Kaizero

He's the back-up striker at Aston fucking Villa. That should in theory be enough for Capello not to choose him.

Anelka has been sent home. Seems to me they should just send Domenech home instead. Silly French.

It annoys me so much that Puma can make so many quality kits for the WC teams and then give us that shower of shite home shirt.

I don't see how you can hide your upper arm from getting hit by a ball when it's already next to your body. He was actively searching the ball, but not with his hand, that it hit his upper arm is just unfortunate. If he really wanted to hands it away, there were way easier ways to do it than that.

He had his arm on his body. Where should his arm had gone there? Also don't think it was a proper handball, he got punished because his lower arm was pointing away from his body, but his upper arm was right next to the body and he didn't look like actively searching the ball with his "hand", just his shoulder. That said, I do enjoy watching Australia fail.

This tbh.

<snip> Look at that f***ing dragon, man. Wales Dragon > Buthan Dragon Nah, no way, man. Wales dragon looks like he's saying "Oh, go on!" Bhutan Dragon looks set to fuck shit up while wearing little Dragon rollerskates. Damn straight!

Bad timing.

<snip> Look at that f***ing dragon, man. Wales Dragon > Buthan Dragon Bhutan Dragon looks like a bad comic book dragon, it's class. Wales dragon just look gay.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Flag_of_Bhutan.svg/800px-Flag_of_Bhutan.svg.png Look at that fucking dragon, man. Whilst not being a fancy flag, kudos goes to Mozambique for including an AK-47 in their flag. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Flag_of_Mozambique.svg/800px-Flag_of_Mozambique.svg.png

Fudgepackers.

I've got nothing against the away/third shirts. But if the home one is the one pictured, I'll be dissapointed. Purely because it shouldn't be that fucking hard to not manage making black and white stripes look good, just look at some of the mock-ups in here. You'd think professional designers could do better than amateurs, that is all.

Hodgson is ruthless, man. He looks like a big cuddly bear, but he doesn't take shit from any of his players. "There are three categories of players. The first one are top class. You admire them. They will win you trophies. In the middle you find normal players. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. In the last category you find players you really dislike. They are shit and don't give you anything. And you Bjørn Berland, you are in the last category." Bjørn Berland was released straight after that, one of the most loved players at Viking by the fans as well having played eight years for them. Obviously not the greatest comparison since he's well bigger than Norwegian clubs/players, but I can't imagine he's any different today, especially after how he put Riise completely out of the team for weeks after his comments about Duff, only a few weeks after buying him for £2.5m

Intersting post. But should Eng players really need motivating at a WC? Not really, no. But your current generation is, as you've said, over paid and over hyped. They need a manager that first will bring them down to earth, make them ignore the media, and then start from square one to motivate the players. A manager like Hodgson wouldn't let his players make comments to the media that "even on a bad day we can beat Algeria", that kind of attitude just invites a bad performance when the players don't even think they need to try to beat someone. You just know Hodgson would knock that attitude out of the players, or drop the ones that has it. As an example of just that, look at Bjørn Helge Riise at Fulham, he went out and said he thought he was a better choice than Duff. Didn't see the pitch for ages and got fined wages by Hodgson. During his time at Viking in Norway, he put players out of the side for cup games against shit sides when they looked like they thought they'd win by just showing up. It's been showed throughout his managerial career tbh, he makes the players believe they can beat anyone, but that they have to give it their all no matter how bad an opposition look on paper.

Capello's proven what I always thought, that he's not an International manager. Just a great club manager. I also don't think Mourinho would cut it managing a national side, no matter how good he is on club level.

I could see this going tits up under Capello since he was hired tbh. He's a class club manager, and is a great tactician, but he can't motivate players for shit just tell how to approach a game down to the great details for how to win it. But International management is so much about motivating your players, as you can see in the "lesser" nations playing with their hearts on their sleeve to do well. England just look like they want to go on holiday. This will be a shit example since Norway obviously isn't a great footballing nation, but it will illustrate what I mean about motivation. During the 90s when we were actually good we had a manager that was both a great tactician and a great motivator, and we played some good stuff. Then we went to a half-decent tactician and a boring manager, and started fluttering even with better players (on paper) than during the 90s. And then we went to a great tactician, but a shit shit motivator, and we played our worst football in decades as the players just didn't believe in themselves. Now, we are back to Drillo, and we're starting to do well again and playing good football, and the players look like they want to play for Norway, not just look like they've been selected and can't say no. The players have said it as well, there's a whole new glow during their training sessions and they believe they play great football and beat "better" footballing nations if they follow Drillo's tactics. You need a great motivator and a great tactician in one person, which is exactly what Hodgson is, and what Sir Bobby was.

Hodgson is already proven as an International manager.

Now, if you had Hodgson as your manager, I'd actually think you'd be capable to win something with your current players.

The fuck is with the ref pointing like that, thought it was a pen.

Half-time, apparently. Ah, my bad. Still.

Anelka to Domenech after the Mexico game: "Va te faire enculer, sale fils de pute!" Or, in English, "Go screw yourself, you dirty son of a whore!"

Media has really underestimated Maradon'a coaching abilities based on some eccentric press conferences and off-pitch comments. I mean, what does that even have to do with the actual football? Looking at some of the Argentina training footage, it looks just like your normal training session. Also, Maradona is a damned good motivator according to the players. And for the WC, that's all you really need if you are a good team, motivation. Which is where England falls short, as for all his tactical nous, Capello is a shit motivator and International tournaments are over so few games in total that motivation plays a much bigger part than in club football.

I have very little doubts that the Yanks won't pull through to be honest, purely down to their "never give up, we believe in fairytales" attitude. What they don't have in ability they make up for in pure 100% concentrated power of will.

Playing for their lives will probably mean events of panic if there's no early goal, which will work to the Slovenians advantage if they stay on the backfoot most of the game as they actually know how to counter, which was seen throughout their qualifying campaign. It'll be quite interesting for a neutral, though. I'm looking forward to it and hoping the England pull through for the people on here.

USA will comfortably beat Algeria, IMO. Slovenia is a better side than people think, it will be tough for England if they continue to underestimate their opponents (which tbf it really looks like they've done in their two first matches) as Slovenia is actually capable of punishing them for it. Still think England will scrape through though, but I'd be more worried than some people on here seem to be about just how strong Slovenia is if I was English.