afar

Pedro had a good game tonight apart from that one on one, to be honest. He was by far Spain's best attacking player. I don't know how anybody can label Iniesta as "gash" either, he's had a good tournament considering he's probably only 80% fit. In a sense Torres may be thanking Pedro for not releasing him, he could have just seal a place in the team on Sunday because of Pedro's blunder, if he had sent Torres through and Torres messed it up, like he's been doing all tournament, then he would be lucky to get off the bench, in a world cup final.

That's true I don't think we've played all that well, certainly nowhere near the form of Euro 2008, I haven't seen all the game yet, saw 30 mins of the first half during my lunch, but it sounds like Germany really didn't show, on the basis of what I saw and what was written on the beeb site I think the best team on the day won, perhaps Germany peaked too soon.

YES !! I was nervous as hell for the last 5 mins or so, absolutely delighted, now just finish the job against the Dutch.

Dreadful. Still better than ours.

Damn just seen the home top, didn't realise it had been released. It's bloody horrid, really Puma what were you thinking, that collar especially is horrendous. Asked my mum to buy me one when they come out and send it to me from England, gonna call her now to tell her not to bother.

We could still be bottom of the table joined with Man Utd if every other team plays 1-1 or a higher draw. True, never thought of that. Whose playing on Sunday ? One of the W's like West Brom, West Ham or Wigan, or perhaps Sunderland or Tottenham ?

At least we are gaurenteed not to be botttom on the first table of the new season.

TBH the only time I've seen him play is against us, going on that evidence, he's an excellent signing, the problem of course as has been mentioned, his performance in that game could be the exception rather than the rule.

Great point, if you are a good enough player you'll do well, no matter where you played before. At the end of the day it's all just football, maybe of a higher standard but that's it, not rocket science for sure.

Not meant as a racist comment at all but Houghton seems to prefer players that have the same skin tone as him, Routledge, Simpson, Best and now Perch.

As someone with Spanish blood, I'm nervous about about the semi, prior to the start of the tournament I would have fancy our chances, but much like England (who are always my first choice) Spain have not reached the levels they are capable of and Germany are just getting better. They counter attack with great pace and it's killing teams who push on. Still hoping though, but the team needs to improve, reach the form of Euro 2008 to stop the runaway train that is Germany.

I'm looking forward to it, as usual, but nervous that we could struggle unless we invest, the season could turn pretty sour pretty quick and we'll want it to end.

Sacking him would be pointless, give him another tournament, he will have learned a lot from this one, his pedgree should let him allow him that.

England should get some ringers in to play for them like Germany do, it's worked for the cricket team.

I hope he gets some stick from opposition fans next season, if only we could get a collective "Choker, He's a choker" chant going. But no doubt when he pulls on that Manure shirt on he'll be back to his normal self, fucking arsehole.

Wayne Rooney just hasn't turned up for the world cup, his contributed absolutely nothing to the team.

This gets FIFA out of a tight spot, everyone will forget that goal that was not given now.

Great counter attack football by Germany, but we've been awful in defence. We need to find a new back line for the next world cup, this one is simply not good enough.

Wow Gareth Barry's slower than me

They've just showed that on Canadian TV too, I'm still not convinced if it was over or not looking at that coverage, the camera angle is poor, and favoured the appearance that it didn't cross, they didn't have goal line cameras in the 60's. It's a totally moot point though because we scored a 4th. Hopefully this will become a moot point too with England getting 2 more in the 2nd, probably not going to happen though.

Claim ? It's was 2 feet over ffs.

I'm fucking sick of us getting cheated at world cups, if it's not hand of god's it's linesmen incapable of making simple decisions, that wasn't even close. This sort of thing only seems to happen to us, people can point to 66 all they want but we won that game 4-2 not 3-2.

What He's not been anywhere near the world class player he claims to be, he needs to step it up big time in the next game, if selected, otherwise we go home. Fabulous save my arse, he scuffs the shot and the keeper gets a finger or two on it but there's not enough of a deviation to suggest had he not, it was going in. Rooney thus far has been a huge let down, for everyone that has any interest in England, he's not the only one and Lampard is right up there with him in the dissapointed stakes but because he's assumed this title of a world great and seems happy to live with it, he needs to perform like one.

We've just basically gone back to where we were pre 92/93, a yo yo club with no ambition.

I'm half Spanish, so picking Spain as my second team (England is always first in my book) is a no brainer. I also lived in the US for a number of years, so like to see them do well, though no way in hell will they win it. Teams I dislike, some didn't make it, like Ireland and Scotland, those that did, some already out, France and Italy, those still in that I don't want to win are Brazil (win it too often), Germany (not good enough anyway but it's Germany), Argentina (nice to see Jonas playing but have no time for that cheating Maradona and hate the hype that is Messi), Portugal ( I really loathe them after the way they conducted themselves in games a against England). That's just about everyone, whose likely to win it so basically if England (which is a huge longshot) or Spain don't win it, I'm going to be pissed off.