Let’s Get Past It, Shall We?

So I’m Scottish and living in California. At the beginning of this World Cup I supported England, trying to do the whole “I’m a grown up Scottish person” thing and rooting for our Southern neighbors. I also thought they had a decent chance of winning the whole thing. Now I’m not so sure on either count.

Firstly they’ve played horribly. It’s excruciating to watch – almost as bad as Scotland (almost). Secondly, if play this bad actually does win the World Cup, it will be the worst thing to happen to the game since Italia ‘90, the nadir of horrific football.

England need to make some hard decisions – ie drop one of either Gerrard, Lampard or (shock) Beckham and bring in some width. Lennon was excellent when he came on. Oh and get rid of little ‘n large up front. Crouch is a numptie and Owen is patently unfit.

Rant over.

lets wait and see, eh – the best IS yet to come…

Whether we’ll get past either the quarters or semis is anyone’s guess, though – tradition can be hard to break!

LET’S GET PAST IT!!!!! Let me tell you something, you don’t understand where we came from, you don’t understand how hard we worked! England struggled, there was a ref who gave us yellow cards for breathing to hard (not to mention he ignored the fouls committed by England), and still our team (T&T) played with class and dignity. Agreed the secong Goal was fair, but had the ref done his job properly, would that have been the senario??? In any event there is a God, and justice is his! So when the English claim they performed well, and you fans celebrate, take sometime and review the match, was it a well-earned victory? As for the ref, God does not sleep!

To clarify the ‘overoptimism’ which some English this year: whatever any individual recent form, this year we have Cole, Lampard, Gerrard, Terry, Beckham, Ferdinand, Owen and Rooney all playing – all of which MOST can agree can show world class form when at their best. The supporting cast are also, individually, better than in many a year.

Dare I say it, an ninth name could be added to our list of ’stars’ – Crouch. hate him or love him, if he scores another handful of goals in the tournament, chances are you WILL be singing his praises…!

9 out of 11 world-class (if only when playing their best?) I’ll take that any day…

Debs:

You’ll get no argument here. But after 24 hours of being angry that T&T were robbed I need to let it go. Particularly because I’m blogging about England! I sincerely hope the Soca Warriors get through to the knock-out stage, and I hope Brent Sancho gets a call-up to the premiereship and absolutely pastes Crouch the next time they meet.

very fair comments all around. I would be more upset on T&Ts behalf if a) they were actually mathematically out and b) they had tried a bit more to actually score.

I have many trini friends strangely enough although not a one was a football fan before a couple of months ago. I would LOVE to see them totally paste Paraguay (nothing much against Paraguay except that that is the result I want) and England totally paste Sweden – which is also as strange since I am of Swedish descent. But Sweden has trash talked and played cynically and has shown us nothing – let T&T have the glory they deserve for the effort!

got to agree on john terry – have been reluctant to give him credit because he plays for chelsea but he’s as good as two decent central defenders put together.

it was strange that rooney didn’t play very well but still gave the whole team more of an edge.

i really don’t like sven much but now that there are no potential repercussions from the FA he seems to have found something of a backbone. If he hadn’t made those substitutions it would have ended 0-0

It’s ok to love Terry and hate Chelsea Owen………..he’s only “following orders” when he plays for Maurinho and that horrible gang, so we should forgive him.

He’s the perfect centre half – hard as nails, aggressive, a winner, dangerous at set pieces, a leader but in the end he’s not a dirty player. And I say this as a forward!!!

Well I am really happy England made it to the next round.
My mumber 2 favourite (My mom is English) .

Can’t you picture Terry in a stiff lobster-back jacket about 250 years ago winning an empire for England? Not that I’m an imperialist. I’m just saying he’s got that kind of grit.

And as for his Chelsea connection, he happens to be home-grown, I’m proud to say.

Shawn, Chelsea supporter and damn proud of it….

Terry’s definitely Rourke’s Drift material Shawn. When I lived in London I used to go and see Chelsea in the Vinnie Jones era. There was a certain frisson of danger going to The Shed as a Scotsman that made for some exciting afternoons.

But I can’t like a team that just outspends everyone and then simply plays efficient football, albeit at an extremely high level. It’s been a revelation seeing how Essien and Robben have performed when out of the Maurinho straight-jacket.

