Rooney's lack of energy explained
Quarter final time and after a day off, It’s Portugal against the Czech Republic which is a game that’s really hard to get excited about unless you are Portuguese or Czech or unless you love Ronaldo, which is something that Ronaldo himself, definitely does. It quickly becomes apparent that this is going to be a total bore as the Czech’s have no ambition at all and are playing for penalties from the first minute. The first incident of note is some quality foot stamping petulance from the messiah himself when a pass fails to reach him.
When he calms down he gets on the end of a cross and tries a ridiculous overhead kick which goes wide but it leaves you in no doubt that he fancies it today. A marvellous piece of skill sees him take down a long ball and spin his marker before shooting past Cech and onto the base of the post. As we go into the second half, Portugal and in particular our greasy hero are getting mildly irked at the chances going begging as Almeida heads over a meat and drink chance and then Ronaldo clips in a superb free kick from miles out which again hits the post with Cech beaten. Nani and Moutinho had long range efforts that Cech tipped over before Moutinho stood up a superb cross for Ronaldo to come in off the left wing and thump a header down and past Cech to give Portugal a totally deserved lead which they never looked like surrendering.
The Czech Republic performance was summed up in the 93rd minute when they won a corner. With Cech up from in goal, the corner was hit over everyone and off for a throw in on the other side. Yes, the Czech Republic were shite and they won Group A. Aside from Moutinho, Portugal’s midfield is ropey as you like and if the main man doesn’t score, you do wonder who is going to. I reckon they’d beat France but can’t se them doing the Spanish, no matter how well Ronaldo plays. He’s horrible but he is some player. Czech’s deserve to go out and all they achieved was proving how poor Group A was.
22nd June - Germany v Greece (Quarter Final)
The second quarter sees Germany play Greece and if ever there was a banker in football, this is it. Germany will attack and Greece will defend, there will be lots of bail-out jokes on TV and in the newspapers and Germany will get what they want. Oh yes… and the other predictable thing is that Germany will be arrogant and they do this by leaving out their three first choice strikers with Gomez, Muller and Podolski being replaced with Schurrle, Reus and Klose. For this reason alone it would be nice if they get stuffed but I bet they won’t.
It was even more predictable than I thought because Greece were complete crap, relying on Germany missing chances which they duly did until Lahm cut on from the left and bent a shot into the far corner with the aid of a slight deflection. 1-0 at half time and all Germany with Greece having made Manuel Neuer appear on the TV screen just once with a scuffed shot that was blocked before it reached him. What the Greeks do have is the ability to somehow score a goal and they manage it with just two players as Salpingidis breaks down the right and all of the rest of the team are back defending aside from Samaras who belied his ‘useless donkey’ reputation by neatly pulling away from Boateng to meet the cross and bundle it under Neuer for 1-1. It’s completely ridiculous to be honest as the Greeks in the crowd go mental and smash imaginary plates whilst the suave and dapper Joachim Loew’s smacked arse face is only matched by Angela Merkel who doesn’t have the best of faces to start with.
The bastards only gave us about 5 minutes of thinking that Greece might somehow nick it before Reus’ cross was spectacularly volleyed in by Khedira from the edge of the box who has a very powerful shot off of his shinpad. Within quarter of an hour it’s 4-1 as Klose rises unchallenged (aside from some shit Superman effort by the Greek keeper) from 6 yards to head in a corner to notch the first goal by a Pole in Poland since Podolski scored in the last match for Germany. Next up it’s Ozil running through and is well thwarted by the keeper but he rebound falls to Reus who smashed a volley in off the bar which was really unnecessary considering the keeper was lying on the ground. Great finish though. The Greeks have the last word though as Boateng handles a cross (sort of) and they get given a softish penalty which Salpingidis tucks away to make the final score 4-2 so now we know that if England manage to negotiate their way past Italy, we’ll be playing Ze Germans in ze zemi-finals, again. They look good it has to be said…
23rd June – Spain v France (Quarter Final)
It’s Spain against France and Spain are wrestling with the one striker or no striker debate whilst France have lost their first match in 15 or so (v Sweden) so of course it’s time for civil war. They really are a bunch of egotistical twats aren’t they. Manager Laurent Blanc who somehow has a good reputation, picks two right backs to combat a perceived Spanish strength down the left hand side with Jordi Alba and Iniesta. He’s right in that they are strong but the problem is that they are so strong they will probably rip you apart anyway and there are 8 other strong players on their team or 7 if Torres is playing, which he’s not. The funny thing is that France have sacrificed Nasri in order to do this and I expect he took that well, team player that he is.
