England are in, Italians are out

Been busy, but i just must state that it was a good England game against the Croats and i am somewhat pleased to see the back of the whinging Italians. Good game on Tuesday morning for Rooney, Lampard and *shock and horror* Neville (Gary), and Gerrard looks as if he is improving by the game. Owen had a less than spectacular game but he was involved in three of the goals so, i guess that's not too bad. It is, though, a tad bit alarming seeing the rate of goals that England are conceeding, especially from set pieces.

Batteries recharged..

Just got back from a short holiday getaway in Bali with my family. Needed some time away from work and all to recharge my ailing batteries and just spend some time relaxing in on the beach, watching the waves of the crystal clear sea come and go, feeling the calm and soothing balinese wind blowing on your body while sipping fruit juice that comes in a huge nice ice cold glass with those small umbrellas coming out of it. Well, if only that happened, since i spent the most of the four days in Bali driving around in a van with my dad, looking for some terracotta stones and balinese wood carvings at some godforsaken places. Ah well, at least it was a very much needed break from the norm and i got myself away from my laptop for 4 WHOLE days (amazing isn't it?). Anyway, some major happenings that have been happening (football-wise) while i have been away.

Ingerlund 3 - Switzerland NIL
A score line to tell you the truth, England did not deserve at all since they only actually started to get some degree of control of the match once the Swiss were down to 10 men. A harsh sending off as well in my opinion to the Swiss right back. Owen made a superb assist to help Rooney become the youngest ever European Finals goalscorer (then Owen decided to just dissapear), then Rooney got credit for a goalkeeper's own goal, and then Gerrard finished off what some people call a "superb move" against a demoralized team which couldn't give a rat's arse any more by then. All in all, i am still overjoyed by the results, and it was a definitely, although not good enough, improvement from the dross they dished out against the French.

Areas for improvement for Ingerlund: Well, one, sad to say, maybe it would be time to give Owen some bench duty, since Vassell looked so much more threatening with the time he was on the pitch, but i guess, being the biased Liverpool supporter that i am, give him one more chance against the Croats. Secondly, dump tell Scholes that when he plays as a left midfielder, he should AT LEAST spend SOME time on the left hand side of the pitch. Either that, or bring in Owen Hargraves and play him in Gerrards position as a "quasi" holding midfielder, as *gasp* (i never knew i would be saying this) play Gerrard as a left midfielder. Yes, yes, yes, i know this is controversial but i do have my rationale for this, since for the first two games, Gerrard's game has been severely restricted as he has been given responsiblity to play in the, what we could say, "Hammann Role", which severely restricts him from getting the ball and running towards opposing defenders like he does in the premiership. I say, give that role to Hargraves, or at least try it out against the Croats, since he did a decent job against the Swiss when he came on, and let Gerrard roam the left hand flank like he did. I must say that Gerrard looked much more effective and threatening there. Ideally he would have taken the role that Lampard or Beckham is taking, but since Lampard is also having a decent tournament so far, and Beckham, well, let's not go there, and we do want Gerrard in a more advanced role, left midfield looks promising.

It's Benitez It Is
Well, we could see this coming, and it was just a matter of time. At last the whole shennanigans regarding the managerial position at Liverpool has at last been sorted out. Also, out goes Phil Thompson as well, and i can only guess that "Rafa" will bring with him his trusted assistant from Valencia. Now that this is all sorted out, he should get down to business and sort out some outstanding stuff like certain situations we have with Owen and Gerrard, more so Gerrard if you ask me. It is a tad bit unsettling, and my faith in his loyalty towards the club has indeed been shaken reading some of the articles stating phrases like "31 million quid", "130 pounds a week wages", "training ground bust up with Carragher", "Benitez flying to Portugal to convince Gerrard to stay" and also Parry publicly expressing his concerns over Gerrard. My opinion is that ONLY Chelsea would be his destination IF he were to leave, and the only reasons that I can see him leaving is that if Rafa is not able to convince him that what he plans to do with the club is acceptable to Gerrard. I am also worried that the fact that Gerrard was completely distraught (as reports would suggest) over the sacking of Houllier, who he holds high regards of. However, this situation will only get sorted out probably after Euro 2004, and if he does indeed leave, it would be a very sad day for me as I myself hold Gerrard in high regard, ESPECIALLY in the area of loyalty to the club, and I would like to think that as the captain of the club that he has been supporting since his childhood years, he would be proud to lead the team under a new management, into a new era of Liverpool Football Club, well, at least for another year to see where it is going under a new managament, and if it still doesn't work out, then by all means f*ck off. However, if he does leave to Chelsea this summer after Euro 2004, then i guess money does indeed talk much louder than.. pretty much everything else.

Signing off to get some rest before the Spain Portugal match, so that i am not in such a comatose state at work tomorrow.

They blew it

What a major cock up. Now I know how those Bayern Munich fans must have felt on THAT day. Leading 1-0 after 90 minutes with only 3 minutes of stoppage time, and what do you do? Why, you needlessly concede a freekick, and then the keeper position himself badly to perpetually *watch* the ball sail into the net, then make a superb defense splitting pass, only that it's to a player from the opposite team and its towards your goal, and that also doesn't take into account the fact that you missed a penalty to wrap up the game after 20 minutes time by taking a shot even my grandmother could have predicted.

OK, i think i shall cool down a bit now. I am sure that there will be many many finger pointing activities going around in the world of the England supporters right now, and rightly so. However for me, my finger will be pointing first towards the tactics that they were playing that night. To tell you the truth, from the way that they played, whatever Sven Goran Eriksson has been blabbering to the press about his "confidence" in the England team to match the French, is absolutely horse shit. From the way that he set out the English team to play, it was just so damn obvious that he was oh so scared of the French team, but playing with 8 defenders and Rooney and Owen. I mean, thats the sort of tactics teams like Malaysia would employ against the French team. Defend for your life, and if you're lucky, hit them on the break or through a set piece. I do agree that against a team like the French, ANY team should play with caution, but not to the extent of what the English were doing. It was just so obvious what they were doing.

I don't really feel like writing much about the game as I am still disillusioned by what happened. Truth be told, for me, i think a draw would have been a fair result since both sets of players didn't really show us what they could do. Players from the French side like Pires and Henry couldn't reproduce their form that they have consistently shown for Arsenal almost every week, while Zidane, although he made himself pretty busy and got involved in the middle of the park, couldn't offer much imagination to penetrate the eight man English wall. Players from the English side i guess didn't play any better as well, with Gerrard disciplined but quiet shielding the English back four, and had an OK game until he made the mistake he will never repeat in his life again, while el "Golden Balls" Kapitan other than his goal assisting free kick and "golden opportunity to wrap up the game" missing spot kick was virtually anonymous the rest of the game. (Now come to think of it even more, why on earth the much lesser known teams, like Greece the other night, never have any issues when it comes to penalty taking?!! ). Even Owen, i didn't notice that he was playing until he got substituted for Darius Vassell.

The bright side of it is, it can't get any worse than this right? OK, actually come to think of it, i CAN DEFINITELY be worse, but I guess against teams like Switzerland and Croatia, Eriksson would (and indeed SHOULD) dump the ultra negative tactics and let the players express themselves freely on the pitch. More of the same from the Iceland game PLEASE. Also, Rooney also showed glimpses of why he is so highly rated in the England camp. The highlight would of course be him running past the French defence and enticing Silvestre into conceeding a penalty.

OK enough of that. I think I will be sleeping early tonight, since I was absolutely struggling to stay awake in the office. Need.. sleep... Bed... Mmm... Now i can start to think of how cool it would be to be driving the new Merc SLR. Sweeeet...