And since you are a long time Chelsea fan (hopefully) you’re not part of the prawn sandwich brigade that I loathe…..you and can remember the days of Vinnie, Stevie Clark and Peter Nicholas, Pat Nevin etc.

I don’t go that far back. I’m a mid-’90s convert to the game (I am a yank, after all). So I recall Gullit and Wise and Zola and Frank Leboeuf and Desailly and the pair of FA cups with pleasure. And I saw John Terry break a tie against Derby with a header in the spring of 2002 in my only chance to visit Stamford Bridge with my sons.

As for the billions I inherited and have been free to spend like Monopoly money for the past couple seasons: who among you would say ‘no, this is bad for the game, take it back’?

(I have developed a thick skin: necessary armor for a Blue these days!)

About the Sweden game, whatever people are saying about “we don’t want 2 play germany” if germany somehow don’t win that game against Ecuador – because they think we’ll be 100% out if we have 2 play them.

Now i can’t for the life of me see the Germans fail to beat Ecuador even though the Ecuadorinas themselves have played well so far.

Now back 2 england, thats what this things for.

Anyway, in regards to the Sweden game, we have 2 play for a win, because a draw for the english media is not good enough, especially after 2 ‘indifferent’ performances.

It’s vital that our boys go and win that final game “possibly” eliminating the Swedes in the process, which is something for sure Sven and the Boys would like to do!

We have to go and win and that game and win it in the style that everyone expects of england.

I expect us to win that game, and do with abit of panache, but Sweden won’t be pushovers and we will have to work at it to win.

I hope that Michael Carrick plays because for England to play well, we need Stevie G and Lamps 2 be at there most effectives, we can’t have the 2 of them dropping deap to get the ball, we need some1 to play in the holding role so they can unleash themsleves fully.

I think Sven can just alter 1/2 positions for that game, maybe he could give Wayne Bridge a chance at left back and give Ashely Cole a rest – although Ashley Cole needs matches so he’ll probs play all the game.

Anyway i think that England have 2 play 2 win, we have 2 set down a marker to other sides that we can do it. Just take a look at what Argentina done 2day that was a mark of intent, we have 2 win that game and win it in style and that will be done!

England to the 2nd round of the Final Tourney and out!! That team may be star studded but man do they look like they lack passion!!

aaron – I’d turn that around – they had plenty of passion – just no skill (or star quality). Unlike say my sort of homeland that had neither…it’s hard to call a phenomenal goal-line clearance passionless – even a hair pulling isn’t passionless – cheating but not passionless

I agree with Shawn’s opening points… yes Crouch’s foul was bad and pretty desparate, and I have great respect for he T & T team and their supporters, but there are fouls all the time in football that go unpunished, just watch the Premiership on any given day! I’m not saying that that means Crouch was in the right but you can’t go all crazy just over one injustice. If that was the only goal of the match then maybe. Also, that was just one lanky man who was desparate to extend his moment in the sun. A little too desparate, but you can’t label England for it. Good luck T & T against Paraguay

I’d like to see Gerrard dropped for the Sweden game (to avoid 2 yellows), Rooney/Owen to start and Hargreaves as holding midfield. Bring on Lennon for Beckham early in 2nd half.

We need to get our passing game going if we want to progress past the play offs and having Crouch on from the start draws us into the long ball nightmare. We also need to play at Premiership pace, which should come naturally against Sweden.

I still have faith but this final group game is our last chance to find our form before it’s too late.

To owen and AD Dennehey,

The England – Sweden game will end up with a low scoring draw. What do you expect from Sven “let’s play it safe” Goran Ericcson?

Let’s not forget the facts that:
1. Sven is Swedish
2. Sven is a ’safety first’ kind of manager, not an adventurous one.

Trinidad Tobago is out because England and Sweden will play a boring draw.

DT, Sven wasn’t playing safe when he took off our right back and dropped Beckham back to bring on Lennon. Although I admit this was out of character.
Also I think Sweden/england do have something to fight for…whoever fancies taking on the hosts in the playoffs, or possibly facing Argentina in the quarters.

face facts. Crouch was terrible in the T&T match… and that scissor kick finish he tried just shows that he has more ego than brains.

Owen missed a sitter… in fact England had several good chances… T&T had one… and i think in the end it smacks of ‘italianism’ to bemoan a lost match that u didn’t really try to score in… even if the first goal was a foul… and as fouls go it was pretty good.

