Diego Maradona is no longer coach of Argentina, and as you would expect, he has gone down in a blaze of glory and accusations!!

On the day Argentina lost to Germany, the day Diego calls his day of mourning, he was told by his seniors in front of the players that he had done well and they wanted him to stay as national coach. I have to agree with this part, i do think he did well, the German team that faced Argentina that night were in devastating form.

Over the next 24 hours however things took a turn in the wrong direction for Diego. Maradona claims Carlos Bilardo the national team manager worked in the shadows to get Maradona out. They told him they wanted to keep him as coach, however they wanted him to sack 7 of his back room staff.

This was not an option for Diego, who i get the feeling would be extremely loyal to the people around him. When he refused to let them go, his contract renewal offer was withdrawn and alas, he is no longer coach!

One thing i dont get about this story is who Carlos Bilardo is, in the story he is described as the national team manager, to us English that’s the person who calls the shots, if this is right then what exactly was Maradona?

Source: BBC

32 year old Emile Heskey has announced his retirement from international football.

Heskey scored 7 goals in 62 appearances for England in a carear that lasted11 years. By modern standards, this is actually a very long innings for an international.

Now im not going to bad mouth Heskey but it does surprise me that his England career lasted so long. At the age of 32 i doubt he would have been picked again for any England performances, and to be cruel, i think the more changes capello can make the better for the team. There are a lot of young players out there that score goals week in week out that i personally think should now be given the opportunity.

Tonight sees Germany meet Spain to get into the world cup final for 2010.

Its a hard one to call, I think if Spain come out with the grit and determination to get to their first world cup final then they could beat the Germans, On the flip side, they are playing Germany, Germany seem like they can turn anyone over with no hesitation.

The game is 20 mins in now, and i still cant call it! lets watch this space and wait!!

Its being reported (in the Sun all be it) that their was a feud between Steven Gerrard and John Terry during the world cup that could have been to blame for the teams uneasy time in South Africa.

It has been said that David Beckham played the intermediate to calm the situation down. After England won their only game of the world cup, John Terry gathered all the players in a huddle. A very captain like thing to do!!

Gerrard didn’t like this as he saw Terry as someone trying to play a role he didn’t have.

Now ive read a couple of blogs about this and the consensus mainly is that it’s a non story, they fell out, so what. I however don’t feel it is a non story (if in fact it is true)

The captain of a football team should lead from the front, they should be strong, they should be seen, they should be heard and most of all they should be respected by all other players and England did not have that figure in the camp. Gerrard for all his footballing skills is not a great captain for his country. I didn’t see him much in the media and on the pitch he blended in too much.

There was always potential for friction in the team a John Terry has had his captaincy revoked, yet he wont for one second think he should have done as he didn’t get it taken away at Chelsea.

John Terry in the world cup acted like a captain would. If it wasn’t for Rio, then i think this would continue in the England camp until one of the players were dropped. Rio as a captain would be everything you need him to be, he has the respect of all the players and i don’t believe JT would try to undermine him like he obviously has done with Gerrard. The sooner Rio gets back to being captain, the better it will be for the England team.

Basically, it’s all Hesky’s fault!

Source: The Sun

The England team are on their way  home now and its being reported in the media that Capello will not stand down, but will have meetings with the FA over his future.

I’m not interested in starting a witch hunt against him, i have a lot of respect for Capello, however, im just not sure he is the man for the England job. He is obviously a very talented manager and he has proved this at club level. Maybe it’s a language or culture barrier, but there is something wrong i don’t think will be fixed.

England have been struggling on the international front for years now. The friendly games became ridiculously boring, which i blame Sven for and Capello for carrying on. A friendly game should be used to gel the team and get them working together, instead they are used to give as many people as possible a run out and for me it doesn’t work, the last few years have shown it has no benefit for the team. Read the rest of this entry »

The use of television has been a source of controversy in the sport, but experts insist it offers a fool-proof method for determining whether a team is good at football or whether it is simply a collection of absurdly over-compensated, second-rate commercial brands with ghastly, vulgar wives, locked in a sado-masochistic relationship with a cretinous media that merely reflects a society that has taken its natural intelligence, its sense of perspective and its values and violently drowned them all in a bucket of piss.

Source: The Daily Mash

I’ve been slow to blog about this because im not to sure what to say. England lost to Germany yesterday in a 4 – 1 drumming which has left lots of people confused, angry and hung over!

The media this morning have blamed anything and everything for Englands defeat from Sepp Blatter, to the referee, down to the players and the manager.

