England Vs Portugal B team.

[Raven]

I will add that the biggest cheat in this is Sven, took good knows how much money for what? The bloke is clearly naive and pathetic, terrible squad selection, lack of tactics or alternative systems, would not drop or sub out of form players and for all this has he moved the team on?? Nope they have gone backwards in my estimation.

Why do people still want him as a club manager?

Oh and add the FA to this too, how much money went from grass roots football to pay for this man!!

Whole England set up is and always has been a joke.

[CrazyHorse]

I will add that the biggest cheat in this is Sven, took good knows how much money for what? The bloke is clearly naive and pathetic, terrible squad selection, lack of tactics or alternative systems, would not drop or sub out of form players and for all this has he moved the team on?? Nope they have gone backwards in my estimation.

While your description of the man is pretty accurate, and God knows I share your anger and frustration but I'm sorry that statement just isn't true.

Sven's record is by and large very impressive. In fact he is the most successful England manager we've ever had. He's also taken us from 17th in the world rankings to our current position of 9th.

The guy is a tosser and we should never, ever have had a foreign coach (in my opinion anyway) but I'm afraid his record speaks for itself.

[Raven]

Don't care about FIFA's ridiculous league tables but is the team playing better, are the signs better or are they still hoofing it up front in the same way poor old Graham Taylor got shite chucked at him for? Team has not moved on, the same old faces are still pulling the strings (and filling their pockets), nothing has changed at all and his record in tournaments is about the same as others and when push comes to shove he fails.

[americantrotter]

Sven stayed about one tourney too long. Injuries plagued this team, but his inability to adapt to it cost us dearly. Many wanted Bechkham out, but at least he contributed. (Also stepped down with class, allowing us to focus on the next 2-4 years properly) The 4 strikers with 2 of them injured, not playing 1 of them, and not dropping Lampard where the major mistakes.

[TANGODANCER]

Football is an industry.

The days when it was a game are long gone. It is a multi-billion dollar extravaganza where fat cats take all the cream and don't do anything obvious to earn their pay. Erikson's laughable salary was a prime example. How can a man who exibits all the passion of a dead cod on a slab fire up his team to be heroes? He just takes the money, talks a load of wuffle and goes on his way to the next unsuspecting victims. In truth, if we had been drawn in groups with Argentina, Brazil, Germany or Italy in them we might not even have reached the sudden-death level. Teams like Japan, Ghana, Mexico and others went home when they were better than we were. Scrappy wins against Paraguay, T&T and a draw against Sweden should have well prepared us for an early bath. I've seen more passion from Tranmere, Wolves and Port Vale than we showed, and certainly from Bolton.

The game itelf has an extensive rule book. That too is a joke. Where did defenders wrapping their arms round opposition players at corners and set pieces come from? It's become the norm in football and, despite the rules, is rampant in the game. It again is cheating and everybody doing it is only magnifying cheating, not kicking it out of the game. When somebody sticks a leg across you to blockyour path, the first instinct is to get your own leg forward to avoid falling, Except in football of course where you just stop dead and fall down making no attempt to do otherwise. Free kick. Is handling the ball in the box area a a penalty? The why didn't we get one on Saturday? We weren't good enough from day one and the rest was inevitable.

Until the governing bodies get their act together on rules and the FA put someone in charge with some passion and commitment we will get nowhere as a national side. And the standard of football from our overpaid, over-rated stars will have to improve by a mile. I'm no pessimist and cheered them on as loud as anyone, but it was nervous cheering in the dark to keep the bogeymen away. We were always going to lose against better footballers. It's just the blatent cheating that now rules the game that wound me up.

[Raven]

Football is an industry.

It's just the blatent cheating that now rules the game that wound me up.

I'm afraid that too is what makes me switch off and go do summat else, which I have done a lot during this world cup. I watched out FRT match against Torquay the other morning, no one moaned about the heat that day, players were not all running off every minute to get a drink and what happened when Thommo got a light tap in the mush? He carried on no rolling around etc.

Footballs almost turned into Wrestling with all the play acting etc, the result will soon be fixed!

[Raven]

Sven stayed about one tourney too long. Injuries plagued this team, but his inability to adapt to it cost us dearly. Many wanted Bechkham out, but at least he contributed. (Also stepped down with class, allowing us to focus on the next 2-4 years properly) The 4 strikers with 2 of them injured, not playing 1 of them, and not dropping Lampard where the major mistakes.

Not sure about the stepping down with class, call me cynical but he may have done it before he was pushed and once again he once got all the media focused on him!! I may be ultra cynical but he may also be a good actor

And before you all shout I was about the only I know defending him when he got sent off against Argentina!

[Crouch > Davies]

Very odd feeling this. It doesn't take a genius to work out that we weren't good enough, but the way we went out was a sickener.

The whole team was too deep - we didn't take the game to them enough. Lampard and Gerrard were still too deep. Whether or not that's down to Sven or not is a different matter, we'll never know.

The sending off was a disgrace. He was sent off for the shove. The ref (who was a clueless nice person more or less from start to finish) sent Rooney off for the shove. Watching the BBC replay, he has his arm pointing for a Portugal free kick (which is a joke as it was Rooney being fouled). This is after the stamp has taken place. IE the Argentinian bellend has missed it.

Then, enter the imitation Ronaldo. Rooney didn't even push him, it was barely a love tap. And then out comes the card. Rooney is an idiot for giving him an excuse to get on TV, but it was still an awful decision.

If the red was for the stamp, fine. But it wasn't. And therefore we've been robbed. Again.

