With a fantastic show by the GB Team at the Beijing Olympics drawing to a close, and Kevin Pietersen offering a much needed boost as the new England Cricket captain and all-round cricket messiah (even though he’s actually South African), it’s a shame a similar lift hasn’t been forthcoming from the England football team.
England Manager Fabio Capello and Captain John Terry both faced the music with varying degrees of honesty after England’s abysmal display in a 2-2 draw with the Czech Republic last Wednesday evening at Wembley Stadium.
On paper, a 2-2 draw with one of the best teams in the world doesn’t look too bad. But the truth is the England performance, in their fifth and final international friendly under the leadership of Fabio Capello, was very disappointing. Though the Czech Republic must be wondering how they drew the game.
Second half substitue, Joe Cole scored one of the scrapiest England goals I can ever remember seeing, to save Capello from another defeat. But the team selection and tactics were a repeat of England’s most disappointing defeat against Croatia last year which resulted in Steve McLaren losing his job and England failing to qualify for this summer’s exciting Euro 2008 Championship.
According to the official FIFA rankings England are 14th in the world. The rankings are awarded by a points’ structure of games won and competition results; and of the 13 teams above England I am only surprised to see Romania in 11th place.
The teams in order are: Spain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Croatia, Brazil, Argentina, Czech Republic, Portugal, Russia, Romania, France and Turkey. Like me, you may question why the perennial underachievers (along with England), Netherlands, are in fourth place.
Just below England are the likes of Cameroon, Sotland, Bulgaria, Greece, Ghana, Israel and Egypt.
Considering the very limited success England has achieved in international football to date it is clear to see that a points based system that doesn’t take into consideration that England created the game of football, Wembley is “the home of football”, the so-called “golden generation”, the players superstar status, their wage demands, their gorgoeus-looking girlfriends and the overblown problematic egos of the top English players, then yes, it all makes sense. The England football team are about as good as Cameroon but not quite as good as Turkey.
You can buy football tickets for the Premier League and all home international games from Viagogo.
UK Sports Tickets
As the Olympics draws to a close the focus for British sports fans will turn to rugby and cricket. RBS Six Nations tickets and ICC World Twenty20 tickets are available on the Viagogo website.
1 comment so far
1 Media Training // Aug 25, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Once England realise they are not the football power they think they are then they will move forward.
Most of the Premiership is full of excellent forgien players and your Lampards, Gerrards and Rooney’s all get used to playing with pacy and creative players. When in the England team this doesn’t happen and they look rather pedestrian.
Also why does Capello insist on still playing Beckham – its very odd.