Thank God They Don't Have Penalties In Cricket!

I was going to write about the Ashes tour Down Under but it seems any sport England try this year is depressing.

So sad to be right

England out of the World Cup on penalties.
Nuff said.

Semis here we come!

England were brilliant!

• We played Argentina, or whoever that South American team were, off the park.
• We were still full of running in the 90th minute
• We had at least 200 shots on target.
• Sven was jumping up and down in the dugout screaming and cheering nonstop.

We are easily the best team in the World Cup, nay, the Universe. Bring on Brasil and Germany!


What else can I say?

What's the point of repeating the same things that I said after the three previous matches?

I'm depressed

I was going to write about the England Sweden game but the second half was so depressing (again).

While other teams are starting to move up a gear England look alarmingly vulnerable. This is not going to be our World Cup.

I can think of only two valid reasons for the problems we had.

The ball was unusual. It had the name of the two teams, the date and time written on it. This made the ball behave unpredictably from corners and throw-ins.

The heat. The Swedes spend all their time in solariums and saunas so of course they got stronger as the match went on.

I think against Ecuador we have nothing to lose. Bring in Lennon, Walcott and Downing and attack lıke crazy. If we can score 10 goals in the first half we won't have to worry about running out of steam in the second.

Should England Throw the Sweden Match?

By the time we play Sweden tomorrow night we will know who our opponents will be if we win the group by getting at least a draw.

The question is, should we try to choose our next World Cup opponents?

If Germany fail to win tomorrow afternoon then they will face the winners of our group.
So, who is it better to play, the hosts or Ecuador?

To tell the truth, Germany don't look anything special, but if we go by statistics, the host country often does better in the World Cup than their performances merit.

What the hell! Play for a win, slaughter Sweden 5 - 0 and frighten the life out of our next opponents.

On the other hand, we could choose to avoid Brasil until the fınal ;-)

Watch highlights of all the World Cup games in Germany online for free!

Get p***** off when your work timetable doesn't match the World Cup matches in Germany?

No problem.

Now you can see two and a half minutes of highlights of every match courtesy of the official
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http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/v/

It's streaming video at 300 kilobytes per second so you don't need a really massive capacity internet connection.

Wave the flag for England - but not if you're flogging your house

Football fans beware!

Saw this article on MSN this morning.

http://money.uk.msn.com/planning/life_events/home_buying_and_selling/article.aspx?cp-documentid=558491

Apparently, estate agents advise you not to fly the flag of St George if you want to sell your house. It might help England to win the World Cup but it won't help you sell your house.

2 - 0 to the Arsenal

I hate this.
We make one of our best ever starts to the World Cup and still I don't feel very happy.

Granted, results-wise and statistically we are one of the best teams in Germany but the performance sucked. If we can't dominate Trinidad and Tobago we won't stand a chance against better teams. If Terry hadn't made that crucial clearance off the line before we scored we could even have been in third place in the group this morning. I mentioned that Glen was a real live wire and I still don't understand why he started on the subs bench.

The pluses:
1. Great goal from Gerrard (Sven, he's much better when he's in an attacking role).
2. Lennon looked confident and skilful.
3. Rooney came through unscathed.

I think for the Sweden game England should start with the same line up that finished this game. They certainly showed more penetration in the second half than in the first.

Will he, Won't he?

There is a lot of speculation about whether Sven will use Rooney as a sub in England's World Cup match tonight.

Hopefully, he won't. Trinidad and Tobago play quite physical football, particularly their defence, and it would be a pity if Rooney got injured in a game we should win without him.

Yes, he needs to reach match fitness, but look at what happened to Owen and Neville. Maybe bring him on for a few minutes if we are a few goals up and coasting. The same with the Sweden match.

Good luck tonight, England.

Soccerblogs.net

If you can't get enough of news, opinions and wacky rants about the World Cup and you find mainstream sites too tame, it's time to check out soccerblogs.net

It's a bit like the Reuters of football blogs, giving you up-to-date feeds to all the interesting blogs about the beautiful game. If you are fed up with the rampant xanophobia and people slagging each other off in all the forums and you want some intelligent writing have a look at

www.soccerblogs.net

If you have your own quality football blog you can submit it for Oscar's approval. He is very prompt at getting back to people. Just click on the link above or on the right to go to the main site.

P.S. Don't cock it up like I did the first time. Mention the name of your blog AND the web address too!