And from then on we were up against it. Enter the big feller, who did well holding the ball up, slowing the game down, giving us a rest and enabling us to push out. We could have won it - Joe Cole blazed over when we had 11 on the field, and John Terry was so close to winning it late on.

The penalties... were poor. Lampard's and Gerrard's were too close to the keeper, quite simply. Carra's was a great pen - until the pinickity ref made him retake it. Let's be honest, Ricardo had the measure of all our takers. It was a typically crushing blow that C Ronaldo scored the winning penalty...

It was there for us to win, and we've blown it. And to be fair, it was also blown for us as well.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Sven stayed about one tourney too long. Injuries plagued this team, but his inability to adapt to it cost us dearly. Many wanted Bechkham out, but at least he contributed. (Also stepped down with class, allowing us to focus on the next 2-4 years properly) The 4 strikers with 2 of them injured, not playing 1 of them, and not dropping Lampard where the major mistakes.

Who was the last England boss to lead us to three successive quarter-finals on foreign soil? Let's not go pretending we're any better than we actually are, or that international football means as much as it used to.

No, Sven underachieved, no doubt. Errors, in order:
1. Abandonment of meritocracy. You say you're fit, David/Michael/Sol/Stevie? You're in.
2. Tactical paralysis. Although the knee-jerk switch to a half-arsed 4-5-1 (in order to accommodate point 1) was no better.
3. Four strikers isn't enough for any squad, given that you need a wild-card last-ditch option. Four strikers of whom two are injured, one encourages long-ball football and one's never played top-level football, that's just idiocy.

[americantrotter]

International Football means a little less to me now that the wanderers are in the Prem. They are highly visible and I get to watch most matches on TV. That's been the major difference for me. In 98 I had to wait until September and the Euro Qualifiers to watch a team I liked on TV over here.

[Gertie]

Sven stayed about one tourney too long. Injuries plagued this team, but his inability to adapt to it cost us dearly. Many wanted Bechkham out, but at least he contributed. (Also stepped down with class, allowing us to focus on the next 2-4 years properly) The 4 strikers with 2 of them injured, not playing 1 of them, and not dropping Lampard where the major mistakes.

Not sure about the stepping down with class, call me cynical but he may have done it before he was pushed and once again he once got all the media focused on him!! I may be ultra cynical but he may also be a good actor

And before you all shout I was about the only I know defending him when he got sent off against Argentina!

I think this is a bit harsh. IMO Beckham realised that he wasn't doing a good job the media were slating him so why not resign in a dignified manner?? Rather than screaming, "No, no, no you b'strds aren't taking it off me" and cling on to the armband. I believe it was better for him to choose the time. Father than going through the media calling for him to be stripped of the capitancy and then having to relinquish it.

I think sometimes Beckham is an easy target, brought on by himself more often than not, but I believe that he cared about England passionately, I don't believe he is an actor I geniuenly believe he isn't manipulative enough for that.

I'm just a bit sad that instead of accepting his decision and remembering the good things he did for the team it's all about how rubbish he was - can't we focus on any positives?????

Anyways end off now, it's in the past and perhaps I'm to naive to notice that I'm being hoodwinked by an evil twisted genius. It's possible

[Raven]

Ah but I don't do positives I only do cynicism, sarcasm and negativity

But I do it well.

[Le Snake]

I'm afraid Sven's record speaks for itself.

International managers are judged by their successes in the major tournaments. With that in mind, 3 tournaments; 3 quarter-finals exits (and some fairly pathetic capitulations), achieved with a pool of players with enough quality to - given the correct coaching and tactics - have won any of them, then you're right. His record does speak for itself.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I'm afraid Sven's record speaks for itself.

International managers are judged by their successes in the major tournaments. With that in mind, 3 tournaments; 3 quarter-finals exits (and some fairly pathetic capitulations), achieved with a pool of players with enough quality to - given the correct coaching and tactics - have won any of them, then you're right. His record does speak for itself.

Again, I'm not saying he was the greatest coach ever, and he should have done more with the players at his disposal, but three successive quarter-finals on foreign turf is unparalleled success for England. Let's not get carried away just because we have a highly televised domestic league and one of its (largely foreign-staffed) clubs somehow won the European Cup the other year...

[americantrotter]

Sven stayed about one tourney too long. Injuries plagued this team, but his inability to adapt to it cost us dearly. Many wanted Bechkham out, but at least he contributed. (Also stepped down with class, allowing us to focus on the next 2-4 years properly) The 4 strikers with 2 of them injured, not playing 1 of them, and not dropping Lampard where the major mistakes.

Not sure about the stepping down with class, call me cynical but he may have done it before he was pushed and once again he once got all the media focused on him!! I may be ultra cynical but he may also be a good actor

And before you all shout I was about the only I know defending him when he got sent off against Argentina!

I think this is a bit harsh. IMO Beckham realised that he wasn't doing a good job the media were slating him so why not resign in a dignified manner?? Rather than screaming, "No, no, no you b'strds aren't taking it off me" and cling on to the armband. I believe it was better for him to choose the time. Father than going through the media calling for him to be stripped of the capitancy and then having to relinquish it.

I think sometimes Beckham is an easy target, brought on by himself more often than not, but I believe that he cared about England passionately, I don't believe he is an actor I geniuenly believe he isn't manipulative enough for that.

I'm just a bit sad that instead of accepting his decision and remembering the good things he did for the team it's all about how rubbish he was - can't we focus on any positives?????

Anyways end off now, it's in the past and perhaps I'm to naive to notice that I'm being hoodwinked by an evil twisted genius. It's possible

I will always respect Beckham for what he did for us. That and the fortitude it took to recover from his foolish mistake in France. He will always be a legend in my eyes. He always tried and it looked to me like he always cared.