World on alert Germans marching again!

[Thespence]

This may be what our lot need. Lets beat them with a bit of "Kick & rush".

[TheGuv]

This may be what our lot need. Lets beat them with a bit of "Kick & rush".

 

That might work, because they did seem to struggle with the long ball a few times last night

[NG32]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRTngtsOY8Q

[Guest neesy111]

rooney has to start scoring, or he has to be dropped

so if he is MotM without scoring on sunday you want him dropped ?

 

Heskey was dropped after two good games

hmmmm doesn't really answer my question does it.

 

it does because heskey was dropped after being MOTM v USA and having another decent game! where he was better than rooney in both!

 

rooney has played 7 or 8 world cup games without a goal, to win world cup's you need your main striker scoring

[Minhosa]

What do you guys think of throwing Crouch in from the start for this one?

 

They are defensively suspect, won't be expecting the big man top play and it may pull in their marauding full backs (well, Lahm) for cover if they're concerned about his presence when out of possession.

[madras]

rooney has to start scoring, or he has to be dropped

so if he is MotM without scoring on sunday you want him dropped ?

 

Heskey was dropped after two good games

hmmmm doesn't really answer my question does it.

 

it does because heskey was dropped after being MOTM v USA and having another decent game! where he was better than rooney in both!

 

rooney has played 7 or 8 world cup games without a goal, to win world cup's you need your main striker scoring

so you would drop rooney if he was MotM on sunday but didn't score ?

[OzzieMandias]

I don't know whether we'll beat them or not, but we have absolutely no reason to be afraid of them. We beat them on our last two meetings, both times on their own soil -- the friendly in Berlin in 2008, and the spanking in Munich in 2001 -- and plenty of this squad were involved in both games. Hopefully that will have diminished the oh-no-it's-Germany factor. They've got a young, lively squad that hasn't been tested yet in this tournament (and were dismantled by Argentina). It's a game where we will have to make experience count, and Capello will have to outthink Löw. And there's no way the players won't raise their game for this one.

[Parky]

England’s elimination ritual

 

By Simon Kuper

 

Published: June 22 2010 21:48 | Last updated: June 22 2010 21:48

 

“It was disbelief,” England’s midfielder Alan Ball summed up the mood in the team’s dressing room after West Germany knocked them out of the World Cup in 1970. England’s quadrennial elimination is one of the country’s few surviving national rituals.

 

It may happen in Port Elizabeth today: England need to beat Slovenia to be certain of reaching the second round. It is time to establish whether, on this occasion, each phase of the ritual has been respected.

 

 

Phase one: England enter the World Cup certain they will win it.

 

Alf Ramsey, the only English manager to win the trophy, forecast the victory of 1966. But his prescience becomes less impressive when you realise that almost every England manager forecast victory in the World Cup, including Ramsey both times he didn’t win.

 

Fabio Capello, England’s manager at least until this afternoon, observed this ritual. “My team, the England team, we can beat all the teams,” he said last month. Like all his predecessors, Capello spoke for a confident nation.

 

Phase two: the campaign is upended by a freakish piece of bad luck that the English conclude could only happen to them.

 

Here the current campaign breaks with ritual. Normally, the freakish bad luck happens in a later round: the tummy bug that felled keeper Gordon Banks in 1970, Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” in 1986, or David Beckham’s red card in 1998. This time, it came only 40 minutes into England’s tournament: the soft US shot that trickled through Robert Green’s hands into the net.

 

Phase three: England lose to a former wartime enemy.

 

In five of their last seven World Cups, they went out against either Germany or Argentina. The matches fit seamlessly into the British tabloid view of history, except for the outcome. England’s defeats to Germany, because of their grandiose yet repetitious character, are tragicomic. By contrast, elimination against a ski-mad country of 2m people would be merely comic (if you aren’t English). To honour ritual, England need to revive national hubris by triumphing against Slovenia, before losing to Germany in the second round this weekend, ideally on penalties.

 

Phase four: the nation decides the team is spoiled, overpaid and unpatriotic.

