cup have a 'foreign' manager.

Even the 'official' beer is 'foreign' . Speaking of which maybe it time Carlsberg did the team talk

[Number45]

The bottom line though is that but for a horrendous howler by Green (I don't think the save later on was that good, watch it again, it's hit near enough right at him and it almost slips off his right glove, just like the goal, onto the post/bar) we would be 3 points and sitting pretty.

I'm going to try my best to keep my West Ham hat off here.

I'm not even going to attempt to defend his error, because you just can't (As he's said himself since the match). He should have had his body behind the ball, it's one of the most basic rules of goalkeeping.

That said, why do people make the assumption that the score would have remained the same had that not gone in? With 50 minutes to go ANYTHING could have happened - we could have gone on to win 3-0 or the US could have really come at us after half time and we might have lost 3-1.

With that said, I wouldn't have any complaints if he were to be replaced for the next matches. It would be disappointing, because he's so much better and more consistent than he's getting credit for (Both before this incident and, well I'm not going to mention the headlines this morning) and also because it would likely be his last appearance for England.

I would have loved Hart to be the starting goalkeeper for this World Cup, but for that to happen he needed to have been playing consistently for England for the last several games.

Overall I thought we played relatively well. I thought Cole was solid if not anywhere near as much of an attacking threat that he is for Chelsea. Gerrard had one of the better games I've seen him have for England for some time and Lampard grew into the game as well.

Johnson was excellent, Lennon should do for England what he does for Spurs and, if Heskey and Rooney are going to play like that (i.e. Rooney is going to be dropping too deep) then you might as well pair Rooney with a striker that can also contribute goals (So anyone other than Heskey).

[Rossco]

Oooft that was a decent game last night. I'm in the ABE (Anyone but England) camp so we couldn't stop laughing when Green fumbled that shot. Absolutely ridiculous!

Apart from that though, England didn't really impress me. They were under pressure from a mediocre USA team for alot of the game and lucked out not going 2-1 down when they hit the post with a save from Green that I can't decide was really good or a David James Save as prinnysquad mentioned above.

You should win your next two games and qualify comfortably though so nothing to worry about yet.


On the subject of foreign managers, I agree that having one almost devalues the team. It makes it more like club football than international. Has it ever been a rule the manager has to be of the same nationality as the club?

[Adrock]

The first bitter Scot to show his colours. How boring.

BBC coverage of this Algeria v Slovenia game has already started poorly. No research into the teams, 10 minutes talking about nothing. They didn't even go through the teams and mention the star players.

Crap coverage.

[mr_sockochris]

I was going to post last night but all the negativity here depressed and confused me but I thought I'd share a few thoughts...

- Green made a mistake, all players do. He's still our best bet in my opinion, if people back him this mistake will only make him stronger because he's already been as low as you can go and will learn from it. Besides, James hardly has a spotless record when it comes to mistakes while Hart is too young and inexperienced right now to even consider.

- People need to give the USA more credit. They are a good TEAM who work hard, have a couple of dangerous players and a very good goalie. They play more internationals than anyone and it shows. They're high in the FIFA rankings, have done well at recent World Cups and actually beat a Spain team that was unbeaten in 34 matches last year at the Confederations Cup semi final so they were never going to be easy to play against.*

- With that said we were still the better team last night. It was 30yrd pot shots from the USA til the freak goal, then they just played on the counter attack for the rest of the game an rub down the clock. We made a handful of good chances, Heskey should have scored his 1 on 1 while Lennon and Johnson got round the back on numerous occasions only for the pass or the running from the strikers not quite meeting each other. I've seen England games in the past (the last World Cup for example) where we've done practically nothing against worse opposition - this wasn't one of these games.*

- It was the first game, they're often unpredictable as teams are still finding their feet. Remember in 98 when Scotland drew with Brazil on the opening day? France looked dreadful on Friday while with better finishing Nigeria could have scored a few against Argentina yesterday as they carved them open on numerous occasions. The fact is, our hardest group game is out of the way and we didn't lose it, win the next two and we could still top the group.*

- As for the Lennon not running at people and passing it back complaints I can't say I agree. I thought he and Johnson did well at keeping them guessing. To run every time is predictable. To cross every time is predictable. It's all well and good complaining we don't keep possession well enough but you can't then complain when Lennon plays it safe. I thought he did well picking his moments and varying whether he crossed, played it low or cut it back. The fact we didn't profit from them was more about other players not making the right runs, not bad delivery. The same goes for Johnson too who mixed things up by going with his right and left when crossing, as well as one great run where he cut in and had a left foot shot.

- Not to be completely positive, the defence needs work. I don't know what's going on with King. Carragher is reliable but too similar to Terry in how they play. Pace will destroy any of our center backs, it's a worry. Also, I really thought Joe Cole should have come on instead of SWP and Rooney had a really quiet game, fingers crossed we see more from them two on Friday.*

Phew, well that turned into an essay

[Jebus]

That said, why do people make the assumption that the score would have remained the same had that not gone in? With 50 minutes to go ANYTHING could have happened - we could have gone on to win 3-0 or the US could have really come at us after half time and we might have lost 3-1.

But the score was 1-1, take out the howler and keep everything else the same and it was 1-0. I'm not demanding Green be killed, I'm merely stating factually that any goalkeeping error like that is amplified a million times because of the position and importance of position.

Green will keep his place, and to be honest, even though he shouldn't have been no1 in the first place, he should keep his place now or he'll be ruined.

Oooft that was a decent game last night. I'm in the ABE (Anyone but England) camp so we couldn't stop laughing when Green fumbled that shot. Absolutely ridiculous!

Perhaps a discussion for another time, or maybe it's already been done, but I find that a really sad thing to read. If Scotland, Wales or Ireland are playing I always support them. Unless they are playing against England I'd always want them to win.