Anyway, England were poor… as they almost invariably are against lower quality opposition (the Jamaica match being a freak)… I expect significant improvement from now on… either that or we can go home, because it’s no fun watching such good players perform so dreadfully.

Money was all

FIFA Vice President Jack Warner, an adviser to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation, said Peter Crouch’s goal against the Soca Warriors in Thursday’s heartbreaking 2-0 loss should not have been allowed by the referee.

Warner said yesterday that Japanese referee Toru Kamikawa will be under investigation by the FIFA Referee’s Committee.

He also suggested that an England win was a more attractive result than a draw.

“I do not know what will happen to him, if anything will happen to him, but what I do know is that he had decided what the result would be,” Warner said in a telephone conversation yesterday afternoon.

Warner revealed yesterday that FIFA— the world governing body for football — normally reviews the performances of its officials after each match.

A disappointed Warner said he is sure that the Japanese official will be made “to pay” for his poor performance during the Trinidad and Tobago and England encounter.

For 82 minutes, Trinidad and Tobago held the 1966 World Cup winners to a goalless draw — until Crouch appeared to “piggy back” defender Brent Sancho to head home a David Beckham’s right side cross. The goal gave England a 1-0 lead. Video and photographic evidence appear to indicate that Crouch pulled Sancho down by his dreadlocks while climbing for the ball. A writer in the Miami Herald said that Crouch used Sancho as a stepladder.

According to Warner, the team’s morale was broken by that goal and England sealed the issue later when Steven Gerrard’s blistering drive to the top left corner made the score 2-0.

“The referee, in my view, was more concerned with the cash value of the England team which included Beckham, Wayne Rooney and so on…which was well over £50 million, rather than doing a proper match,” Warner said.

He described it as a case of a little country like Trinidad and Tobago up against a big nation like England — where TT must always lose. He said it was a very similar situation when Trinidad and Tobago played against Bahrain to qualify for the competition. He pointed out that before he left home, he predicted that the team would have gone on to the second round.

“And we would have done so had we had a proper referee for Thursday’s game,” he said.

The regional football boss also said that he still believed that Trinidad and Tobago would advance to the round of 16 teams, but he said it means that we have got to win against Paraguay on Tuesday.

Mathematically, Trinidad and Tobago’s chance of a quarter-final berth in the World Cup depends on their ability to defeat the South Americans by at least two clear goals in Kaiserslautern — as well as the result of the England/Sweden encounter — from which it is hoped, will finish in a goalless draw.

With the top two teams advancing to the next round, the English are already through to the next stage with six points from two matches. The Swedes got their first win against the Paraguayans and have four points.

Trinidad and Tobago can only reach four points with a win over Paraguay — with goal difference being the only other factor to secure the second place position in group B. Warner was high in praise for the performance of the players — saying they have made him proud. Quizzed as to whether anything special is going to be done for the team, Warner said he had already delivered on all his promises.

He claimed further that it is now up to the Sport Minister and the government of Trinidad and Tobago to present the players with something worthy.

FIFA to Blow Whistle on Referee.

Can The English Continue to Deny?

TT/UK match might be referee’s last

JAPANESE referee Toru Kamikawa may have officiated in his last World Cup match…ever.

This prospect loomed large after his performance in Thursday’s Group B World Cup match between Trinidad and Tobago and England came under increasing fire from football pundits throughout Germany.

So FIFA, the world governing body for football and the organisers of the World Cup Finals have placed Kamikawa on a list of referees whose performance will be reviewed.

This is a clear signal that FIFA is unhappy at the way the Japanese official conducted his duties at the Franken Stadion in Nuremberg as the Soca Warriors conceded two goals in the last seven minutes to lose the match.

His situation was not helped by German television, which mere hours after picked up the foul by lanky England striker Peter Crouch who leapt over the until then impenetrable Trinidad and Tobago defence to break the deadlock in the 83rd minute.

Television replays which were magnified showed Crouch pulling at the dreadlocks of defender Brent Sancho as he jumped to head in the David Beckham cross and despite the protestations of Sancho, referee Kamikawa pointed to the kick-off spot indicating the goal was good.

Also there was much debate here in Frankfurt about the disallowed goal scored by Stern John in stoppage time.

It was a decision, many felt, that should have gone the way of the Warriors but as his decisions throughout the match proved, Kamikawa was not giving anything to the World Cup debutants.