 

For some players “the triple lion badge of England could be three old tabby cats”, lamented the Daily Express in 1966, and possibly again tomorrow. The fan who wandered into the English changing-room and castigated the players for drawing against Algeria on Friday night felt the same way. “Most of them didn’t even try,” Pavlos Joseph said afterwards.

 

However, these ritual denunciations are coming too early. By tradition, English hubris swells to unfathomable levels before being punctured.

 

Phase five: a scapegoat is found.

 

Usually this only happens post-elimination, but the current squabble between Capello and his ousted captain John Terry is best understood as early jockeying to assign the role. Capello runs the greater risk. Ritually, England’s scapegoat is never an outfield player who has “battled” all match. Even if the player directly caused the elimination by missing a penalty, he is a “hero”. The ideal scapegoat is either a perfidious foreigner – Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo in 2006 – or an English management figure, such as chief selector Joe Mears in 1958. Capello’s bad luck is to be both foreigner and management figure.

 

Phase six: England enter the next World Cup certain they will win it.

 

It’s widely believed that England’s eliminations cause misery. In fact, the ritual provides comfort, by drawing the nation together, and connecting English past with present. That’s why it’s essential that the ritual sequence be respected. Here’s to England-Germany this weekend.

 

Simon Kuper is co-author of Why England Lose: & Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained (HarperSport, £7.99)

 

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

[Guest geordienorway]

It is going to be a great game. England need to improve a lot to advance imo. Germany have some players who can create something out of the blue, and England have not played against a team like that in this World Cup. Algeria, Slovenia and USA all lack cutting edge, and that's the reason why England had clean sheets the last two games. There were too many underachievers in the 3 first games, but if Rooney, Lampard and Barry perform at the level we all know they can, England can go all the way.

[nobby_solano]

well if the lads can't raise their game for a knockout match against germany then they might as well just fly home now. i'm sure we'll play some good football on sunday

 

 

hopefully barry won't just keep lumping long balls upfield for the smallest fella on the pitch like he did yesterday

[pedro111]

how do ppl expect us to score 2 or 3 goals, when we've scored 2 in 3 games against the USA, Algeria and Fucking Slovenia!

 

rooney doesn't deserve to be playing for me, 7 world cup = no goals

 

Because its easier to score goals against teams who will have a serious go at scoring goals against you. Like the Germans will.

[joeyt]

Don't mention the war

[The Prophet]

We'll get beat on penalties.

[Guest neesy111]

I have this down as penalties as well, two evenly matched teams, that have underperformed so far, but have not shown anything to say that they can reach the semi's imo

[tmonkey]

Germany have looked shitter than England imo.

[Thespence]

http://www.usmm.org/p/nazi.jpg

[madras]

http://www.usmm.org/p/nazi.jpg

was darth vader jorman ?

[NG32]

http://www.usmm.org/p/nazi.jpg

was darth vader jorman ?

 

Jorman Jedi.

[madras]

http://www.usmm.org/p/nazi.jpg

was darth vader jorman ?

 

Jorman Jedi.

nazi knights

[The Prophet]

Germany have looked shitter than England imo.

 

They've looked much better going forward but England have looked more solid in defence. England had a much easier group like.

[Thespence]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Ww2_poster_oct0404.jpg

[Guest Haris Vuckic]

 

We'll turn these cunts right over.

[Fenham Mag]

 

We'll turn these c***s right over.

 

And then fuck them up the arse.

[STM]

Germany are playing at full flow at the moment, where as England are moving up through the gears.

 

I can't wait for this, i'm convinced we will beat them. Gerrard's nearly playing at his best, which is what we need if we are to win the big games.

[Shak]

Germany have looked shitter than England imo.

 

Really?

 

One absolutely top quality performance against the Aussies, and a win against a good Ghana side despite playing the entire game with Cacau up front. Also should have gotten something against Serbia despite wrongly being reduced to 10 men early on.

 

Don't get me wrong I think England have every chance of beating Germany, your defence is solid and I think theirs might just be a bit suspect. But you'll need your attacking players to play a lot better than they have done so far and hope your defence holds up against some better opposition.

 

Just don't see how anyone could say that Germany have looked shit so far, especially considering they've been without Klose for such extended periods of time.