U-21 Final: England 0-4 Germany (That Definitely Could Have Gone Better)

June 29th, 2009 | by: Daryl |

Yep, the U-21s lost the Euro 2009 final 4-0 to Germany in Malmo.

Not a very impressive performance, and all we can do is wonder what might have been had Joe Hart, Fraizer Campbell and Gabby Agbonlahor been available. But can’t complain. If those players had been more disciplined, then they would have been less suspended.

Here’s the team, from theFA.com match report :

22 Scott Loach, 2 Martin Cranie (8 Craig Gardner, 79), 4 Lee Cattermole, 6 Nedum Onuoha (18 Michael Mancienne, 46), 7 James Milner, 10 Mark Noble (c), 11 Adam Johnson, 12 Fabrice Muamba (15 Jack Rodwell, 77), 14 Theo Walcott, 17 Micah Richards, 19 Kieran Gibbs

Sad end to a good run, but still a tournament to be proud of. And plenty of hope for the future. The likes of Hart, Milner, Walcott ad Agbonlahor (and maybe Richards too) can expect to be involved with the seniors again next season, and call-ups can’t be too far away for Onouha and Noble either. The future is bright, even if the final wasn’t.

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Nick

England had a good run, though I think Milner, Noble, and Richards are the only ones of the lot to come out with any real credit from the tournament.

Even though Joe Hart is good he was never really tested during the tournament. I suppose he couldn’t have saved any of those goals England conceded throughout the tournament, but that shows that he’s nothing spectacular. He’s just less disastrous than Scott Carson, Scott Loach, or Paul Robinson.

Though come to think of it I didn’t particularly care for Milner’s post-match comments. Maybe he was misquoted, but he was sure England were the best team of the tournament even after conceding 7 goals in the last 2 hours. It’s really this kind of thinking early on that has grought England misfortune decade after decade.

Hey at least Pearce won’t be the next Mcclaren anytime soon!
http://www.worldcupblog.org Daryl

Nick, here’s the only quote I’ve seen from Milner:

“Everyone is hurting and the way we lost the game is not good enough,” said Milner.

“The lads are disappointed, it all comes down to the big games and there are no excuses but hopefully this will make us stronger.

“We expected to put in a performance and it is pointless if we don’t learn from it. It feels worse than two-years ago because it was a final and we wanted to win it.

“We are a very good team but fair play to Germany and they know how to beat the big teams.”

He doesn’t seem the type to say anything offensive, so hopefully whatever you saw was a misquote.

I’d be interested to know… which German players are getting all the credit? Did anyone make a name for themselves in Sweden?
Nick

It was probably a misquote from one of the more “reputable” English papers like the Sun.

Aside from the usual team effort articles Neuer and Özil are rated highly. Also, the three central defenders Boateng, Höwedes, and Hummels are mentioned too and honestly all credit goes to them and I hope they make the senior team very soon.
Arminius

Too bad the English side could not place their strongest team.

Yet Germans were not totally complete in that respect either (Just as an example- I think Marin was very unlucky in this tournament; I think he is a name well worth to remeber for the next few years).

Being German and naturally partial I will say that a ‘complete’ English side would have not suffered such a massive defeat on that day but surely a definite defeat nonetheless. I think so because I believe that the comprehensive technical potential on the German side is somewhat though not massively higher and that the grim determination to prevail on that day was even grimmer than the one in their opponents.