Well, England seem to not want to detract from Wimbledon.
Not out yet though, as they become cheerleaders for Italy.
Two wins by Italy over Costa Rica and Uruguay and England beating Costa Rica, and England, Uruguay and Costa Rica would all finish on 3 points, and it would be onto goal difference, goals scored etc.
Each of these 3 results looks very possible, but the chances of all 3 going the way England need, not great !
I couldn't imagine anything that we deserved less than making the R16. That was a lesson in mediocrity and shows what happens when he hype ourselves against a superior Italy who give us time on the ball, contrary to a more middling Uruguay who actually press the ball and put all of our 'lions' against the walls. As is always the case, nobody had the guts to push themselves off of it.
As a kind of neutral ( really ! ), but generally wanting England to progress, I think that's a bit unfair re implications on attitude.
I think you more nailed it with "mediocrity". This is not a very good side, actually looking better going forward, and some of the younger players will get better. But very lacking in central midfield, needing a midfield powerhouse worker to play alongside Gerrard, but there seems a lack of such players. Henderson was not unworth his place, but it was more by default. And the lack of real quality and options in defense is fairly alarming, I'd say not helped by leaving Ashley Cole at home.
All that said, they have been a bit unlucky to lose both their matches, and to talk about "hype" for just about the most unhyped England team I can recall seems rather strange.
In general, just not god enough, but I saw little lacking in attitude or preparation.
I agree. As always the part played in sport by luck has been completely ignored. England were as good as both Italy and Uruguay, and could easily have come away with 4 or 6 points instead of none.
It's not that I think we have a particularly good team; I don't think that Italy or Uruguay are particularly good either overall, although they do have players who can win matches with a split-second of brilliance.
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"Where Ratty leads - the rest soon follow" (Professor Henry Brubaker - The Institute of Studies)
I agree. As always the part played in sport by luck has been completely ignored. England were as good as both Italy and Uruguay, and could easily have come away with 4 or 6 points instead of none.
It's not that I think we have a particularly good team; I don't think that Italy or Uruguay are particularly good either overall, although they do have players who can win matches with a split-second of brilliance.
Precisely. Italy is a very poor team by their own high standards as their recent results and national press have made abundantly clear. Pirlo is pure class, though. Uruguay are blessed with an outstanding player, but as a team are nothing special, and compared to many of the other South American teams in the competition, or Costa Rica - looked a step slow and without too much creativity.
I believe England's goalkeeper and four "defenders" is, collectively, the poorest we have selected for a major tournament in my memory. And all the warm-up games highlighted their positional insecurities - all 4 defenders have had individual moments of madness, but as a unit they too often failed to adhere to simple positional and event-led do's and don'ts that even schoolboy defenders are taught. They will know this too. Why this happened again and again is baffling, but there simply weren't any obvious alternatives to pick that you could rely on to be any different. This is a weak generation for England defenders. Midfield and upfront, we had no world-beaters, and none really exist in the country sitting at home or on the bench in Brasil.......but we are on a par with many teams out there. Not outstanding, but not poor.
I agree with Ratty that on other days we could be sitting on 6 points from, broadly, the same 2 matches/performances - if luck/breaks had been only slightly different. Small margins. But that shouldn't hide the fact that NONE of the teams in our Group will be troubling the SFs or possibly even make it to the QFs, based on what we have seen so far........if we are honest with ourselves.
We have a poor team and a poor pipeline. There is always hope, but I think that's all there is......
.......but what a wonderful World Cup it has been; loved almost every minute of the football - so different from 4 years ago!
Yes, maybe England were a little bit unlucky to come away with zero points but I thought that, on balance, the slightly better team won on both occasions.
Uruguay perhaps only had one 'inspired' player but he needs a team around him and their work rate and commitment seemed slightly higher. So I don't think England were unlucky, as such.
Overall, for a country of approx. 3.3 million against one of approx. 57 million (no official stats), I thought they did very well.
But yes, I agree with Korriban - an excellent World Cup so far - some really brilliant matches.
Yes, been a tremendous World Cup so far, great atmospheres, big players coming to the party, lesser lights shining too, plenty skill and some rather dodgy defending.
Just hope it can carry on into the knockout stages. Sometimes the World Cup seems to have almost tailed off. But I am pretty optimistic this time.
I did think the supposed difficulty of the England group had been oversold by some. Uruguay were only 5th in South America World Cup qualifying, and went through their becoming pretty traditional play-off, beating Jordan. Italy indeed have not been in great form, and many had limited expectations of them ( though they can surprise ) and Costa Rica, while acquitting themselves well have been maybe helped to look better than they are.
Ratty, I certainly don't think that the part played by luck has been completely ignored, just maybe not fixed on as much as you would probably like :)
Luck does of course play quite a part, but generally the best rise to the top, because they are good enough to overcome the vagaries of any bad luck.
eg. Brazil and Germany in World Cups over the years, Federer and Nadal in tennis Slams.