Ill start of with some of the headlines.

I think that people will choose themselves who to blame, im going to run through what i think about the various parties to blame, i think you will notice my blame is very clear!

Sepp Blatter

Sapp Blatter is getting a lot of stick, The ball going over the line and not being given is a big talking point. The argument being, if the goal had stood then we would have been level and the mentality of the team would have been different. Sepp Blatter is the guy refusing to introduce goal line technology into the game. Yes the ball crossed the line and the technology would have seen this within seconds, but no, i don’t blame this for England not winning and playing so poor for all of their games.

The Referee

The referee has been blamed for the game, again, its because of the goal that wasn’t. Yes he should have seen it, people on the half way line saw it, the linesman should have seen it, however, a referee cant rule a game of reaction, it has to be down to what they see.

Capello

I think Capello has to take part of the responsibility. Their were big talks of the players being unhappy, they didn’t like his system, they didn’t like being played out of position. They are professionals and they should deal with it, but just because they can play football really well, doesn’t mean they have the mental capacity to respond to a situation responsibly. This is when the manager comes into play. It is then the managers role to deal with a situation and the players, the manager needs to be able to address concerns and sit the players down and explain why things are happening that way. Yes the players should always respect the manager but the manager needs to have the people skills to ensure that situation doesn’t arise.

The Players

Were do i start? i could sit and call them names and say they don’t deserve to wear the shirt, blah blah, blah but its already been said. I would put 80% of the blame on the players with the other 20% going on capello.

The players are the people who will win and loose the game. I don’t agree in lynching Rooney, no he didn’t play well but who did? I can tell you who did, David James, i take my hat off to him, Capello should also have played him from the start, he played with pride, he got animated, and he was the only player who did. I don’t think one player did worse than the next, it was just that they didn’t play with any urgency or desire. It was really painful to watch

The captaincy didn’t help things. I don’t believe Gerrard is a captain. he didn’t lead the team, I didn’t see him rallying the players, i don’t remember anything he had to say in a press conference. It was just a poor captaincy in my eyes.

Add all this together and you end up with a team that were looky to qualify for the last 16 and then pissed the opportunity up the wall.

There is only one thing that we can take a positive from. Were still not as bad as France!

This is a public announcement direct from Algeria.

If you have just lost a game of football and would like to vent anger, then slap a woman.

Thats what Algeria player Rafik Saifi did after his side lost to USA yesterday and got dumped out of the World Cup. After the USA V Algeria game yesterday Saifi was walking through the interview area when he slapped reporter Asma Halimi across the face with an open hand in front of everyone in the room. Reacting to being slapped the reporter punched him in the face.

The spat happened because of bad blood between the reporter (who works for Algeria’s largest newspaper) and Saifi. The sun is reporting it was comments she made about his wife, other sources say it’s a long standing hatred, either way she must have upset him to make him slap her in front of everyone!!

The reporter now wants to report it to Fifa and the police.

Source: Yahoo

This world cup has been branded as boring, if we all take a step back and look at what has been going on it is far from boring. Over the last few days we have soon a footballing nation implode in public, and no im not talking about England!!

France were, not to long ago, European and World Champions at the same time. Today they are picking up the pieces of a breakdown in the squad with the players managers and coaches that all happened in public. I’ve left it till now to blog about to see if anything more happened.

On Wednesday, France played Mexico and lost 2 – 0. At half time in the game, Anelka got subbed, the team was playing bad as a whole so seeing one of them changed was not a surprise. It was plain to see however that something was not right, Subs were standing behind the goal instead of the dugout and the team didn’t play with any passion or desire. Read the rest of this entry »

Im sat here watching the Brazil V Ivory Coast game and i feel like i am watching a pantomime, Im waiting for Lenny Henry to come on off the bench.

The game is 3-1 and there has been some good football played but the theatrics going down on that pitch are just embarrassing. Everyone knows Brazil are a world class team, they have 5 starts on there shirt! I seriously think they are letting themselves down tonight with they way they are reacting to the slightest touch. At one point i was convinced the vuvuzela’s were masking the noise of the sniper in the crowd.

If i was Ivory Coast i would be pissed off, however it doesn’t mean you join in with them, Kader Keita has just run into Kaka and gone down like he’d been punched in the face. The referee didn’t see it but gave Kaka a second yellow and he is off.

Its not the type of football that promotes the game in a good light. Maybe it was what Brazil deserved after doing the same for 90 minutes?