FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now!
OK, so that”s what the World Cup is all about!
What a nailbiting end to both the England and USA games! Couldn’t ask for more drama.
Trust the “Golden Boy” Landon Donovan to score the most important goal in U.S. soccer history. If the USA had not qualified for the next round, they would have returned home and they would have simply been forgotten about and US soccer would have taken a massive step backwards.
Instead, the country is now a buzz talking about this fantastic result and achievement and rightly so. US Soccer is now respected around the world and justice was done. By winning this game, that sent the Slovenian team home and was payback for the disallowed goal against them. KARMA!
As for England, I knew we were going to win within the first 5 seconds of the match. Instead of the softly softly approach, thinking we are technically adept and clever, we started the game in good old English fashion by going at them straight from the kick off. I think for 70 minutes we were magnificent. Then. as the last 20 minutes of the game came about, the players started to get a little nervous and started thinking too much and started to over play and play too cautiously and even too timidly. This allowed Slovenia back in the game and resulted in a real tense finish.
Lesson to be learned….have the English team think they are playing a Premiership game on a Saturday afternoon. Tell them to go out there, “get stuck in” and play to our strenghts, swashbuckling in your face soccer. Forget the clever stuff, forget the tactical stuff, play like we know how and take it to ‘em. That’s our formula for success.
Let me know your thoughts on these two games and also tell us all how you would approach the games against Germany and Ghana.
Let’s Talk Soccer!
This entry was posted on 
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 at 6:05 pm and is filed under 
Pro Soccer, Uncategorized.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can 
leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
18 Responses to “FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now!”
Leave a Reply
[...] Visit link: FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now! [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by GOOD FOOD Billy, Sarah Mulford and Jihad Jane-Brûlée, Paul Walmsley. Paul Walmsley said: Just posted my thoughts on the USA and England World Cup games at http://bit.ly/96qHp0 [...]
[...] FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now! [...]
[...] is the original:
[...] See the article here: FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now! [...]
[...] FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now! [...]
[...] FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now! [...]
[...] FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now! [...]
[...] FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now! [...]
[...] FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now! [...]
nice post. thanks.
Good post ! I’m not sure that the “up and at ‘em” approach is right, but I also have a concern that the England players, collectively,don’t have the guile, creativity and understanding to do much else with any great success.
As you say, with a 1-0 lead, entering the last quarter of the game, they tend to get trepidatious and start to defend deeper – seeking to ‘just clear’ the ball rather than seeking to retain it and take the initiative.
I think it is important to play to your strengths and if you are going to get beaten, at least do so by being true to yourself.
I recall reading in Sven Goran Eriksson’s book that teams lose initiative because, although they WANT to win, they are too afraid to lose, to make the ‘courageous’ statements in the game – the fear of losing leads to just that.
I personally believe that there is too much wrong with the way the English play soccer (or, more accurately, develop young players so that they can play a more expansive game when they are adults)to enable us to make the final.
We are linear, predictable and too easy to negate for really talented players. There are already teams who have exited the tournament whose movement, control and technical ability I admire over our own team.
Until the majority of grassroots (some already do and are making great strides) of the game realise, or are forced to change, that it is more beneficial to continue developing players than trying to set up 11 year olds to win games, then I fear we are doomed to a lack of top international honours for our national team.
English teams do well in the Champions League, but our teams are peppered with more competent continental players.
A Dutchman once told me that if we can ever combine the technical dexterity of the Dutch with the never say die attitude of the English, no other international side will be able to touch us !
Having said all that, I hope we go for it from the off and keep going for it, because I don’t think we know any other way !
[...] FIFA World Cup really cooking on gas now! [...]
Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!
Hai friend This is very nice news LOL. Do u like watch worldcup 2010 ? I love Portugal . How about you admin ? Regards admin of http://www.worldcupmoments.org
Hi buddy, your blog’s design is simple and clean and i like it. Your blog posts are superb. Please keep them coming. Greets!!!
My favorite team is England. I also support the USA. I tipped Argentina to win it before the tournament started and I always look out for Holland.
Wow, you’ve covered a lot of different points there and obviously given your comments a lot of thought, thank you.
I agree that we are not where we need to be technically and we should recognize this and play to our strengths. Even though English football is not the most skillful it does have its strengths and that is what we should play to. Each player should be told to just go out there and think that they are playing a Premier League game on a Saturday afternoon in November.
Take the game to the Germans, put them on the back foot from the kick off, play with the intensity and speed of a regular Saturday game and make the Germans adjust to this tempo. If we try to go out there and play technical football, knock the ball around, keep posession, the Germans will win the game.
We can discuss your other points re grassroots etc after the tournament.
Thanks again for the post, I am really impressed by your depth of knowlege.