Fake centre forward Fabregas is the first to show and he should have had a penalty as he chased a through ball and was wrestled to the ground by Clichy but somehow, none of the referee, linesman or goal-line assistant managed to see it. Not to worry though as Spain soon went in front when, you guessed it, Alba and Iniesta combined with Alba skinning right back number 1 (Debuchy) who fell on his face allowing Alba to skip round him and beautifully pick out Xabi Alonso who headed past Lloris back the way it had come and into the corner of the net. Lovely goal and 1-0 and probably game over with 20 minutes gone. All Spain would have to do is defy the famous French fighting spirit. Luckily for Spain this only really occurs when fighting amongst themselves and so the Spanish kept the ball pretty much for the rest of the first half and went in 1-0 to the good.
The second half is dull if you want to see loads of chances and shots on goal but it was decent if you wanted to watch Spain pas it around and make the French look like 2nd rate twats so it worked for me. France had a couple of efforts but didn’t get anything decent on target but it took until the last few minutes for Spain to seal it as Pedro Rodriguez burst into the box, dropped a shoulder to go past right back number 2 (Revelliere) who clumsily brought him down. Xabi Alonso fought his natural instinct to pass the ball and smashed the penalty into the corner sending Lloris the wrong way and so it was done and the French could go home but not before Nasri had a fight with a journalist or two. They will not be missed I suspect.
Spain go through to play Portugal so expect Ronaldo to get incredibly frustrated while 6 Spanish midfielders pass the ball round him.
So, three of the four quarter finals have been mismatches where the expected team has dominated and the underdog has been complete shite and not put up any kind of performance. Knockout ties usually remove the fear but one team in all of these matches was shit scared of trying anything and they all deservedly lost. England and Italy could easily see both teams concentrating on not losing the game and I’m sure that if it wasn’t for the tension, this game would be rubbish. We’ll see….
24th June – England v Italy (Quarter Final)
So it came to pass that England played Italy and Hodgson picked the same team that beat Ukraine with Rooney and Welbeck up front with Young and Milner on the wings. It’s nearly a disaster within five minutes as de Rossi attempts a ridiculous volley from 25 yards which swerves away from Hart and hits the inside of the post. Remarkably and surprisingly, England then start to play with some lovely football breaking out down the right which ends with Johnson cutting in, getting the ball back from Milner via a bit of a lucky deflection and then scooping a shot goalbound which Buffon manages to claw away. At the other end, our favourite nutbag is keeping the England defence busy as they’ve obviously targeted the space behind John Terry which is usually the flat of whoever’s wife he’s shagging. Whatever you or I say about Terry’s personality, he’s having a superb game here. No one’s talking about Rio now.
Welbeck worked a decent chance by playing a 1-2 with Rooney and fired over which must have been because of his surprise at getting a decent return pass from his strike partner but back came Italy with another block from Terry and Nugbagotelli getting annoyed with himself and kicking hell out of the post. Just after the half hour, Italy begin to take over and it coincides with Rooney getting tired and not putting Pirlo under any pressure which was clearly part of his job. When Pirlo plays then Italy play and he just pops passes about, short and long and England are pleased to get to half time having chased shadows for the last 10 minutes.
Roy’s half time team talk either wasn’t listened to or he said “let them have it, let Pirlo run the game and if we get it, give it back to them straight away”. Rooney, Young and Milner in particular were listening to the last bit and It’s carnage but somehow we survive as Hart flaps out a de Rossi shot and then saves the next effort from Balotelli before looking on in relieved fashion as Montolivo manages to slam it over from about 6 yards. A spot of penalty area pinball finds de Rossi all on his own a few yards out and thankfully he panics and slams it wide as well.
We create a half chance which Young puts wide with a shot of no conviction and Hodgson has realised that we need something different to get back into it and Walcott and Carroll are coming on. Comfortably England’s two worse performers have been Rooney and Young so maybe Milner to the left and Walcott on the right but annoyingly, Milner (who has had his best game in this tournament – not saying much admittedly) is hooked, as is Welbeck. Why not Rooney? – he’s stunk the place out for two matches and is completely unfit. Leaving Young and Rooney on has basically left us playing with 9.
The last 20 minutes are painful as we bomb it forward to Carroll and then Italy pick it up and try and pick a way though us. Time and again our defenders are getting the vital block in with Glenn Johnson pulling out the best effort to deny Nocerino when it seemed a goal was certain. Somehow we got to the end.
