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
FIFA World Cup website.

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!

Am I too pessimistic?

England beat Paraguay 1 - 0 and look unimpressive for a large part of the match. Michael Owen is anonymous and gets substituted early in the second half. We are not hopeful of winning the World Cup.

Brasil beat Croatia 1 - 0 and look unimpressive for a large part of the match. Ronaldo is anonymous and gets substituted early in the second half. Commentators are convinced this is just a sluggish start and Brasil will still probably win the World Cup.

What's the difference?

Wayne Rooney.

If Owen and Ronaldo don't come back to form we have a more than adequate backup but the Brasilians don't. Of course it would be stupid to pin all our hopes on him - look what happened to Beckham and his inability to perform after his metatarsal injury.

All I am saying is, I am getting a bit more optimistic.
Not enough to change the name of the blog :-)

But maybe England won't go out on penalties.

We could even get to the World Cup Final before we . . . lose on penalties.

(Keep practising those spot kicks, boys!)

Go Aussie, Go!

The first big comeback of the World Cup. I actually missed the last ten minutes. The Aussies were looking dead and buried and I had to get back to work. As Alan Hansen is fond of saying "In football, it ain't over till the fat lady sings".
Hope you enjoyed that in Perth!

Tell The World When You Win!

Here's another little something for you. When England or one of your foreign friend's teams win during the World Cup, why not send them a pictorial scoreboard showing the result?
Check out the British Council's webpage below:

http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-worldcup-competition.htm

Football being football, there will be a lot of fans only sending this when a team they hate loses
(wait for all those emails from Scotland when England go out on penalties!)

Can You Bend It Like Beckham?

If you are bored between World Cup games how about a spot of computer football?

Check out this free kick game at

www.showtvnet.com/showgames/superfrikik

There is a different version with a replay function at

www.showtvnet.com/showgames/freekick


Enjoy!

1 - 0 to the Arsenal!

Well, we won our first match of the World Cup. Hopefully we will get better, much better. A lot has been written about the heat but Paraguay seemed quite lively in the second half. What happens if England meet Brasil on a hot day? It's not like the players went out on the pitch and said, "Phew! What a scorcher. I didn't know it was going to be too hot to play football." How about changing tactics, Sven? Play deep and defensively in the first half, short balls, stroll around, a few explosive counterattacks.
Tire the other team.
This is why defending generals prefer to be on a hill.
Make the enemy work harder than you.

Back to the game.

After the goal and the injury to their keeper, Paraguay looked really at sixes and sevens, but we lacked the killer touch and they came back into the game. Owen looked like he was still lacking match fitness and Ashley Cole looked positively dodgy at times. On the plus side, Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard and Joe Cole looked good going forward and Crouch again proved he is much more than a tall target man.

Another plus is that Sweden don't look particularly good. Trinidad and Tobago could even be more of a problem especially if Yorke and Glen repeat their performance against the Swedes.

Historically, England (usually) get better when they reach the knockout stages of the World Cup. Let's hope history repeats itself (except for the going out on penalties bit).

Here we go!

 

The Big Day!

Oops! Got the order of the games confused. It's Paraguay this evening.
Don't know if it's good or bad news that Rooney's injury-free. If things
go wrong we don't want Sven tempted into bringing him back too soon.
Plus, if that happens, we'll have an apoplectic Fergie sounding off on TV
every day.
Anyway, good luck to England. And of course the great thing about this
and the other two group games is that. . .

we can't go OUT ON PENALTIES!

Who is the best penalty taker in the England squad?

Beckham? Crouch? Owen? Lampard? No, I think our number 1 for taking penalties should be our Number 1 - Paul Robinson.

Why?

Three reasons:

1. He's a keeper so he knows how a keeper thinks.

2. He spends half the match kicking a dead ball so he has more match practice than any other
player in the team.

3. He will take the consequences more seriously. If he misses, it's a long run back to his goal...

Sven please note: do not apply this logic to David James.

We start the World Cup like this and ...

...end the World Cup like this.

Here We Go Again!!

Rooney's going to make a miraculous recovery.
An embarrassing draw with Trinidad and Tobago.
A last minute goal by Beckham to salvage a point against the South Americans.
A great win against Sweden.
Improving with every game, we reach the Semi Finals and . . .

GO OUT ON PENALTIES!!

This is our year. We feel it. But deep down we know the real truth.
Peter Crouch isn't the only England player who's going to miss a penalty this summer.