England 2-2 Czech Republic - Is the Honeymoon Over for Fabio Capello?

August 20th, 2008 | By: Daryl | 4 Comments »

So England drew 2-2 at the home of expensive hamburgers tonight, but only thanks to an injury time equalizer that might possibly be the worst goal ever in the history of the world.

Football fans avert your eyes:

And there’s a very definite feeling in the air that Fabio Capello’s honeymoon as England manager is over. It started with appointing Terry as captain, got worse with the Ashley-Young-less squad and was possibly confirmed tonight with an abject and inept performance.

It was all the usual England failures: the lack of a cutting edge in attack, no pace out wide, a higher than reasonable number of misplaced passes, lots of pointless punts at goal from far too far away. They knew it was Petr Cech in goal and not Paul Robinson, right?

And - worst of all - big name players who didn’t really need to be there while more exciting talent sat it out.

Wayne Rooney ran his heart out, but clearly isn’t fit enough or sharp enough. There was no need for him to play. And David Beckham, a couple of decent corners aside, was his usual frustrating self, pinging long balls to Czech defenders. There was definitely no need for him to travel 6,000 miles just to do that.

It’s not clear exactly when some fresh English talent is going to be given a go. This was the final friendly before World Cup qualification, and Gabby Agbonlahor was left in the under-21s while Ashley Young was ignored and David Bentley got about eight minutes tonight. And Theo Walcott? Promoted from the under-21s and left to rot on the bench. Genius Fabio, genius.

Tags: Ashley Young, David Beckham, Fabio Capello, Friendlies, Joe Cole, Theo Walcott, Wayne Rooney

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Comments

By Michel-Olivier | August 20th, 2008 at 7:05 pm

england stop playing long balls. three different coaches and same tactics.
if capello wants to play stevie g and lamp at the same time he should play 4-1-4-1

—-same back four—-
–carrick/hargreaves—
gabby-stevie-lamp-young
——rooney——-

england need pace if they want to compete against holland, argentina, spain, germany, turkey, russia….

Posted from United States

By j | August 20th, 2008 at 10:28 pm

You were far too kind. What precisely is the motivation of that lineup in a friendly. The draw was flattering to say the least and that gave you no indication they could even remotely threaten for World Cup spot, although they could do well as a Masters tournament.

Posted from Bulgaria

By http://soccerfanbase.com | August 21st, 2008 at 6:21 am

The problem of England has always been that of ego, the players are way overrated and the media does not help. They put too much hope and expectation on the players which is not so good. it is high time England started realising that they are not in the class of Argentina, Brazil, Italy, France, Spain and the rest of the big boys. if England must do well in a major champions the media needs to shut up for once and let the players play with some unncessary burden

all football fans are invited to join http://soccerfanbase.com today for the best of football news update and forum discussion

By Rob | August 21st, 2008 at 7:25 am

MY answer tactically is 532. I think we have good wingbacks (micah richards and ashley cole would be my picks) who would provide attacking width, and then if the two strikers were, say Roo and Gabby Agbonlahor, then they drop wide now and then anyway. Plus Theo Walcott. In midfield I think Lamaprd and Gerrard would be fine together if they had a holding midfielder - say, Hargreaves or Carrick or Barry, who we need defensively anyway.

However whether that would get the overrated buggers to actually play well is anyone’s guess.

Comments are closed