I Love China

Well just a quick note to wish Spain and Holland all the best in the final tonight. I feel a twinge of sadness that this month of football is about to come to an end. There haven’t been that many outstanding matches but it has still been a very enjoyable (for me anyway) tournament with lots of great stories. Germany of course surprised everyone and brought some excitement to the competition. Ghana very nearly got to the semi-finals, JUST losing out to lucky Uruguay on penalties. England disappointed as they always do. USA got a shock last minute goal against Algeria to top their group and avoid playing Germany.

I have a feeling Spain will win but I really can’t get myself excited about either of the finalists enough to want one team to win more than the other. I guess Holland have the edge as I feel for them getting to two finals and losing in 1974 and 1978, both times losing to the hosts. Spain have never made it to a final, but if they win tonight they will only be the second team ever to win the European and World competitions back to back (France did it of course in 1998).

Only 2 and a half hours to go – may the best team win!

Unless England are playing I’m not keen on sacrificing a night of sleep to watch football, so as soon as I woke up this morning I checked the result on my mobile next to my bed and couldn’t believe my eyes – Spain 1 Germany 0. Yes, I know Germany knocked out England, but I think they have made this tournament a memorable one and it would have been the fairy tale ending to see this youthful side go all the way.

In truth, it probably was never going to happen. England and Argentina made Germany look better than they were and Spain basically brought them harshly back to reality.  don’t think it hurts Spain that only one of the 11 players does not play for either Barcelona or Madrid, which means unlike most teams, they play together all year round when playing for their clubs.

And there still might be something of a happy ending – if the German striker Miroslav Klose can get just one more goal he’ll be level with Ronaldo (the Brazilian one, not the Portuguese one) with the highest ever number of World Cup finals goals. Of course, if he gets 2 he’ll be the highest scoring of all time. It would be a nice way to end what must surely be his last World Cup, as he’ll be 36 at the Brazil 2014 competition. On the other hand, 36 isn’t that old, is it?

So to the final. In a way it’s another guaranteed fairytale ending as one team will win the World Cup for the very first time on Sunday night. Come on Holland!

There’s been a lot of debate about whether the England coach, Fabio Capello, should be given his marching orders following England’s disappointing performance at the World Cup.

My view on this is very clear : absolutely NOT. This guy has – or should I say had – an impeccable record as a manager until he decided to take the England job. FIVE Serie A titles, 2 La Liga titles and a Champions League title I think speaks for itself. He turned around a team that had failed to qualify for Euro 2008 so that they qualified for the World Cup comfortably with room to spare.

I almost feel like we should be apologising to him for this stain on his otherwise amazing record. He’s not the first of course. One wonders why anyone in their right minds would ever take the England manager’s role. Many reputations have been ruined already. You have to wonder when people are going to realise it’s not the manager. Even good old Steve McClaren who we all loved to hate went from failed England manager to winning the Dutch league with FC Twente at the first attempt to restore his reputation.

So, I feel we’re lucky to have him and am disappointed the FA is humiliating him by announcing they will have a think about it and let him know if he is going to be fired or not, because he didn’t win the World Cup for us. Apart from anything else, what a colossal waste of money to have to pay off Capello (around 10m pounds for the remainder of his contract) and find another manager who may not even get us to qualify for Euro 2012.

Anyway, I’ve had my say and we haven’t had a poll for a while so let’s let the readers decide.

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Firstly a big congratulations to Ghana and USA for putting on an entertaining and thrilling contest last night that was worth staying up till 5am for. It’s sad to see a spirited USA team go out, but Ghana did play extremely well and scored two brilliant goals even though USA looked like coming back or even winning it as the end of normal time approached. We were disappointed to come second in our group and avoid the “easy” draw with Ghana but I think I can safely say now, I’m not that disappointed to face Germany instead of Ghana!

So here we are, 2 hours before kick off. Butterflies in the stomach. It’s a big one. We could be on our way home in a few hours, but I am going for an England win tonight. Yes, it’s Germany, our old rivals, but we’re talking about a football team. This isn’t Nadal vs Federer. Past stats are pretty meaningless in my opinion simply because this is a different team with different managers to say, 1966 (we beat Germany) or 1970 (we lost to Germany). This German side is a young side in transition. England has experience on its side. Of course an element of my optimism is down to wishful thinking and patriotism, but hopefully you won’t begrudge me that. Also, this is another BBC match and as you know, we have a much better success rate when the matches are shown on the BBC.

