Monday 14 June 2010

England 1 - USA 1

To read the newspapers today you would have thought that England had been put across Americas knee and given a good spanking on Saturday evening. According to them we should all be clutching a plasticine model of Mother Teresa while saying 32 Hail Marys and Our Fathers and praying for a miracle.
Obviously the goalkeeper Rob Green is getting it in the neck and i'm no West Ham fan but i do feel a bit sorry for him. I admit at the time i called upon my extensive knowledge of Anglo-Saxon dialogue and questioned his parentage but a draw in the opening game against the side that should qualify with us in the group is no disgrace. The only concern is we may finish second and face the Germans who gave a royal tonking to the Australians last night. Got to love that especially as i have the deutschlanders in the office sweep stake.
The French bombed against Uruguay and in that great French tradition, blamed someone else. They are complaining about the fans blowing the vuvuzelas throughout the game.
"We can't hear one another out on the pitch because of them" said Patrick Evra which i would have thought was a blessing as he shanked another precision pass into the top tier of the ground.
Bit of a cheek to ask the South Africans to stop celebrating in their usual fashion. How would we like it if we held the World Cup and the African teams asked us to stop singing songs about which orifice Ashley Cole receives sexual pleasure from or questioning the referee's solo activities.
We wouldn't like it so leave the Africans to blow all the horns they like which is also another song sung at Ashley Cole.

4 comments:

Cheezy said...

England v USA - blah, both teams underperformed... England should have won but, in their customary 'first game of the tournament' way, they didn't...
France v Uruguay - even worse, this one nearly put me to sleep (a bit embarrassing because I was in the pub with my workmates at the time)...
Germany v Aussie - the Germs were fairly impressive but did you see how high up the pitch Australia were defending?... They were just asking for trouble. There's no way they'd have been trying that outdated offside-trap stuff if Hiddink was still their coach. It was unbelievably naive.

I'm not saying the Germans aren't good (they're always at least OK in World Cups) but I think any team in the top ten would have slaughtered Aussie last night. I think the Germs will find it a very different game if/when they come up against the Argies/Spain etc...

Falling on a bruise said...

I thought we were good for the win and thought even after they equalised, we would score again. I'm still confident we will get through.
Carragher worries me though, he isn't the quickest, and it seems King is doubtful.
America didn't look like they had too many goals in the side.

It is hard to get any sense of how good the Germans are this time from that game as Australia were poor. I was impressed by the German Ozil though.

The Ghost of Richard Nixon said...

England look to have a very very very long tournament. There was confusion on the team because there is no one anchoring the middle, so all you had was a bunch of guys running around without someone setting the pace, directing the attack, or taking control of the game. Italy looked the same, as did France.

On the other hand, Argentina and Germany looked scary good. My initial assessment of them was off. They don't need Ballack with Mueller and Ozil playing as well as they are.

The US? Well, luck counts too, but look for a loss to Slovenia and 4 points in the group and an early exit.

Falling on a bruise said...

I hope you are right Nixon and hopefully Barry will be the midfield anchor.
I will be surprised if the USA lose to Slovenia though.