Can't say that I expected France, kings of the unforced collapse, fighting back from 2-0 down to win. Fighting each other on the pitch? Maybe.
Yes, but they ought to have not qualified. If only to undo the awful cheating hand ball of Henry from a few years back.
Yes, but they ought to have not qualified. If only to undo the awful cheating hand ball of Henry from a few years back.
He was great, scored a beautiful free kick. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x17e129_england-u21-vs-san-marino-u21-9-0_sport&start=77
As said, scored from a lovely free kick. Quite disgraceful though, they let Ince take corners from one side. BT had time for one interview, so of course they chose JPW and Shaw...I expect they wanted James, but Shaw had positioned himself next to him. Shaw is coming over better in interviews now. The commentators were full of praise for both of them...remarking on what polite level-headed lads they were. Saints know how to raise children. When asked who might make it through to the seniors, Owen Hargreaves named Shaw first, then JPW (and 1 other, but obviously not interested in him ).
I don't think Hargreaves is up with the fashion. On form, if I was going to pick one to try in the seniors first I think I'd go for JWP. Followed closely by Shaw, of course. I was really starting to feel sorry for the San Marino lads. There ought to be some interim competition between teams like Gibraltar, Andorra, San Marino, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, etc... otherwise all they'll experience in football is a walloping. I presume they all have official U21 sides.
I don't think he'll get many direct free kick opportunities, but yeah, I think he should be our free kick taker, no offence to Lambert.
If anyone's bored, there's a stream of last night's Sweden v Portugal. Ronaldo, and the last time we'll see Ibrahimovic for a while. Still 0-0 as I write: http://firstrowuk1.eu/watch/193916/1/watch-skysports.html
If I can be bothered with international matches, due to the usual paucity of Saints players [the astonishing omission of MLT started it] in the squad, I have two countries anyway. England and Italy. I'm interested in both doing well and I continue watching until the last one drops out of the competition**. This time round there may be a surfeit of Saints..! **That usually means I end up watching Italy.
