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The Sweden Match: First Takes

June 20th, 2006 | By: Shawn | 13 Comments »

For 45 minutes, I thought I might have a happy post ahead of me…

Minutes? Make that seconds.

In the 54th second of the match, Michael Owen twisted his knee without any contact from a Swedish player and had to crawl off the pitch. When the English physio came over to straighten his leg, Owen’s head sprang up from its prone position as ifhe’d been shocked with a cattle prod. Not good. Not good at all. I don’t know a thing about medicine, but I would be very surprised to see him play again in this tournament.

Anyhow, the remainder of the half represented the best football England have played in this World Cup. A solid back line, good distribution through the middle, the vitalizing presence of Wayne Rooney doggedly chasing balls through the box and making chances out of nothing, and JoCo consistently creative on the left.

Yes, Beckham was disappeared (including on set pieces) and Frank Lampard still can’t find the face of the goal, but it was a vigorous, lively display, capped by JoCo’s astounding goal — chest to foot to keeper’s fingertips to upper right post from about 30 yards.

So, the injury to Owen aside, good half.

Then the ugly half came. Up to the 50th minute, England was the only team that hadn’t allowed a goal yet into its third match (Ecuador and Sweden also began the day with clean sheets for the tournament). That was changed by an attrocious job of marking on a corner kick (Beckham was nowhere near his man) and a slow and useless reaction by Paul Robinson.

For the rest of the half, Sweden seemed by a large measure the more determined side. Their corners and crosses into the box were sufficiently promising that Sven replaced Rio Ferdinand with Sol Campbell, and England devolved at times into kick-and-chase defense that simply resulted in renewed Swedish attack. As for the English attack, Beckham continued to be ineffectual at set pieces, and neither Rooney nor Peter Crouch had any notions.

The second English goal resulted again from a nice bit of work from JoCo, this time from the unaccustomed right side — a perfect cross into space which Steven Gerrard smashed in.

But barely five minutes later the emotional lift that the Lions should have enjoyed off that goal was squandered when a throw-in from — oh, let’s call it 35 yards — cleared useless leaps by John Terry and Sol Campbell, wobbled toward Robinson, who failed to lunge for it, and was toed rather weakly past Ashley Cole, who was…I don’t know, you tell me what he was doing…

Sigh.

And sigh again.

This isn’t world-beating form, folks, against a Swedish side without Ibrahimovich or, for lengthy spurts, much pop. England’s defending of set pieces was appalling, and once again its goals came from outside the box, in effect, with no sense of creative motion on the ball save JoCo and, in flashes, Rooney.

Past Ecuador — and that’s a big ‘if’ right now — lies the winner of 1D (Argentina or Netherlands) vs. 2C (Portugal or Mexico). That could be England’s final right there, if the way they played today is a true measure of the squad.

But, as I say it was a match of two halves: a solid one and a weak one — unfortunately in that order. So maybe Sven can remind the team of those first 45 minutes and build on them. I want to be hopeful that it can be so, at any rate.

As for individual performances:

Man of the Match = JoCo: a goal, an assist, drew two yellows and kept alive many forward thrusts. Especially if Lil’ Mick is gone, he is essential.

Defenders & keeper:
Robinson was awful — got near neither Swedish goal; Terry, Campbell and Carragher were adequate but not great, while Ashley Cole disappeared at a crucial late moment (he gets some credit, though, for clearly calling the linesman a “fucking wanker” after being called for handling). I don’t know why Sven chose to pull Rio, because I don’t remember him doing anything much one way or another; maybe that was the issue…

Midfield:
Owen Hargreaves was active all match and earned his spot. Lampard still can’t find his touch, but I still rate him above Beckham, who had a completely lackluster performance.

Forwards:
Gerrard was an inspired choice to replace Rooney and proved it with his thudding header. Rooney acted his usual spoilt, ill-bred self in being replaced, but the truth is he only showed a few moments of real flair and contributed less and less as the game wore on. I expect him to improve, though. Crouch wasn’t supposed to play as much as he did, and he showed why — he had a couple open-field dribbles that were impressive in a kind of nature film way, but absent any dreadlocked Swedes to foul by tugging their hair, he was never a threat to score.

I was hopeful and gladdened for 45 minutes, I truly was. But I’m pretty much back at this moment where I was this morning: dubious, nervous, suspicious and wincing as if about to be struck a blow.

Tags: England, Group B, Sweden

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Comments

By mcthingy2 | June 21st, 2006 at 12:39 am

Excellent first half from Der Englanders. As a Scot living in California (and about to withdraw my support, giving how baleful their football had been – not that you’d care) I was delighted that the English had started to pass and play like they can. Joe Cole was excellent and the goal was a cracker.

Can’t quite figure out what happened in the second half. Sweden only threatened on set pieces but what a threat it was — the English defense was horrible against the high ball…..which is on reflection pretty ridiculous.

Gerrard’s goal was a beaut, what a chip from Cole. But Sweden deserved at least a point for making a game of it.

I’m not a pessimistic about England going past the quarters if they can repeat their first half…..

Posted from United States

By mek | June 21st, 2006 at 12:44 am

I think your take on it is pretty much on the button. The only possible saving grace can be that he took off Rooney because he was tired (I thought that was the point)… but as soon as he did England were pretty dreadful.

Quite why he didn’t have the bottle to bring on Walcott for Owen is beyond me. Well… because he didn’t really want to face Germany… but what did Crouch actually do?