His judgement appeared clouded by the fact that the Trinidad and Tobago team was the smallest nation ever to compete at the World Cup Finals and were rank outsiders especially against a team like England.

Evans Wise, who plays for the Third Division German side came on as a second half substitute and sprinted down the right flank and fed a piercing cross to John in the box who flicked the ball past the England ‘keeper Paul Robinson.

As the Trinidad and Tobago fans rose in delirium to celebrate the historic achievement, referee Kamikawa deflated the football atom bomb with a fierce blast of his whistle.

Trinidad and Tobago fans were also left pondering the decision of the stadium announcer to use the public address system during play.

Announcing “three minutes more” to indicate the period of extra time appeared to have startled Trinidad and Tobago goalkeeper Shaka Hislop just as England midfielder Frank Lampard curled in a left-footer to put his team two-up.

Despite the loss there was a lot of admiration for the Trinidad and Tobago footballers who with a little more luck could have already ensured their place in the round of 16 knockout stage at odds of 1,000 to one.

The results on Thursday meant that the Soca Warriors must defeat Paraguay by two clear goals in their final Group B match in Kaiserslautern and England must beat Sweden in Cologne to achieve the historic feat. Both matches are on Tuesday at the same time.

TORU KAMIKAWA, the Japanese referee who officiated in the England vs Trinidad and Tobago World Cup Football match on Tuesday is to be assessed by the newly set up technical team, that FIFA has put in place for this year’s World Cup.

Kamikawa has been the subject of vexatious conversation among Soca Warrior local fans here and others around the world after his controversial adjudications on the field against the TT Football team on Thursday, resulting in the Warriors receiving five yellow cards in the match as opposed to just one handed to England. But the worst concern was over the reported foul against TT defender Brent Sancho whose dread locks were tugged at by England’s Peter Crouch to elevate himself to an advantage that resulted in England’s first goal in the 83rd minute of the match.

Yesterday Fifa Vice President Jack Warner said:

“It wouldn’t make any sense at this point because it seems the Japanese referee was overawed by the fact that he was supervising a game in which the English players were worth close to $1 billion pounds as opposed to the TT side worth about $20 million (US).”

If Germany lose or draw do England play the bench and use it as a training session? Playing Ecuador should be a lot easier than Germany. Let the Swedes and Germans fight it out pick up a card or two and then we can meet them after a confidence boosting 3/4 nil over Equador..

Man … This is so funny !!!
Million of brits counting those who were unborn at that time are still whining about the “hand of god” 20 years ago. Ohhhh … boy, that must have hurt and it is still bleeding.
And you are asking from the heroic T&T fans to let it go??

Everyone is talking about England cheating, but if their team had won that way you wouldn’t hear a thing! Talking of cheating what about the Argentinian’s amatuer dramatics on the field then?!

To Dt, your quote of:
‘Trinidad Tobago is out because England and Sweden will play a boring draw’

No they are out coz they did’nt win their games.

John Terry, are you judging this based on his performance against an inexistent Paraguay and a harmless T&T. Gee, yeah, he is SO good. I’m sure that’s why Ronaldo sucks these days: he’s got Terry in his head!

LMAO over here! Looking forward to the mediocre Germans ripping holes into the English defense! Deutschland, Deutschland…and England – Germany is probably the only possible constellation, where I’d support the Germans!

LLC: I agree on the T&T issue. They are just harmless. However, you’re wrong on the other subject. People ALWAYS talk about injustice…and not just if it involves England (can we say: egocentric). Example: France’s disallowed goal. it’s in all the newspapers and online news I’ve read so far. So, don’t you get paranoid.

Generally I think: that’s football! The sport lives of a good dive in the penalty box (at the right time, that is…not each single time you get into the box), the hand of god, the Wembley goal. The World Cup and controversy go hand in hand. And it’s good this way. Leave the replays for Ref away, the sensory ball as well. We WANT TO talk, disagree, shout and yell about goals and decisions. That’s part of what makes it the greatest sporting event in the world.

Alex from Argentina, Yea we are still hurting and Yea you are still cheating!

elAdi: I am not paranoid or egocentric, this blog is about England cheating, I was just saying that if it had been TNT say who had pulled David Beckham’s mohican or Harry Kewell pulling Ronaldino’s pony tail, those fans wouldn’t be shouting then would they?!

