Here are a few observations concerning the last three matches. Please note that I have only seen very brief highlights of the United States - Slovenia game (the days of Rebajlo sitting up all night to view every single match are long gone
).
Germany - Serbia:
Interesting match, punctuated by a spate of fouls during the early stages. Germany committed a string of needless fouls in essentially innocuous passages of play, culminating in Miroslaw (sorry, Miroslav: I'm still in the habit of using his original name,Miroslaw Klos - upon emigrating, his father added the "e" to the surname in order for it to sound "more German") Klose's stupid second yellow card. There was absolutely no need for Klose to go in from behindjust inside the Serb's half when he had already been booked. Serbiapromptly took advantage of the Germans' disarray following the send-off andscored within a couple of minutes (the German marking for this goalleft a lot to be desired). The Serbs attempted to defend their leadin predictably nervousEastern European style, allowing Germany way too much possession and I was fully expecting thelatter to eventually take advantage of some sort of egregious defensive error. Unsurprisingly, the customary moment of lunacy arrived when Nemanja Vidic inexplicably handled the ballto give Germany a penalty. Here's the moment when a Balkan team self-destructs (yet again), thinks I, but Podolski's penalty wasn't the best- instead of utilisinghis power to, asJohan Cruyff would put it, burst the net,heattempted to place it in the corner. Mind You, it was still a great pressure save by Vladimir Stojkovic.
England - Algeria:
Here was 90 minutes of my life (plus half-time interval) utterly wasted. Just whenI thought that England had scraped the bottom of the barrel with their insipid performance against the United States, it appears that in this match they managed to drill a hole in that filthy bottom and plumb even greater depths. I was so disgusted that I was unable to even hurl forth mycustomary foul-mouthed barragestowards the TV, but satand stared in stunned, horrified silence.
England were awful. That's about the whole of it. Everything is wrong. The team looks bloodyjumpy and downrightscared - the tension on Frank Lampard's face from the outset was astounding. The most annoying thing was the sheer lethargy and apparent apathy - England were completely flat-footed, with players making no runs off the ball to create space for themsleves and giving the ball away left, right, and centre, thus putting themselves on the back foot throughout the match.Both Lampard and Gerrard seemed paralysed by indecision, displaying crap touches and being thoroughly incapable of creating anything. Their corners were, to put it mildly,absolute rubbish. I'll bet that all of the England fans and media who have continuously derided David Beckham as a one-dimensional lightweight would have loved to see him on the pitch, taking corners and free kicks.
The lazy attitude isstupefying - the first round gives a team three matches to bloody well work with. After a substandard performance in the first game, one would think that they'd be all up for taking apart the weakest team in the group and copping the three points, especially given the draw between Slovenia and the U.S. Instead, they come out with full nappies and ponce around for 90 minutes, constantly handing the initiative to Algeria.
If England had today played a team that was capable of effective offensive incision, they would have lost, 100%. As it is, there's still a chance of progressing...
Fabio Capello is looking like the right idiot that he is. I couldn't believe that he brought on those bleeding black midgets Shaun Wright-Phillips and Jermain Defoe but, YET AGAIN, left Joe Cole on the bench. Cole would have been the perfect player to throw on against a team who would in all probability have cracked under even a semblance of sustained attacking pressure. But no, send on the blacks.
Capello's tactics are total bollocks. Without raving on for much longer, suffice it to say that he has England playing rather primitive football, overwhelmingly relying on long balls and crosses (which, due to the supremely talented black providers,never materialise and rarely arrive, by the way) to the target man EmileHeskey for hold ups, knock downsand passes to Wayne Rooney.At the moment, England can't seem to pass their way through the centre to save their lives. This is an aspectthat is vital at this high-stakes level - that is where Joe Cole would come in more than handy, so why not give him a go? After all, things certainly can't get worse...can they..?
Slovenia - United States:
I've only seen the goals (and the disallowed effort) and read a couple of match reports, soI am unable to comment on anything else. It appears that the African referee made a fatal error in disallowing the American "winner". Mind You, I'd like to see another angle or two, but there seems to benothing wrong.But that's what happens when the ever-efficient blacks officiate at the World Cup...
I'd like to make two frther points:
(a) yet again, an eastern European side has failed to hold on to a lead under pressure (even when two goals ahead), and
(b) Landon Donovan's goal was a wonderfully venomous strike, but Samir Handanovic (a Bosnian name if ever I've hear one) made a hash of things by not moving forward to cut the angle and, even moreunforgivably, apparently dodging the shot without making an attempt to get any part of his body to it!
Right, enough from me - it's time to start psyching myself up for the Australia - Ghana match!
