FIFA World Cup 2006!!

 

And now I want to see MESSI prooving the coach was wrong to give him just 7 minutes in the regular time  ... !

 

See you soon Memo!!!!!!!

 

VAMOS ARGENTINA!!!!!!!

 

An England reminiscence........in the (I think) late 70s or early 80s there was a black day when, due to the vagaries of longitude, representative England teams lost simultaneously at footie, cricket & rugby......and yet we still thought we were world beaters at all three..........given that we've just been thrashed by the Aussies at rugby (and our coach, Andy Robinson still thinks we can defend the World Cup next year, Bless!).......we're being taken apart by a Murali-less Sri Lanka at one day cricket as I write (and our coach, Duncan Fletcher, still thinks we have a chance at the Cricket World Cup next year, Bless!)........and our footballers haven't a f+++ clue how to play anything other than kick & rush - which even I grew out of at the age of 12 - (and our coach, Sven Gollum Ericksson, still thinks........)

 

The annoying thing is that we can play well, if sufficient intelligent thought is put in. We played fantastic rugby up to, & for a bit of, the 2003 WC. We played well enough subsequently to stagger over the finishing line & (just about) deserved to win.......we played really tough & hardnosed cricket to beat the Aussies in the last Ashes series......but haven't come close since.......

 

We England supporters lack a sense of proportion. We can't accept we're good - but not good enough - at any time. Let alone can we ever accept that we're mediocre.........which is where our footie team is. We have no thinking players (let alone a thinking coach). Where's the English Ballack? Ronaldinho? Riquelme? or even Larsson? Our guys can't even give a coherent interview in English - most of the other teams have players who can do so in several languages.......one of the most telling moments in the past few days was when I saw consecutive press conferences from Ericksson & Lagerback (the Swedish coach).......and Lagerback spoke by far the better English.........

 

Well, a few examples:

 

- The weakest poule and no early afternoon hot sun games

- A mediocre opponent in the second round with a blundering defence

- After half an hour the Swedish were eliminated to 10 men (red cart)

- Sweden missed a penalty

- The Swedish top forward players from Juventus (Ibrahimovic) and Barcelona

  (Larsson) played like tired old men

 

The real tests will be games against Argentina and (if they remain so lucky) Italy and in the final against Brasil. But, I repeat, I will eat my shoes if the Germans are able to defeat Argentina, I cannot imagine  ...

 

 

 

The Dutch players from that time don't talk about that match much, but they all say that is was very grim and hostile out there and that it was a good thing they lost !!!!

 

On Brasil, they have not been tested yet, so we will see how good they are. About teams, Argentina for me has the best team.

 

In the game against Croatia, the number of Croatians doubled the number of Brazilians in the stadium. But maybe Iván was talking about fans coming from outside Europe, which is probably correct.