If you like looking at stats, we’ve met 4 times in the World Cup finals (including 1966 and 1970) and every match has been level after 90 minutes (we scored in extra time in 1966 and Germany scored in extra time in 1970 while the other two times I think went to penalties). And in all competitions and friendlies, we’ve played 27 times in 80 years with 3 draws and 12 wins each. Let’s hope we pull ahead tonight. One team has to because of course there can’t be a tie tonight.

I’m off out to watch with a few German friends, just to make it interesting. Best of luck to both teams. May the best team win, unless the best team is Germany, in which case, may the second best team win, please!

COME ON ENGLAND!!

So here we are, it’s crunch time, do or die, the final push. This is actually the first match that falls on a week day, so back in England, schools are closing early to allow pupils time to get home to watch the match and many business are making arrangements for staff to watch the match.

England against the smallest nation in the competition. The smallest nation managed a draw already against the biggest nation in the compettion, proving that size isn’t everything, at least in football.

The numbers are interesting. If we win we come either first or second in our group and go through for sure. If we draw and the USA draws too, it becomes more complicated. If we draw 3-3 and USA draws 0-0, we go through simply by having the higher number of goals scored. If we draw 2-2 and USA draws 0-0 it leaves us completely tied on both points, goal difference AND goals scored and FIFA will then flip a coin to see who goes through and who goes home.

If we lose, the winner of the USA match goes through, or if USA draws with Algeria, USA goes through. I think that’s it basically.

WoAi confidently predicts a win by two goals to zero for England.

COME ON ENGLAND!

I’m having a “France is going out of the World Cup” party tonight. Everyone’s welcomed.

Isn’t it interesting how they crash out of 2002 in the first round without scoring a single goal, then reach the final in the next competition (2006) and then do so badly this time. Talk about erratic. Yes, yes, England probably will be following them back home fairly soon, but we never do well anyway. At least we’re consistent.

There is of course a slim chance they will make it through. The table is quite interesting. Obviously if Mexico and Uruguay draw against each other, France cannot proceed. If Uruguay beats Mexcio by one goal, and France beats South Africa by 5 goals or more, France can go through. If Mexico beat Uruguay by one goal, France have to beat South Africa by 6 goals or more. So I think it’s fair to say, it isn’t looking good.

And speaking of not looking good, it was a bit unfortunate that North Korea took such a beating (7-0) from Portugal last night. I don’t know how many of you heard, but this was the first international game ever to be shown live on North Korean TV (thanks CP for the link) and you kind of hoped that they wouldn’t take a spanking. As it stands, I think it’ll probably be the last time they ever show a live game as well.

There’s another concern though which is now that the Koreans have been humiliated on live national TV, I wonder if they will suffer some form of punishment when they return home. I like to think this kind of speculation is, well, just speculation or negative propaganda from North Korean exiles and defectors. Maybe they all go home to a hero’s welcome just for putting in a fine effort just to get to the finals. Who knows.

Well, that’s made me feel quite depressed so if you don’t mind, I’ll go back to France going out in the first round. Ah yes, that’s better. Nothing like a bit of schadenfreude to lift the spirits!

So let me summarise what’s happened so far: Italy have played two matches and failed to win any of them, not even managing to beat New Zealand who I didn’t realise had a football team. Germany lose to Serbia, missing a penalty along the way (they never miss penalties!). Spain loses their first match to Switzerland and France will need to beat South Africa by MANY goals and will only then progress if Mexico beats Uruguay or Uruguay beats Mexico (if they draw, France goes out no matter how they perform against South Africa). It does seem the only teams that are following the script are Argentina and Brazil.

And so that brings me nicely to England. Ah yes, England. We had such high hopes. We always do, but this time it seemed fairly justified, winning 9 out of our 10 qualifying matches with such confidence and efficiency. It has rarely been that comfortable for us. And then we come to the finals and so far perform abysmally.  We thought the performance against USA was bad. It was only when we saw the performance against Algeria that the USA performance didn’t seem quite so awful.

