Friday, June 25, 2004
England 2 Portugal 2 (portugal win 6-5 on penalties)
Yet again we choked when it came to the serious end of a competition. Rating the England team is a fairly fickle business as if we'd have scraped through then we'd be lauding the greatness of Owen, Lampard and Cole. However as we didn't I'm forced to comment on how crap the majority of the team were. Yes, the ref was an idiot but it was the same for both teams. Our disallowed goal was a bit harsh but I've seen them disallowed loads of times so I can't get too upset about that. What's most disappointing is that we played so negatively when we had the 1-0 lead. In fact I think scoring so early was a disadvantage as it fired up the Portugese players and made us play negatively. Rooney going off injured was also a massive blow as I think if affected the rest of the team as there was no inspirational players to take energy from. I think this situation reveals the mistakes in Sven's selections and substitutions. I think that would have been a perfect situation for someone like Alan Smith to come on and keep up the energy levels. Vassell has done well for England but he didn't complement Owen at all. For the first time ever I thought Heskey should have come on. I'm also gutted that Joey Cole didn't get a kick as his creativity could have helped us get that 2nd goal and so eased the pressure. What the hell is Phil Neville going to offer towards scoring a 2nd goal? I'm not even going to talk about the penalties, except to say that Beckham needs to learn to kick the ball without leaning over so much. He should save the leaning for the free kicks.
Yet again we choked when it came to the serious end of a competition. Rating the England team is a fairly fickle business as if we'd have scraped through then we'd be lauding the greatness of Owen, Lampard and Cole. However as we didn't I'm forced to comment on how crap the majority of the team were. Yes, the ref was an idiot but it was the same for both teams. Our disallowed goal was a bit harsh but I've seen them disallowed loads of times so I can't get too upset about that. What's most disappointing is that we played so negatively when we had the 1-0 lead. In fact I think scoring so early was a disadvantage as it fired up the Portugese players and made us play negatively. Rooney going off injured was also a massive blow as I think if affected the rest of the team as there was no inspirational players to take energy from. I think this situation reveals the mistakes in Sven's selections and substitutions. I think that would have been a perfect situation for someone like Alan Smith to come on and keep up the energy levels. Vassell has done well for England but he didn't complement Owen at all. For the first time ever I thought Heskey should have come on. I'm also gutted that Joey Cole didn't get a kick as his creativity could have helped us get that 2nd goal and so eased the pressure. What the hell is Phil Neville going to offer towards scoring a 2nd goal? I'm not even going to talk about the penalties, except to say that Beckham needs to learn to kick the ball without leaning over so much. He should save the leaning for the free kicks.
