Right, let's begin with England - Germany.
There is no doubt that Germany played the better football throughout most of the match, but any reasonable observer would admit that Frank Lampard's disallowed goalprovidedthe pivotal moment - after going two goals down, England were finally applying some concerted pressure, Matthew Upson had pulled one back within five minutes of Lukas Podolski's strike and Germany did
not look comfortable at all.
Please note that I am NOT claiming that England would have won the match, simply that the course of the contest would have been very different had the 100% legitimate goal stood. As things went, Germany were let off due to an unbelievable stroke of fortune and went into the break still holding the lead, while England had suffered a hefty psychological blow which only added to the pressure they were under.
Truth be told, England placed all of the pressure on themselves by conceding that ridiculously embarrassingfirst goal, from a simple belt upfield by the German goalkeeper. I couldn't believe my eyes as John Terry wassomehow too far forwardand Matthew Upsonwas unable todeal with such a simple situation- to top things off, David James should have been further up in the first place (given that his opposite number had just smashed a long ball) and his subsequent hesitation prior to coming out allowed Klose to get to the ball and stick it in. Basic stuff, but there it is.
Yet again, for large portions of the match England wereoverly flat-footed with minimal movement off the ball. This allowed Germany tohave markers on whichever English front / midfieldplayers received passes, thus reducing space and leaving England with few options. Speaking of passes, Englandplayed far too many of the simple square variety which, allied with the abovementioned lack of movement, meant that they didn't exactly possessmuch threat at all.One doesn't win World Cups (or anything, for that matter) playingthis way.The only time thatEnglandlooked like a class team was in the period immediatelyfollowing the second German goal. If Lampard's goal had been allowed, well, England
may have capitalised on the momentum that such a quick recovery would have given them against a relatively inexperienced side but thattype of speculation is immaterial as, overall, Germany deserved the win.
Now that David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville are gone, the combination of the sheer number of foreigners swamping the Premier League and League Championship and the obsessive promotion of "English" blacks at all levelsof the domestic game has finally come home to roost...
The officialscommitted two egregious errors in last night's matches - that of Lampard's disallowed goal and Carlos Tevez'sblatantly offside opener against Mexico - which have once again detracted from the competition. I don't claim that these incidentswere part of any conspiracies against the aggrieved teams,just that the officiating leaves a great deal to be desired and
something has to be done in order to restore the game's sense of "fairness" (if such a thing ever existed - I don't have the time to relate the history ofthe bribery allegations surrounding Internazionale and Juventus in the European Cups of the 1960s and 1970s, but if You wish to getan ideaof these things, check out the following link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/1999/jun/08/guardianobituaries.brianglanville). Some Polish playersstill say that the Italians were offering them bribes on the field during their final first round match in the 1974 World Cup, which Poland won 2-1 thus eliminating Italy.
foobar75 said:
Speaking of those 5 goals given up, that's primarily because the US defense is not up to par at this world class level...
...This brings us to the strikers, I guess in some ways, the glamour position for most teams. The caste clowns will point out that this position requires speed and athleticism, so there's the obvious preference for blacks here. But Altidore and Findley pretty much sucked against Ghana and wasted some good chances. The problem is, their speed is useless. They do not have the required skills to convert those precious opportunities to goals.
Good, honestassessment, mate
. The United States' black forwards are useless. This Jozy Altidore is a right laugh - any idiotcan see that he is patently no good yet, from what all of YouAmerican lads have been saying, Your commentators (with no-skill leftist Alexi Lalas to the fore) are telling everyone that he is some sort of star player.
The problem with the American approach to sports is that:
(a) the image of the "soopeer'iah blackaff'leet" is religiously ingrained in everyone's thinking, and,
(b) all "caste issues" aside, there is a surprisingly naive assumption that speed alone makes an efficient sportsman.
The two are inextricably linked, as the black is
viewed as naturally possessing the greatest speed which, by default, makes him the best sportsman. I've always been amazed at the kindergarten simplicity of this kind of thinking, which I've encounteredin the majority of Americans I have met (yet again, permit me tohighlight that I'm not engaging in anti-Americanism
). Funnily enough, I remember a Chinese geezer seeking me out for a discussion on football back when I was at university. I almost killed myself laughing when he stated, in awed tones, that the United States would eventually be unbeatable once the American team consisted of"eleven black guys, the ultimate athletes". Strange, isn't it, how propaganda can spread to all corners of the world?
Anyone
should naturally notice that speed
alone means next to nothing in anything but a footrace. There's no point in having a football player who can run 100 metres in under 10 seconds if he possesses crap ball control andminimal awareness, or a rugby player of the same speed who has difficulty catching and holding the ball or withstanding repeated tackling. Yet the myth of the "fast / bigblack guy"dominating every sport "once he is given the chance" endures.
If somebody actually believes that a "top" basketball player or American football player (
regardless of race) shall automatically be a top-class footballer or boxer, then they must have an arse-full of sh*t in their heads. Unfortunately, there must be plenty ofexcrement to go around, because this talk of LeBron James (thoseclownish names
) and other black heroes effortlessly transferring their "abilities" to other sports is seemingly omnipresent among American "experts". The worst of it is that they export this type ofobviously flawless "reasoning" to the rest of the world.
If I said that due to the fact that they are highly skilled footballers Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo would become champion boxers if they had chosen that particular discipline, I'd feel like a moron who knows nothing of the nature of the two sports. But a slack-jawed ESPN "expert" would probably say that the footwork displayed by these players in dribbling, passingand shooting would make them odds-on prime boxers (if they weren't White, that is...).
