Qualification probably comes down to beating Uruguay. Do that and England's chances are good. Uruguay would be eliminated, and England would only need to finish ahead of 1/2 of Italy and CR. The problem is both England and Uruguay need a win to stay in Brazil, so things are going to get desperate. On the plus side, Uruguay looked wretched in midfield, defense and goal, while England looked like a decent team who lost to a better one. I'm glad no Spurs are involved due to the high risk of injury.
Uruguay look old. There team reminds me of an over 35' sunday league team. Even their young players look past it!
The Uruguay MF fell away yesterday. Cavani got starved of service. But with Suarez you know he can concoct his own opportunities. Not so much of a must win as a cannot lose game for both.
I have to laugh at the Guardian's comment rating Henderson: "May benefit from the cooler conditions against Uruguay in São Paulo." So our 24 year old (or so) midfielder can't be expected to keep up with an old man in the heat, but hopefully he'll do better in less challenging conditions.
Somebody in Croydon thought that, with the police distracted by keeping a watchful eye on the various pubs during the England game, they could hold an rave without being shut down. ...which would've worked if the place they were staging the rave wasn't less than a two minute drive from where there were about eight police vans keeping an eye on the Wetherspoons and Yates's'es' crowd. The rave was shut down when the score was still 0-0!
Don't we have a better chance of going through if Italy win all their matches: losing narrowly to Uruguay and beating Costa Rica would do it for us then.
Surprised that no one else has picked up on the irony of England's - former Arsenal - physio, Ray Lewin fractured and dislocated his ankle after treading on a recklessly discarded WATER BOTTLE!! Anyone see Wenger lurking in the stand?? Sorry for the chap, but all the same.....
"Don't we have a better chance of going through if Italy win all their matches: losing narrowly to Uruguay and beating Costa Rica would do it for us then." Says it all when after one group game you are calculating permutations that will let England qualify in 2nd place with a massive 3 pts.
"Sorry for the chap" Thought the purpose of the Miami games was to acclimatise for water bottle and poo-squatting incidents in humid Brasil.
As Hodgson never divulged his so called "master plan" for dealing with Pirlo, we'll never know what it was. Suffice to say it didn't seem to work very well....
As far as I could see it was for Henderson to stay close to him but not quite close enough to make any difference, while Marchiso wandered about completely unmarked higher up the pitch so was an easy out ball. Gerrard might do instead of a proper defensive midfielder against the bottom two thirds of the PL but he isn't going to hack it against the best teams in the World Cup.
I think that Welbeck had some sort of role closing down Pirlo, as he caught him dwelling on the ball a couple of times when blindsiding him. That might have just been a happy coincidence, due to the forward's high work rate and constant closing down, though. As PS suggests, dealing with the stupidly exposed left wing probably would've caused Pirlo more problems than anything, as he could easily boot the ball out there at will. Not being scared of taking a hit from the ball might help, too. Really ****y closing down for their first goal.
How England needed a Shearer or a Lineker last night. Perhaps Lambert should have played some part? When you rely on small, quick players, you need accurate delivery and service to them and not the "hit and hope" crosses Johnson serves up. At least a big forward with a goalscoring knack is going to get on the end of at least a few of those sorts of crosses.
To be fair to Johnson though, when he did put good, quick, low balls into the box, there was nobody trying to get on the end of them or anticipating it. He put a couple right into the danger zone and it panicked the Italian defence, but everyone just stood around looking at it.
The eastern hemisphere has fared poorly against the west in western WCs. The trend continues, with Mexico hammering Cameroon no thanks to a hat trick of wrongly disallowed Dos goals, Columbia crushing Greece, and Ecuador taking the lead against Switzerland. This doesn't bode well for England, with two western teams left to play, and may be an underrated factor. I wonder if what appear to be lackadaisical heat acclimaticization efforts may result in a prompt trip home. A draw against lowly Honduras in England's penultimate game, followed by cringeworthy whining by God's gift to the beautiful game, does little to reassure.
"This doesn't bode well for England, with two western teams left to play, and may be an underrated factor." Mexico / Columbia / Costa Rica did all the basics right in their first games IMHO. Opponents who don't, may fare even worse in the likely weather conditions than would be the case on football alone.
