England vs Croatia: Why Revenge is a Silly Idea

September 9th, 2009 | by: Daryl |

Apologies for the relative lack of coverage on England WCB this week. To be honest I’ve been mostly frustrated by what I see as pointless pointless debates.

The mini-campaign to have Jermain Defoe start up front instead of Emile Heskey struck me as idiotic, and had me wondering whether to blame the media for fanning the flames, or the general public for even considering the possibility. Final nail in the coffin was when I heard a bloke on Talksport say “Dee-Foe-Ay” should definitely start because “he knows where the goal is”. Come on England fans, we’re better than that aren’t we? And we finally have an England team that works as a unit, and Emile Heskey is a huge part of that.

Similarly, the talk of England taking “revenge” for Croatia beating us in 2007 seems a little silly. Croatia didn’t cheat us or wrong us during Euro 2008 qualification. They just beat us, because that was what they needed to do to qualify. Beating Croatia tonight won’t retroactively qualify us for Euro 2008.

But it will send us to World Cup 2010, and that’s all that matters.

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andrew charlton

You are wrong. Croatia needed nothing from the game in 2007, they had already qualified. When England drew back to 2-2, they had no reason to attack and score their third goal, other than to knock us out of the tournament. That is why the team came out at half-time tonight with revenge in mind to hammer this team until it became a joke.
zac

Sorry Andrew, but professional sports is not a gentlemen’s agreement to ease up when it would benefit your opponents. Not to go all Herm Edwards or anything, but you play to win the game.
http://england.worlcupblog.org Daryl

Andrew’s right that Croatia were already qualified when they played us at Wembley. But I was also referring to the fact that they beat us 2-0 in Croatia (remember the Paul Robinson miskick disaster).