Plus side… Owen Hargreaves was very good. With Michael Owen out (seemingly) for the tournament it seems obvious that England are 4-5-1 bound… and I think that is good… maybe now Lamps and Gerrard can find a formula. In fact with Cole, Lamps and Stevie G any formation can be achieved from 4-5-1 to 4-2-4 with ease.

This is the way forward… our best goal scorer is out of it… well our best 4 midfielders are 4 of the top 10 in the world IMO.

Let’s face it… every WC there is an injury disaster… this time it’s Owen. The difference between now and at any point over the last 38 years is that we have serious quality all over the park.

Then again it isn’t their class I question… it’s their desire. Today they looked lazy at the end… lazy or tired. If they look lazy at the end of a draw in a knockout match I will personally kick their arses.

Posted from United Kingdom

By mek | June 21st, 2006 at 12:47 am

shawn… u got it on the button for the most part… but really… Rooney isn’t there to score goals like Owen… he’s there to create football between the midfield and attack… but ALSO there to create pressure on the opposition defence… and Crouch does not do that.

Rooney consistently makes almost chances from nothing, and that makes the opponents scared to play. Sweden loved it as soon as he went off.

Posted from United Kingdom

By Owen | June 21st, 2006 at 2:15 am

Shawn – first off, thanks for all the work – you guys have been great.

Now on to how wrong you are!

I sort of agree but I think you have fallen into the trap almost all the media are falling into – that the ‘top’ team ought to be soundly beating the ‘underdog’ and that not playing well has nothing to do with the opposition. Sweden was always going to be a tough match – they REALLY didn’t want to lose to England today – more to keep that 38-year record than anything I think. And they were raging mad at the end of the first half – irritated, annoyed and furious (just had to see Ljundberg and Larsson to know that) because they could feel it slipping away. They came out with renewed strength to get an equalizer (probably after a pep talk that pointed out that they had somehow managed to keep out about 12 good England attacks). In contrast Sven undoubtedly said – ’steady as she goes – we can’t afford more injuries or yellow cards’ so they were OK with a draw once Owen was hurt.

Yes Roinson played badly and the defending wasn’t the best. I thought I heard that Ferdinand came out for a knock – a wise decision especially since Campbell could use the match practice.

I was only puzzled by putting Gerrard back in for Rooney – why not Walcott or Downing or Lennon?

Posted from United States

By Shawn | June 21st, 2006 at 2:25 am

Mek: something funny is going on here with your posts: they all get flagged as potential spam and I have to approve them (which I happily do, mate!). Anyhow, maybe you can create a second identity using a different e-mail/IP address? Just a thought.

Owen: You’re exactly right. I didn’t say nearly enough about Sweden’s ferocity. But I wasn’t really focused on them, frankly, for my purposes here. That said, they never stopped clawing their way back in — coming back twice from a goal down in the second half and threatening for many minutes at a time (that last goal came on the end of a string of — what? 4? 5? — corners and set-pieces). Good on ‘em, and if we don’t see ‘em again until the final I’ll be satisfied!

Posted from United States

By Diego | June 21st, 2006 at 3:38 am

Errr, nobody saw that hand of God play by #15 before the ball was deflected into the crossbar?
I’m not the only one!

Posted from United States

By ricardo | June 21st, 2006 at 12:02 pm

know what i’m doing if i’m Ecuador’s manager in the next round. Pretty much every corner and free kick looked in danger of going in for sweden.
Where does this vulnerability come from? If anything England were the kings of set-pieces before the world cup started and now it looks as if they’re extremely vulnerable in those situations.

Posted from Netherlands

By Disasterplan | June 21st, 2006 at 2:54 pm

We’re being a bit hard on poor Robbo. He made a mistake with the first goal, but that was all-round poor organisation at the back and many others were also to blame.

Robbo was not at fault at all for the second goal – him, Ashley Cole and Hargreaves all waited for Judas, who made a very poor attempt at an overhead clearance and cost us the win.

Yes, I’m a Tottenham fan. But I’m defending our keeper because he did the right thing with that second goal. And I do believe Carrick would have done 328472 times better than Hargreaves. Lennon or Walcott would have done better up front than Crouch.

On the flipside, I hate Chelsea but JoCo was our MOTM. He wasted a few balls with his predictable cut-inside-on-30-yards-and-try-it-with-my-right move, but he generally worked well down the left with his namesake. Now if only they could do that down the right with Lennon and Beckham like they did against T&T…

Posted from Australia

By SoCal | June 21st, 2006 at 6:22 pm

McThingy2, I too live in California and I support Germany. Feel free to join in.

Posted from United States

By mekko | June 22nd, 2006 at 11:23 pm

shawn… that possible spam thing comes from the italian board where they are allowed to say England fans are animals but you’re not allowed to say that Italian women have moustaches… idiots.

So it’s owen who bites the bullet in the thin red line… there’s always one… poor bugger =/

Posted from United Kingdom

By JohnC | June 22nd, 2006 at 11:53 pm

Did I imagine it or did Frank Lampard not look too happy when Gerrard scored?

I hope not as this could be an indication that all is not well in the England dressing room.

I haven’t got the game taped so I haven’t seen it again but my impression at the time was that Lampard looked less than happy when the goal celebration took place.

By Shawn | June 23rd, 2006 at 3:02 am

Mekko:

I’m pretty sure that the posts are being flagged because your e-mail address looks like spam or because your IP address is somehow fishy.

You don’t wind up in my spam pile but in my waiting-for-approval pile.

Anyways….

Posted from United States

By mek | June 23rd, 2006 at 3:31 pm

shawn… this is a public access point internet connection… i have no control over the IP… i don’t think i can do anything aobut the waiting to be approved thing, sorry =/

Posted from United Kingdom

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