Official World Cup 2010 Thread

I find predicting England difficult. When they play well, there are only a couple of teams in the world capable of handling us, if we play as we did against Japan, well, we'll lose.

I'll have a guess at a nervy 1-0 win for England, probably a disallowed goal at some point, Carrick injured before full time and the US wasting a host of chances to win.

1-1

I just have a gut feeling the US will give us a bit of a scare.

^ On the contrary, I can see us going into the other games with the mentality that they are easy and messing them up.

Oh, and Rooney will use this match to start piling up the bookings so he misses a key match.

I'm hoping for a solid 1-1 tie and the Americans avoid the yellow card hell that has plagued em the last few years in international play.

Thank you, Robert Green.

Should have placed a bet.

Problem we have is that Heskey only plays because of the theory that he serves Rooney the brst. So, if Rooney has a mediocre game then we have nothing up front. Either Rooney and Heskey or both dumped or played both Crouch and Defoe, with defoe leading with Rooney, and drop Crouch into a serving midfield role.

This was always going to be our problem game. But, I am not inspired by the performance, even if we did out-play the US. Fact is we should not have out played them by a little, we should have outplayed them by miles.

As for Green, a testmant to the sheer dirth of talented goalkeepers we currently have in England.

I think you should blame it on Clive Tyldsley. 9 minutes in and he was banging on about how these players could be feted for the rest of their lives. Aye very good, 9 minutes into a world cup. How many times did he feel he had to mention 66? I counted at least 4 but there could have been more.

England played well, freak goal can't do much about it. Dont really think there was a bad performance in there. Just goes to show that England aren't as good a team as the marketing men would have you believe. Saying that, I expected Argentina with the embarrasment of riches up front, to put a lot more past Nigeria.

Fucksake Adrian Chiles at it now, deciding who England are playing in the next round!

get a fucking grip! You still have to play another two teams, including the semi finalists of the African nations cup!

Don't get me started...........

Well, England was far better than the U.S. at controlling the ball and applying pressure, but England looked lost on set plays and the English goalkeeper has to go into hiding.

If Group C advances anyone past the round of 16 it will be due to sheer dumb luck.

Thats not how it works though. Group winners will get a group runner up, and not many groups have a top quality second side, save group G who have 3 very good teams.

Well, we'll see. Both teams looked very second rate today. But, yeah, taking another look you're probably right.

I'm rooting for England. :3

As I said earlier, this was always going to be a difficult game for England. The USA will not be pushovers for any team, those days are long gone.
Still, I was very disappointed with England's performance.
Lampard was extremely disappointing yet again in a World Cup match, and Lennon was invisible. Rooney did absolutely nothing, and Heskey, aside from a nice assist, was his usual, pointless self.
Capello has made some odd decisions that I hope won't come to bite him in the arse. Taking sicknote Ledley King to SA has already backfired. And taking the hugely overrated Shawn Wright-Phillips to SA but leaving a good impact player like Walcott is already looking a mistake.
I don't know why Milner came off so early, only to be replaced by a headless chicken like SWP. Why wasn't Joe Cole brought on?

As for Green... when will England find a 'keeper who doesn't make such high-profile howlers? Green, James, Carson, Robinson, Seaman etc. etc.
All have been shite.
Spain's number 2 is 10 times better than all our 'keepers.
The only positives for England were the good performances from Gerrard and Johnson.

So a shit start for England but the next 2 games should be far easier. Definitely expecting us to win them both.

Were you not disappointed in Milner? He didn't seem like the player I watched all year. I thought SWP was giving our defense more problems than Milner was. I really thought Lennon would give us fits, but he was mostly invisible. Lampard actually had one of your better shots, imo. He needs to get more involved. Rooney looked frustrated all match.

Yep, hence my correct prediction. Although it is arguably that if Green had not fucked up we would have won, even I the win would not have been an accurate reflection of the teams.

Yep.

My fear is that Lampard loses his guts when he's on the big stage and that Capello hasn't gone back and seen games from the Sven era (we won't talk about the bit inbetween). To be fair to him he played with Gerrard in a more accomplished fashion yesterday.

Speaking of Gerrard, I am pleased that Liverpool finished so low as you could see that he is playing out of his skin for a move.

Heskey has always been useless. The reason he is in the side is this theory that he enables Rooney to play to his best. But that is stupid. What is the point of compromising one trikers to try and get the best out of the other? It makes no sense.

TO be fair, King was better than John Terry last night, and he also played all of Spurs games in the run up to the end of the seaon so if I were Capelloe I would have thought he could play. Plus, the injury that keeps him out of training is a knee injury, not the groin injury that he picked up yesterday. Therefore anyone could have picked up the injury and nobody would have said a thing.

I agree. Much as the decision to put Carragher in instead of Dawson. Dawson was outstanding for Spurs this past season. Then again I suppose the King injurt forced his hand somewhat, Ideally, had King not been injured I would have taken Terry off and put Dawson on in his place. Terry was bloody awful yesterday.

Again, agreed. Joe Cole is so much more an accomplished player. Never rated SWP and I think the only reason he got in is because he had quite a good season. But, to be fair Lennon was just as back last night.

Well, as I said last night, it just goes to show you the complete dirth of goalkeeping talent in the country at the moment. Gone are the days of the Clemences and Shiltons.

Johnson seemed, to me, to be the only playefr who cared about the shirt he was wearing.

Well, this is England, so I am not going to bank on it......

Milner was bllody awful and our niggest liability.

So in summary, only two players who happen to play for Liverpool.

England need to drop either Gerrard or Lampard, and play a proper playmaking midfielder behind the other. Capello hasn't the balls to do this though.

Olleh! Korea won and USA didn't lose!

Against a decent team, I would like to see England line up something like this (assuming King will be fit soon)

-----------------------------------Hart-----------------------------------------

Johnson-----------King-----------------------Terry-------------------Cole

Lennon-----------Lampard---------------------Barry------------------J. Cole

------------------------------------Gerrard--------------------------------------

-------------------------------------Rooney--------------------------------------


Against the other two teams in this group, we should go with Defoe up front with Rooney, we can score a few goals against Slovenia and Algeria.

Didn't see the match as I was busy watching Pink, and I'm fairly sure England didn't manage to match her in terms of entertainment, skill and all-round fuckableness.

And Slovenia, having just won, top C

Three days in and I'm not exactly impressed with the amount of goals, or indeed the general play. I hope the quality improves soon, as so far only the Argies look good but hugely wasteful in front of goal.

Seaman was excellent, he gets ribbed for the Rivaldo goal, but I think any goalie would've caught out there.

We're not going to get a great goalie, as it would require sticking someone like Hart between the sticks and tolerating his youthful cock-ups while he matured into an excellent international-level goalie.

And the fans won't allow that. Apparently the England team must consist of perfect specimens from birth, thus making the whole "learning from their mistakes" bit moot, who naturally form a jigsaw of win with plenty of extra pieces that will also fit in perfectly.

And it's that attitude that will ensure we'll maintain a chip on our shoulders and a dusty cup cabinet. I breathlessly away 'Three Lions 2066' with the line '..a hundred years of hurt'

A lad I know has decided to support Serbia, he's also extremely racist, so I suspect watching Ghana beat them has him in a foul mood

Germany look quite scary, and my demand for more goals was duly attended by them...

It's vital England top their group, as I can't see us getting past Germany if we come second.

The Aussies look like they'll have a torrid time of it, especially as they'll have lost Cahill for the remaining group games.

This shit is fucking annoying.