Harmless? TNT is hardly harmless as they proved it against sweden hittin the bar and england when we were robbed!! but thats football and i dont expect england to win, they only know how to cheat!
it doesnt matter what u ppl think of trinidad, b.c i know how much we were robbed in qualifying and the injustice continues, unfortunalety for england, jack warner is vice president for fifa and the japan ref will never play a fifa game again! rasist or paid of that ref was!

So b.c u say my tnt warriors are harmless that means we must be victims of cheating? against all odds in europe against england and they cheat us, must make the english really proud to know they cant score without cheating!

I thought video evidence was meant to be being trialled at this World Cup.

Crouch’s ‘goal’ should have been disallowed, as the subsequent T&T goal was. I’m not particularly for video evidence in football, but where imbeciles like Crouch are involved (let’s face it, a 5′6″ guy could get up higher, without leverage) there needs to be something to prevent them from doing it again. And where a goal is involved it is only fair that the evidence is used, especially when the foul has been as clear as mud and visible to the entire world. The France game would have ended differently as well, if evidence had been used. Rulings could be made during the match, and up until say 15 minutes after, so that they don’t get in the way of the competition.

Just because the ball hit off Crouch’s head while he was yanking himself up on someone’s ponytail, and the ball lands in the net, Crouch gets hailed a hero…was I watching the same match. Crouch is rubbish.

Message for McThingy2.

There’s nothing childish about any Scot who doesn’t support England. They’re not English! I don’t understand why this question keeps getting banded about because my question would be why should Scots support England?

I’m English but have Scottish friends and I know just how annoying it has been for them having to watch the racist and childish TV programming with the War constantly being dragged up, the anti-German sentiment is very much an English phenomenon and Scotland do not want to be associated with it. My friends had to sit and watch their TVs while some English idiot told them that ‘Scots should support England because our soldiers fought in the war for them’ !!!!!!!!! Being in California means that none of the issues involved with England being in the World Cup actually affect your daily life, kind of prevents you from having any say in who the Scots should support! It doesn’t people’s opinion of the English media that before a ball had even been kicked in this World Cup we had already not only claimed that we were going to win it, but had gone on to create the excuses that we could use when we didn’t win it. Talk about jumping the gun. We’ve had to cheat to get where we are, if we don’t win it it’s because we’re not good enough, not because of the many excuses we’ve got tucked away ready for airing.

I remember when there were European matches that England fans were banned from travelling abroad to because of previous riots. Due to having British passports, a number of Scots ended up not being allowed to go abroad to watch their own teams play.

When tracing back their family trees, many Scots have Irish and Scandinavian ancestry, some have absolutely no English ancestry whatsoever, so surely in sporting competition these people should be supporting Ireland and Norway or whoever.

I don’t know any Scots that have an issue with England or English people, but I do not blame anyone for hating the absolute ignorance and arrogance of the English media and the English football team, they’re not exactly a nice bunch of guys after all. How would you feel if your weekly TV schedule got mucked around because a country you’re not a part of was playing in a football competition? How would you feel if your soldiers were dying abroad, and yet your newspaper’s HEADLINE is that some idiot that slept with an old prostitute has broken his meta-tarsal.

When I go abroad with my Scots friends I notice a distinct difference in the friendliness of foreigners than when I go abroad with an English group. The fact is that we have a fairly bad rep. abroad, especially our football fans, and Scotland often suffer for this despite being a separate country. I think the sooner we wake up to ourselves the better, let’s face it, we have some of our own ‘fans’ booing England, but we expect other countries to support our team!

I go up to Scotland as often as I can because it is a noticeably friendlier place, where shop staff talk to you and have a laugh, and where people say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.

I think that we are the ones that need to grow up. How often does our media slag off the Scottish football team despite the fact that Scotland has a tenth of our population, and there are very few countries smaller than Scotland that are placed higher in the World rankings? Scotland has a majorly different landscape, different imports, exports, education system, economy and a different overall culture. The ONLY similarities between England and Scotland is the language and currency so I think it is time that we truly recognised that and stop caring who Scotland support in what is essentially a game!

We should be concerning ourselves with the fact that there are now English people who do not like to be referred to as English (eg. my boss) because of what being English has come to mean to people. We should be concerned that Scotland, Ireland, Wales..and even the Geordies and Cornish people don’t really want to consider themselves as English. Somehow I suspect that if we were a friendlier nation people would not be so desparate to disassociate themselves from us!