World Cup 2006:Germany

Not to worry Nebs. A draw against Croatia and it's on to the next round for Oz . Very doo-able . And besides, it was a good performance.

(Gonna be a fun game eh Adi )

Gah, missed both. At least there might actually be an African team making it through. And Italy, and now France, wobbling eh? Iiiinteresting.

Think Brazil might be slowly waking up, but it's looking like the Argies are still the biggest 'must-avoid' team at the mo

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From what I've seen of Brazil I think we can beat 'em, but Argentina would be a tough game, maybe they've peaked a bit too early though.

I just hope Germany win their group so we don't have to play 'em in the next round.

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Heh, let's see what the Sweden game brings first . We need to step up at least 2 gears along the way to even take the fight to Germany or Equador. I'm thinking the Sweden 'derby' is gonna be fun tho - if only coz we get the Rooney machine up and running, an Owen with something to prove, and only one of Lamps or Gerradinyo in the middle. And hopefully little buzzsaw Lennon terrorising one of the wings .

Thing is, we'll then revert pretty much to the set-up we've seen so far. Just perhaps minus Crouch from the starting line-up. That set-up ain't leaking goals, but it's hardly bossing the field either at the mo.

I am under no concern who England will play next.
The only thing I am concerned about is winning, everything else is secondary.
We must go into our next game thinking only of winning!
Bye bye Sweden, bye bye....

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I think it's too soon to say if Italy are bad or not. They impressed me in the Ghana match but did pretty poorly against USA, a game that was a bit special, on the other hand. We'll see. France do have some serious problems though.

Argentina is the most impressive team so far, yeah. I think they showed their weakness in the second half against Côte d'Ivoire though - when they stopped attacking. Then they were vulnerable. Brazil's defense looks a bit sloppy too but I think that if all players are on their toes and Robinho gets to start instead of Ronaldo, I think they might cruise their way to the final. It will be really interesting to see Spain tonight again.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Almost a goner for spain...

for some reason i felt the announcers were slightly biased against Tunsia...i just felt like tunsia put up such a great fight but all their efforts were downplayed by the announcers..it kind of ticked me off..

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Δύο άτομα. Μια μάχη. Κανένας συμβιβασμός.

actually our comentator couldn't stop complimenting tunisia for their play in the first half...said it was the best game they ever played in the world cup...

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Missed almost the entire first half of the Spain - Tunisia game but I have to say that I am very impressed by Spain. Some commentator said that they actually played better in the first half then in the second. I think it's a sign of something big if a team can manage to turn a game around like that and make it seem as they were never really in any trouble.

And Owen's sent off in the first minute of the England game due to injury.... (it's probably not right to laugh, but i have had a really bad day and this just made my night)

May your knees buckle under you Blis

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Ach well, honours even on the day. And may a say, a very Swedish come-back there Pidz . (Altho why i'm writing this i don't know - you're gonna have your head in a bucket o beer at this moment )

I dunno what to make of this England team. They might suddenly click when the going gets tough but I've got my doubts - their inability to boss a game must be worrying, and it's all coming from the midfield with little Joey Cole the only spark. Even so, A-A-Ashley (I can't say his name without reverting to a bad impression of Fred (?) from Corry) must be getting mightily pee'd off, running himself ragged on the overlap and never getting a return ball as JC darts inside yet again - you could murder a nervy right back doing that...

Nice goal though.

Rooney looks as if he's coming back slowly but is he fit to lead the line if Sven plays 4-5-1? He's the only one who can do it. I'm glad I'm not an England fan tonight.

...and roll on matches back on the BBC: Motson's quite possibly senile but at least you can switch to 5Live's commentary and hear a little bit of sense.

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No big surprises.
A draw.
Lampard hogging the ball and going for manic shots at goal. Not to mention being colour blind.
England doing well by leading! Then blowing it in the last few minutes.
Toward the end of the game the defense gets shoddy and freaks out.
An injury
Rooney being over-expected again.
Long ball game a complete waste of space. Just give the ball away why don't you.

There are positives though.

Joe Cole's footwork and busy busy attitude.
Joe Cole's most fantastic goal! Bend it like Beckham? No. Curve it like Cole!
Gerrard doing a better defending job then the defenders (O.K so not all positive there)
Gerrard scoring!
A change of formation! Yay Sven you can experiment!
The fact we were actually putting something behind our game then the usual flat style. Didn't always work but an improvement.

I'm not too worried that we didn't boss that one all told, coz Sweden are notoriously tough, and very rarely bossed. I do get worried when JC's wayward trickery is our main outlet tho (And yeah, Ash must be starting to hate him ).

The injury's are the biggest blow. We're never going to be the force we wanted to be at this comp. We might sketch our way as far as Brazil, but that's likely to be as far as we go. It's just a culmination of a lack of strikers, Carrager not being able to overlap on the right, and all the traditional midfield imbalances that are in plain sight.

And yeah, i've gotta remember to change the commentary next time. Motty seems to have been legally blind for at least five years now

Ay, it was a bit more sparky - but the Swedes play a more open game, thankfully. Sven's gonna have to experiment his specs off from now on tho

I think Sweden were crap and England were final quality in the first half. The English midfield was just as good as it looks on, as Svennis says, "on paper". The second half was completely different, at least the first 20-30 mins or so. Second half, a complete turn around. Sweden played their best half hour of the tournament while England looked a bit passive and puzzled, especially by our corner kicks. Then Sweden became passive too and allowed England back in the game and I could feel the 2-1 goal coming. Then we managed to come back and I think the result was pretty fair to both teams in the end.

Germany on saturday for us... It can be done if we play like we did in the second half last night, but it will be tough.

Owen's injury looked real nasty, I'm sorry for the guy. I don't think Svennis has to worry too much though as long as the rest of the squad stays healthy. I believe that if England can find some consistency in their game and keep it up for 90 mins, they will go far in this tournament. I think Rooney looked really good too.

It's starting to look like taking Walcott is less a bold decision and more a downright folly...ahhh hindsight.

It's not ideal, and the likes of Alan Green can become a bit hard on the ears but at least they have opinions and seem professional enough to try and commentate on the game rather than indulge in lame comedy double acts.

Personally I think that replacing Des with Lineker on MOTD predicated the slow death of football on terrestrial TV. That and Ally McCoist...

"Easy to say with the benefit of hind legs"
~The Mighty Boosh



Heh, yeah, we all knew it was a mighty odd decision. Now it's looking downright stupid. Ach, nevermind, Rooney's shoulders are fairly broad. He might be able to carry us some of the way

What if Gaz were to grow a moustache?

Heh, we can't really afford to lose many more players. Both defence and attack are relying on second-tier players now.

And consistency? Ay, that'd be nice . Think we might be relying on individual miracles instead. Still, makes for a fun ride

His reputation alone is enough to place most defences on the back foot, even if he's not 100% match sharp...but he's not far off.



Argh noooooo! The Smug One could never replace The Suavester!

I met Des once, standing at an ATM near Berkley Square. My mate whispered "That's Des Lynam" to which I replied in the negative. The great man turned round slowly, looked me straight in the eye and raised his brow, a smile flickering across his face...




Much as I dislike The Neviller, he's darn good at what he does. Neither does he get nosebleeds when crossing the half way line.

Middlesbrough Chairman Steve Gibson in 'good bloke' shock: Link.

We've all thought about it, haven't we?

Thanks for all your posts guys, I am learning so much about what is going on in Germany and football

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Tomorrow's the big day Nebbles . The Oz vs Croatia tussle is gonna be something to behold i reckon. (Well, either that or a big scrap fest - but it should be dramatic either way )