Extra time starts and we’re immediately in more trouble as Jordan Henderson is warming up and coming on for Parker who has the demeanour of a soldier staggering across a battlefield with bullet holes all over him. So now we’re playing with 8. The rest of extra time is painful with Italy and particularly Pirlo just strolling about and us relying solely in Hart wellying it up to Carroll and hoping for the best. To be fair, Carroll is doing ok bringing the ball down but he flicks on lots towards where Rooney should be but the fat knackered one doesn’t read any of them. Diamanti hit the post with an attempted cross and it looked like we were put out of our misery with 10 minutes to go as Nocerino stole in to head home a cross from Diamanti on the right but the flag was correctly raised meaning Terry, Lescott, Cole, Johnson and Hart had a further 10 minutes to hold out.... and somehow we did.
Full time and penalties to come. I can hear my daughters (aged 13 and 11) still wandering about upstairs so call them down to watch the penalties. They’ll enjoy this wonderful sporting theatre whilst their Dad spits, shouts and swears at the TV.
It all starts relatively well with Balotelli beating Hart with ease and Gerrard thumping one in before Montolivo scuffs one wide and Rooney manages to kick the ball in the right direction and score. Pirlo then proved that he has the biggest balls on the planet by dinking his pen into the middle of the goal before Ashley Young stepped up. I can tell who is likely to miss these days (I picked out Montolivo who looked nervous) and if I could have been quick enough, I’d have phoned Ray Winstone and his ‘all about the in-play’ and bet on Young missing – he looks fucking terrified and like he’d rather be anywhere else. Bang, crossbar. “WANKER”, I said in very loud shouty fashion, thus bringing a new word into my kids vocabulary.
Nocerino scores and Ashley Cole steps up and goes for the same corner as he did in the Champions League shootout a couple of weeks back. Obviously Buffon was watching and saved easily. Up steps Diamanti to win it and comfortably beats Hart and so we’re out again, on penalties, again...1990, 1996, 1998, 2004, 2006 and 2012 are the penalty exits I’ve sat through.
Unlike the World Cup in 2010 – I wasn’t too upset by the manner of our exit. Like 2010 against Germany, we totally deserved to lose but at least this time we died trying. Hodgson did well given the limited time that he had with the squad thought his tactical rigidity is something that worries me slightly going forward. For example, why not swap Rooney and Walcott for the extra time period, see if the Italians fancy Walcott’s pace in behind them and you never know, he may actually read one of Carroll’s flick-ons which Rooney just didn’t.... why not bring on someone like Phil Jones for a striker and tell him to man-to-man Pirlo and not let him move. We stuck to 4-4-2 with like for like swaps. I can’t moan too much about Roy because he had little time to prepare but the honeymoon period will soon be over if we continue to play in this rigid manner.
As for the players, some came out with reputations enhanced like Gerrard, Hart, Johnson, Cole, Lescott, Terry and Parker and some like Welbeck, Carroll, Walcott and Chamberlain showed a bit of promise for the future. The biggest but most unsurprising let down was Rooney who whilst he wasn’t quite at his “can’t control the ball” form from 2010, was so poor as to actually detract from the team. So many allowances are made for him and he just never justifies it. He gets called ‘World Class’ over here which is a joke – there must be 50 players better than him in this tournament alone. We played better without him and the bottom line is that his lack of fitness was totally unprofessional. Was the team base near a red light district in Krakow? If so, this would at least explain his lack of energy. He’s missed two games but played like he was feeling his way back in from a year out injured. I doubt it would have made any difference but today he should have been substituted instead of Welbeck. When are we going to judge him on what he actually does in a given match rather than what he has done in the past for Man United? Nice squirrel though.
On that subject (not rodents), we also have to get away from picking solely from the biggest clubs. Milner for example, hardly plays for Man City so is he more prepared for a tournament than someone who plays every week for Swansea for example. Anyway, moan, moan, moan. Team spirit was good and most of the players in the main showed some pride about playing for the Three Lions. Overall, I think we did pretty well in this tournament. We have a decent defence and keeper which is the basis for a good side but the rest needs work and I'm sure Roy Hodgson, Ray Lewington and Gary Neville will know this.
Fair play to Italy who deserved to win and I hope they dick the Germans but I can’t see it. The Germans have had two days extra rest, didn’t go to extra time, had easier quarter final opponents and rested players for that game as well. Germany will win but Italy will make it tough for them. Before that though we have Spain and Portugal which is a game Portugal can win if they play without fear... which they won’t so I predict 1-0 to Spain.
World Cup 2014 – 48 Years of hurt, fuck off Frank Skinner.
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