The reason for the dreadful performance against Algeria, a team we should have no trouble beating even in our sleep with both legs tied together, remains a bit of a mystery. Is it the immense pressure the team is under? Is there something going on in the team we don’t know about? Had they all been drugged or poisoned?

I don’t think it’s the coach. This guy has won league titles and Champions League competitions in Italy and in Spain. The players simply played badly. Yes, yes, I know, we’re not as good as we think. Okay, I agree. But we are not, repeat NOT as bad as the team that was wearing the white shirts on Friday night.

All indications seem to lead to it being in the minds of the players. So what can be done? Sit them down, tell them to relax a bit, I don’t know, but whatever it is I hope they do it before what will otherwise be our very last match in this competition. It has now become a knockout competition for us, we win, we go to the next stage, we lose, we’re going home. Simple as that.

WoAi predicts England will win against Slovenia on Wednesday night, but if we don’t get our heads sorted out, we won’t be going much further.

Oops, I almost forgot to mention the USA’s plucky (I like that word) display against Slovenia to come back from 2-0 down to win 3-2. Oh wait, that third goal was disallowed for reasons only the referee knows about and he’s not showing any signs of sharing this information with the rest of us. At least you only have to beat Algeria to guarantee progression. Best of luck USA!

When I was about 10, I remember playing football in the local park with my friends and some older boys. I was fearless back then, confident without being cocky, diving left and right and not afraid to run out and smother the ball at the feet of the opposition. The older boys were so impressed with my fearless attitude they asked me to join their team. So Fabio if you’re reading this and you decide not to take a gamble on Robert Green, I’d be happy to play in goal for England this evening. I’ll be waiting by the phone so just give me a call or leave me a message here on the blog.

WoAi prediction : England 3, Algeria 0. Feel free to add your predictions and we’ll see who comes closest. It’s now 2pm Beijing time, so you have 12.5 hours till kick off in Cape Town.

With an amazing record, having won 34 out of the last 35 matches, Spain are the in form favourites to win the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Discuss.

Before you do, I just have to say I did find last night’s match with Switzerland very exciting and entertaining. I have nothing against Spain although the pre-tournament cockiness from some of my Spanish friend did make last night’s result all the more satisfying! But mostly I enjoyed it simply as an independent fan who likes to see an underdog work hard and get a good result from that.

It’s the same reason I enjoyed North Korea vs Brazil where for half the match, Korea were doing well to stay on level terms, even if ultimately, Brazil’s class showed through.

Dingle and WoAi waiting for the 2.30am kick off (still over 2 hours to go at this point)

I’ve been waiting  for this moment for months. The new England team, under firm disciplinarian manager Fabio Capello having their first match at the World Cup 2010 finals after an almost perfect qualification matches. Hopes and expectations were high.

I haven’t used this flag since the 2008 trip to the Beijing Olympics, so I was happy to get more use out of it

First up, USA, often mocked, because in America, “soccer” is way behind the top 3 favourite sports (baseball, basketball and AMERICAN football), but I don’t think anyone was expecting an easy match. USA did after all beat the European champions Spain last year to get to the final of the Confederations Cup last year and were at one point leading Brazi 2-0 in the final. But I think it’s fair to say we still expected to win the match.

FIFA decides to award the World Cup to WoAi for having the best blog in the world – WoAi graciously accepts

We of course drew 1-1 after our goalkeeper Robert Green let a tame shot slip through his hands. He of course got the blame for England not winning but honestly, I think a lot of people have a poor sense of numbers, because if we’d scored even one more goal, it would not have mattered. And we definitely SHOULD have scored more than one. But there weren’t many people blaming the poor quality finishing of our strikers.

We expected to win, but the American’s obviously also expected an England win judging by the New York Post’s headline the next morning : USA Wins 1-1. How un-American to go in to a match expecting to lose.

We still have two more matches in the group stages and I don’t think we’ll have too much difficulty winning those, so this result isn’t the end of the world. I just hope we learn from this opening match and get our act together.

Come on England! COME ON ENGLAND!!