I said yesterday that England needed to produce a credible performance to match the bold claims made by the likes of David James and Joe Cole. They didn’t. What they produced against Germany was as bad if not worse than the display against Algeria. The stats might show that England had more possession and more shots […]
For a group of players that were highly fortunate to make it out of their “easy” group it’s admirable to hear how confident England are ahead of their second round World Cup clash with Germany. First/second/third (delete as applicable) choice goalkeeper David James believes that England are the better team: …I think we’re a better […]
Germany 0 Spain 1 (predicted: 1-2) It could have been a far greater margin in the end but there is no doubt that the most deserving side won it. Germany started brightly and only for Klose and Podolski losing their nerve on seperate occasions in the Spanish box we may have had a very different […]
Semi-finals review Germany 3 Turkey 2 (predicted: 1-0) What a strange game that was. Germany played like absolute no-hopers for 45 minutes and while they improved after the break, they still didn’t look like a team that was ninty minutes away from being European Champions. Meanwhile an understrength Turkey side dominated the first half, went […]
Semi Final 1: Germany v Turkey Apparently Turkey are so short of players they will be bringing in Muzzy Izzet and the bloke who played Roland on Grange Hill. Well, maybe not, but they are rumoured to be considering an outfield position for their third choice goalkeeper since they only have 13 fit players. Volkan […]
Having seen only one full game (Italy v Spain), highlights of another (Germany v Portugal) and none of the other two, I’m not in a position to accurately disect too much of the action from the last eight. Add to that the fact that I predicted none of the games correctly and you have probablby […]
Day 12 review Sweden 0 Russia 2 (prediction: 1-2) We’ve seen some fantastic performances in the competition so far, not least from Spain and the Netherlands, but Russia put in a stunning shift against Sweden to run out comfortable winners. Arshavin and Zhirkov were the star performers, Pavluchenko saving his best performance for tonight too. […]
Day 10 review Austria 0 Germany 1 (predicted: 0-3) The scoreline may not have reflected the German dominance but they were worthy winners against a brave effort from limited Austria. The 10,000 people who signed the petition calling for the nation not to compete and embarrass itself should be the ones left a little red-faced […]
Day 9 review Switzerland 2 Portugal 0 (prediction: 0-2) Luis Felipe Scolari made eight changes to his Portugal team who went down to the proud Swiss and their three-tournament goal striker, Hakan Yakin. Helder Postiga, Nani, Ricardo Quaresma, Bruno Alvez, Fernando Meira and Raul Meireles were amongst those brought in. With no Ronaldo, Deco, Petit […]
Day 6 review Croatia 2 Germany 1 (predicted: 1-2) Yes, this took me by surprise. Unfortunately I had to make do with highlights and match reports for most of today’s games but it seems that Croatia turned things upside down in Group B. The Croatians were as good as they were lackluster in their first […]
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