Archive for June, 2010

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?

And when i say pissed i dont mean pissed off!!

Ive just watched one of the worst Endland performances of modern history, if you disagre then come round and lets have it out!

Ive been to see Stockport county play a bit over the last few years and it was seriously like watching them play.

There was one player that played with pride tonight, and that was David James, and for that i take my hat off.

Every other player was appalling, no complete passes, no decent shots on target, no threats. Do i need to remind people who we were playing?? Gerrard installs as much drive as a fucking sacking.

I really felt like i was watching a friendly that meant nothing. Just seen on ITV Rooney slagging of the fans for booing England. Fucking get a grip Rooney, Give us something to cheer about

So far in this world cup we have had two good games, up until last night it was one. The one game we have seen goals in is the Germany game in which they smashed 4 past Australia.

Most of the players are blaming the football. As with every world cup, we have a world cup football, this year it’s called the Jabulani.

Its almost tradition for all the teams in the world cup to complain about the football they are using, it happens at every tournament. This year however, there is one team that isn’t complaining. The Germans. The Germans have been using the Jabulani in the Bundesliga since February! That means they have been playing with the football for 4 months. England claim that they only had access to the football 15 days before the tournament.

Adidas have said in a statement that they sent the FA 30 of the new footballs to Wembley back in February as it sent all nations 30 footballs. Some of the teams in the Bundesliga used it in games since February and these teams have sponsorship deals with Adidas. In Germany the league doesn’t have an official ball so all teams play with a different ball.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just heard in an interview with Capello that Gareth Barry will be playing in the game on Friday. Capello has a rule of never letting players know they are playing until the very last minute, it seems he has dropped his rule for Gareth Barry who will be starting.

Barry has been out with an ankle injury since May but is said now to be ready and fully fit.

Robbie Earle has been sacked from ITV after he was caught selling his allocation of tickets to women! The ex Jamaican international was entitled to buy large amounts of tickets for the games so his friends and family could go. For the Holland V Denmark game he purchased 40 tickets for the game and then sold them on to a group of women.

When the women turned up there were 36 of them and they were all advertising a brand of beer. As part of the sponsorship of the world cup, only Budweiser are aloud to advertise in the grounds, obviously this brand was not them!

Fifa rules state that tickets bought by pundits and other people entitled to buy large amounts of seats are only aloud to pass them on to friends and family, ITV had warned all their staff that they were only aloud to pass them on to freinds and family, Rabbie Earle being a red blooded male , sold them to Women!

Because of this he has been dismissed from the ITV for breaking Fifa rules. ITV will have acted swiftly as they are already in the bad books for showing an advert as England scored in their first game of the tournament.

Don’t worry Robbie, im sure there is one way they can make it up to you!!

Source: Telegraph