I take it that Julian Green's value just had a couple of million added to it? Dammit, we were linked with him a few weeks ago...
A couple of million? More like it's doubled and PSG, Real and Barca are all interested! Unlucky, USA. Howard has to be 'keeper of the tournament, he's kept them in it with several great saves in the 90. That said had that player not fluffed it and the lino not been totally blind USA could have won it in the last seconds of the 90. Extra time was just batshit crazy and could've finished 4-3 to either side with the chances that went missing. USA have shown what you can do with a team that work hard and compliment eachother in style though. Take notes, Hodgson(why in **** hasn't he been sacked yet?).
USA showed what "team" can achieve. I wouldn't get carried away with wanting to sign any of their players though. Even Beasley looked good and he's aging and never really made it over here.
Anyone else feel like punching Danny Murphy in the balls because of his commentary? Its like he picked his big talking points before the game and stuck to them no matter what was actually happening. Including saying a number of times: 1 - Hazard is lazy he never tracks back......thats the first time he's tracked back 2 - That is Fellaini's first contribution of the entire game 3 - Banging on repeatedly about substitutions and how Wilmots, who has done pretty well with subs so far, needs to do X, Y, Z. SHUT UP YOU PLUM!
Belgium still remind me of a newbie playing Football Manager: yes, you can fit all the best players into the starting xi, but that doesn't mean it will work in real life.
I know, most fans think it's acceptable to base their opinion on a potential transfer on how good they are on FIFA...
Can't fault the effort or the managing. Klinsmann squeezed every drop of talent this squad had. Nothing wrong with this team that a massive infusion of much better players wouldn't solve. We'll have to see what lasting impact this game has on the US, if any. I actually think it will be considerable. It is surprising how close a collection of Championship level players can often come to beating a much better team. Algeria, for example, is miles ahead of the US in terms of football skill. Our players don't have the ability to play one touch football, as a general rule, and spent almost the entire game chasing a team that could.
I thought he was one of the better pundits, but he was completely destroyed by Garth Crooks on the radio the other day (admittedly now I think about it, it might have been Danny Mills), when "Danny" was saying that everyone else has better technical players than England and Garth was referring to the many players at the WC who failed to make it in England or were playing in the championship. Anyway, I have never gone with this England has got worse players argument, because top premier league clubs simply wouldn't play them if they weren't any good, the PL clubs do not select based on sentimentality! If there were better foreign alternatives they would play them. No, I firmly believe that there are good England players that simply cannot, or are unable for whatever reason, to reproduce their club form for England.
I haven't played the modern incarnations of these games (I think I finished on Football Manager 2001 or something equally frigthening), but does a player have a diving rating? Or a rating for the ref to be intimiated by the crowd / home manager? If not how can the game claim to be realistic, since players cheating or refs bottling decisions seems to decide the results of so many games!
Having pondered this for a while (slow day at work.... staring out the window at the sun drenched rooftops), I've come to the conclusion that English players are good wingmen (in the fighter pilot sense, not Arron Lennon sense) but not good enough to be the 'Top Gun'. The likes of Gerrard, Lampard, Milner, Sturridge, etc all shine for their club but are rarely the "Star" man. They support and play well alongside the few top class players but can't do it themselves. Take Sturridge. Had an excellent season for Liverpool, a good player but has Suarez to take that pressure off him. Suarez (for all his being a nasty, petty, cheating cannibal) is one of the few world class players that can turn/win games on his own and Sturridge has that safety cushion, if you like, there. Maybe it's a mental thing. Then put all these 'wing men' into one team (England) and they all look a little lost. I suppose Rooney is the exception but then he just seems to try and do everything when he plays for England rather than concentrating on his own role.
On the modern versions that players have personality traits, and sportsmanship is certainly one of them. Unsurprisingly, Suarez's is low.
I once came to a similar conclusion focussing on Lampard a couple of world cups ago. No player as successful and well known, I thought, required so much help from his teammates to shine. Making well timed runs into the box and scoring pens is all very well and good, but it's the players around him who can create goals on their own that make a player with these qualities a good goal scorer. The ability to kick the ball at the goal hard which Lampard has does not really make him a Cruyff or Maradona. Keep looking and you'll keep finding English stars made successful by better players around them. Gerrard with Owen, Torres and Suarez, Rooney with Ronaldo and Van Persie. From a marketing point of view, this is what the PL is all about. The last (non-defender) world class players England had were Owen and Scholes, who not coincidentally were members of the last good England WC team. Put all the wingmen of today together, as you point out, and no one gets the girl into the cab.
Hoping for a Brazil win tonight,think Columbia's bubble will burst tonight,would imagine fifa are hoping that as well,to keep Brazil fans intrest in it
