A truly fun day of football yesterday. It started with my final game for my team here on a beautiful grass pitch and we beat the team that knocked us out of the cup during the season 5-1. It was just a bit hot though but my central defensive partner is even older than me so I figure if he can keep going so can I. He did score a good penalty though which is rather unusual because he’s English.
So then we went to watch England v Portugal in a pub full of English men. Sven played 4-5-1 and England never really looked threatening but did enough to suggest that with someone up front to partner Rooney they might have broken down the Portuguese.
Then Rooney’s moment of madness saw him get a red card. He quite clearly stamped on Ricardo Carvalho’s bollocks with the referee right beside him. Now, I know most of us would stamp on that cunt’s bollocks if we had the chance but we might wait until the ref was further that 3 feet away. Some people are suggesting that Cristiano Ronaldo is at fault in some way but the fact is if Rooney had been able to not behave like a thug England might have won it.
Credit to England in that it never looked like Portugal had an extra man for the rest of the game and whole of extra time but then it came to penalties. Lampard was always going to miss, he’s been rubbish the whole tournament. Steven Gerrard missed and Jamie Carragher, who it seems was brought on specifically to take a penalty, also missed and not only did they miss their penalties were crap. God knows what they were practicising. The only one to score was a Canadian and the fact that Hargreaves was England’s best player on the day says it all for me.
Sven now leaves with a massive payoff having contributed massively to England’s failure. Why did he bring Walcott if he was never going to play him? Why did he play 4-5-1 when he had two strikers on the bench and when that system negates everything that’s good about Rooney. The fact that Steve McLaren, Sven’s right hand man, is taking over does not bode well for England in the future.
In the late game France beat Brazil thanks to a Thierry Henry goal. At first I thought i was dreaming because Henry never scores in big games if you listen to some people. He did though and a very nice goal it was too although where the Brazil defence were is a big question.
In terms of performance the French deserved it and Brazil have shown nothing this tournament to suggest they could have won the tournament.
“They always start slowly”. Bah. They played a unfit, fat cunt up front. What did they expect? He got a couple of goals against Japan but then so did Tim Cahill. As for the supposed best player in the world Ronaldinho, well, he’s up there with Lampard in the World Cup duffers XI. He did nothing. I suppose it’s not all his fault. At Barcelona he has the very mobile Eto’o to play with. For Brazil it’s a fat, semi-retired fool who won’t move for him. There was no magic from him to make up for it though and I’m glad to see this Brazil team go home.
So the four semi-finalists are European. Italy play Germany. France take on Portugal. It’s hard to know where to put your money.
In Arsenal news, there isn’t any. Ashley Cole comes home, for now. Gilberto comes home, Sol Campbell will make his way to Portsmouth and Theo Walcott will get a few minutes on the pitch with Arsenal. Till tomorrow.
