World Cup Germany — thread 4-4-2

England
France
Germany
Italy

No South Americans - hooray!

Uh, yeah...

The Crown on Brewer St has a few screens - also Callaghan's just around the corner on Glasshouse St.

but then we'd be able to rub it in more annoyingly!

(*non-ironic teh)

I'm now predicting a 0-0 draw, with the shoot-out going to about 14-14 before anyone misses.

I've booked an important meeting for 5 and everyone else is leaving early for the 2nd half. IDIOT MATT DC!

Owen Hargreaves mutating accent is intriguing - I'm sure he sounded much more Canadian a couple of years ago.

'I think Lukas (Podolski) is the sexiest man on the pitch. I would really like to meet him' - Paris Hilton

Stars are blind

And we've had rubbish team selection and tactics for five bloody years.

It was inevitable we'd get knocked out of Euro 2004 the instant we scored first, 'cos you knew the tedious hold what you have crap that was going to follow.

And Portugal should have been clear favourites before the game this time round, given the rubbish that we had served up in the four preceding games.

I think people are being quite unfair to them as well. They had around 60-40 possession, 60-40 territory, more shots on and off target, better passing accuracy. Figo and Ronaldo were putting together the best football on offer and Maniche looked threatening from distance. Until Rooney went off we were second best by some distance. We deserved to get beat.

I don't understand why everyone's hating on Italy either. In Totti and Pirlo, they have two of the great creative players left in the tournament.

Portugal prob thought england would lie down and die, pretty much, leaving them free to pick up a goal before the end.

But a pretty good victory record in that time too. Stop blowing it out of proportion.

Loser mentality! I don't believe in inevitability although my faith was shaken when Carragher and co. missed of course. England played well in the Euro 2004 match, and with Lampard's late equaliser they did something I didn't expect. But if they could stay 1-0 up for 82 minutes, I don't see why they couldn't have stayed 1-0 up for 83 minutes...or 86 minutes...or 89 minutes...or 93 minutes...you get the idea. I think this inevitability idea is bullshit that needs to be quashed if people are to escape the loser mentality.

I think people are being quite unfair to them as well. They had around 60-40 possession, 60-40 territory, more shots on and off target, better passing accuracy. Figo and Ronaldo were putting together the best football on offer and Maniche looked threatening from distance. Until Rooney went off we were second best by some distance. We deserved to get beat.

Until Rooney got sent off I saw on screen the display said 50/50 in terms of possession. There was nothing between the teams at that point. I don't remember Portugal having more shots on or off target in that time. And 50/50 it stayed until the end from what I saw. Even England's passing wasn't that bad this time - possibly even better than two years ago.

We didn't deserve to get beat at all. It's a ridiculous thing to suggest. There is no 'deserve'.

Ghana
Brasil
Italy
Holland
France

Germany

That was sweet. That's the most I've ever celebrated a goal that turned out to mean nothing in the end.

I agree. That was great. We showed real character in that extra time period as we did on Sat. But not enough in the 90 minutes.

It's not that I have a loser mentality, Steve. I have just had no faith in the way Eriksson sets up the teams, so have expected to lose the big matches when the chips are down.

I also spent most of the last five years losing this argument with people who pointed to his record in competitive matches - and feeling like I was going mad when people were so optimistic in 2004.

Well, lots of things are *possible*.

Greece winning the flipping thing was possible! But why expect miracles when you can play to your strengths, play your best players in positions they are happy with, play positive attacking football ...

Have any sort of cogent strategy ...

um, Ghana were not that great. Italy and Brazil beat them convincingly. If Ecuador couldn't trouble England much why would Ghana?

how close can you play a team and still lose 3-0? maybe that only happens with Brazil.

it just seems really pointless to talk about which teams MIGHT'VE beaten England, and vice versa now.

Ditto. I was in a pub in Harwich and shit was fucking bananas.

xpost

So he was really to put it UP him?

To be honest, I'm not convinced those are Rooney's own words ;)

Yup, it is quite difficult to imagine that coming out of WR's mouth.

What I really mean is, though, that Ghana created lots of space for themselves by passing the ball very accurately between them, doing that great kind of chessy hopscotch zigzag thing down the field that France can do so well when they're "on." I never saw England put long sequences together like that. Maybe it's just a different style of play.

England are quite a good team, but not the best. They got to the quarter finals, went out on penalties, could have got a bit further with a bit of luck. Didn't play very well. A fair result really.

I agree with Hopkins. All the "look how England have failed against Germany, how crap the Premiership/Eriksson is and what lessons must we learn?" stuff on this thread looks a bit daft in retrospect. Germany got err...precisely one game further than us. A bit of luck could easily have won the game against Portugal. As it was, we got as far as Argentina and Brazil did. We got further than Spain and Holland.

Mind you, at the start of the tournament Gabriele Marcotti said on the Guardian podcast that the problem with England is that we are too modest about our ambitions, considering reaching the semi-finals an achievement in itself, whereas in Italy, ending up anything less than champions equals failure. You pays your money and you takes your cod psychological choice.

I stopped to talk to a solitary policeman who was shaking his head on a street corner. “Never seen the likes of it in me life, sir,” he said in wonderment. “The end of the war, they say, but I were no more than a nipper then. Course, Christmas, New Year, well, you expect it then. But if you’d have said to me three weeks ago when the Cup began that we’d he watching a night like this here, I’d have said you was plain barmy, begging your pardon, sir.”

Marvellous.

He later bemoans the fact that the crowd at Wembley had too many people who would be comfortable at twickenham and Wimbledon, rather than the knowledgeable football crowds of Middlebrough and Liverpool; he felt the openness and warmth of those places was lost on the day, as the influx of those types brought a more aggressively pro-England attitude and less generous to the opposition that for him had been the joys of the competition.

of course that's no way near as funny as this but only if you know that the purchase was made by a certain ilxor when p!ssed the other night, gotta love that £60 postage...

I mean, playing Ecuador to reach quarter-finals, well

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Jens Lehmann (Germany), Ricardo (Portugal).

Defenders: Roberto Ayala (Argentina), John Terry (England), Lilian Thuram (France), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Fabio Cannavaro (Italy), Gianluca Zambrotta (Italy), Ricardo Carvalho (Portugal).

Midfielders: Ze Roberto (Brazil), Patrick Vieira (France), Zinedine Zidane (France), Michael Ballack (Germany), Andrea Pirlo (Italy), Gennaro Gattuso (Italy), Luis Figo (Portugal), Maniche (Portugal).

Strikers: Hernan Crespo (Argentina), Thierry Henry (France), Miroslav Klose (Germany), Francesco Totti (Italy), Luca Toni (Italy).