Lest we forget - 4 comments

Few, if any, seem to be lamenting Portugal's exit from the World Cup. However, the campaign against Ronaldo is extraordinary. OK, he's an arrogant cheat, but hardly unique in that role. For the benefit of those who feel Rooney was hard done-by, here's the young scamp caught in the act:



Sure, Sven's tactics made things more difficult for Rooney, but the brutality of the little man showed his lack of self-control, lack of professionalism, damaged the team, his own reputation, and makes it that much more likely that canny opponents will be able to reduce England to ten men in future matches. Perhaps he should seek professional help rather than plot revenge against his Man Utd team-mate.

The quality of the Germany v. Italy game also showed the idea that England could win the World Cup on merit - rather than scrabbling through, edging tedious matches - to be ridiculous. I can't claim to be an entirely neutral supporter, but there were precious few quality moments to remember when I try to account for the time I spent watching. It was sociable, but I'd hardly call it fun, let alone inspiring.

A final point to illustrate the ineptness of the England setup, as revealed by Peter Crouch on Tuesday:

"We have come in for criticism in the past for not practicing penalties but I can assure you, we had been practicing them all the time after going to Germany in early June - and before that.

"They had been going well in practice - but we were fresh then. We were in an empty stadium as well, which is a different ball game to Saturday.

Perhaps this is obvious, but presumably the reason England practice taking penalties so much is because of their terrible record at penalty shoot-outs in major tournaments. As far as I know, England's record with ordinary penalties during matches is fine. Given that shoot-outs only occur after at least 120 minutes of play, what is the point of fresh players practicing them? Wouldn't it make sense to change the training program so that this only happens at the end of the session, or the end of the day? And secondly, if the players felt tired, as Peter says, why did the two players - Crouch himself, and Lennon - who had only played 60-70 minutes not take over?

Declaration of interest: I stand to win £40 in a sweepstake if Italy triumph on Sunday (enough to buy several self-help books for troubled teenagers). I also had an Italian great-grandparent, apparently.