The Dark Lord
June 28th, 2010, 11:12 AM
FOR a while this apology for an England football team had a ready-made excuse.
Uruguayan assistant ref Mauricio Espinosa, who must have been half-blind, somehow failed to notice that Frank Lampard's shot had travelled a good four feet over the line after rattling the underside of the bar.
It would have got England back level at 2-2 from 2-0 down.
And, when it was ruled out, reporters were already making plans to fly to the official's home town to try and discover what made the bloke so incompetent.
But the truth of the matter is the goal-that-never-was would have been a smokescreen for this dreadful display.
The Germans were so superior in every department it was embarrassing - Thomas Muller leading the way with two goals as England folded.
They were supposed to be the naive youngsters against our wealth of experience.
Yet it is Joachim Low's side who have booked themselves a quarter-final clash against Argentina in Cape Town on Saturday afternoon.
England players paid tens of thousands of pounds every week were not worth two bob.
There have been stories this summer of how Real Madrid want Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard for a combined price of more than £100million - while James Milner is a £28m target for Manchester City, with Chelsea also on his trail.
When you see performances like this, you can imagine a chairman asking whether they are not considerably over-priced. Rooney, particularly, has had a World Cup nightmare.
This was the tournament where he was going to be the main man and assume the crown as the globe's greatest player ahead of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
He has not risen above the mediocre in four matches, has not scored and had one shot tipped against the post.
Not good enough.
Franz Beckenbauer had it right after all. We have gone backwards, we are a kick-and-rush team and we were "stupid" for finishing second in Group C and having to play the Germans.
Mind you, it is doubtful this lot would have beaten Ghana either. How could it have been this bad?
The players had the best of everything and a £6m-a-year manager in Fabio Capello who had proved himself at the highest level of club football.
All they had to do was go out there and play up to their potential and surely the rewards would come.
Half of this team have been in a Champions League final, where the pressures are surely as great as in a last-16 World Cup game.
What is the matter with them?
England were a goal down on 20 minutes and it could not have been more route one.
Keeper Manuel Neuer booted the ball down the middle over John Terry's head and Miroslav Klose battled his way past the tame challenge of Matthew Upson to slide it beyond David James.
James screamed at his centre-backs and appeared to mouth: "There were ******* two of you."
England were dragged this way and that and keeper James bailed his defence out by saving another Klose shot with his legs.
But on 32 minutes he was beaten again as Klose combined with Thomas Muller who laid a ball across to Lukas Podolski.
It seemed at first that Podolski's touch was too heavy. But he managed to get his shot away and the ball went between James' legs and into the far side of the net.
This was carnage but there was hope five minutes later.
Upson made up for his error on the opener by bravely climbing to meet Gerrard's cross and head in as keeper Neuer came flapping out of his goal.
Then came the big moment of controversy.
Lampard's beautifully guided shot cleared the despairing Neuer, hit the underside of the bar and bounced over the line.
It was so obvious and it was not as if the linesman's vision was obscured either.
Lampard knew it was in and Capello was celebrating on the touchline - but play went on.
German journalists in the press box found it all highly amusing.
Was this revenge for 1966 and Geoff Hurst's infamous goal?
Hurst's was debatable, Lampard's wasn't even an argument.
Capello claimed, had the goal been given, it would have been a different game - that psychologically the whole dynamic would have changed.
As the officials left the field at half-time Rooney held his arms wide indicating how far he thought the ball was over.
David Beckham waited to add his opinion too.
Germany coach Low revealed: "My assistant Oliver Bierhoff told me it was a goal by Lampard but I did not tell my players at half-time. I kept quiet about it.
"I just said to them they must keep their concentration and keep fighting hard in the second half."
Rooney was still arguing as the teams kicked off at the restart.
And, soon afterwards, Lampard hit the bar from 30 yards. Joe Cole replaced Milner but he had only been on the field three minutes when the Germans made the game safe.
The annoying thing was it started with a Lampard free-kick which crashed against the wall, but Gareth Barry lost possession to Muller on the edge of the box.
Germany broke to devastating effect with Muller playing it out to Bastian Schweinsteiger and racing all the way up the field to take the return and smash the ball past James at his near post.
Barry was at fault again in the 70th minute as he failed to get in a challenge on Mesut Ozil by England's right touchline.
The German star got away with ease and squared for Muller to finish from close range.
Capello's response was to bring on his non-scoring striker Emile Heskey for Jermain Defoe.
The manager really had given up all hope - as had the rest of us.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/worldcup2010/3031550/Germany-4-England-1.html (which explains the poor quality of English throughout the articule)
Uruguayan assistant ref Mauricio Espinosa, who must have been half-blind, somehow failed to notice that Frank Lampard's shot had travelled a good four feet over the line after rattling the underside of the bar.
It would have got England back level at 2-2 from 2-0 down.
And, when it was ruled out, reporters were already making plans to fly to the official's home town to try and discover what made the bloke so incompetent.
But the truth of the matter is the goal-that-never-was would have been a smokescreen for this dreadful display.
The Germans were so superior in every department it was embarrassing - Thomas Muller leading the way with two goals as England folded.
They were supposed to be the naive youngsters against our wealth of experience.
Yet it is Joachim Low's side who have booked themselves a quarter-final clash against Argentina in Cape Town on Saturday afternoon.
England players paid tens of thousands of pounds every week were not worth two bob.
There have been stories this summer of how Real Madrid want Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard for a combined price of more than £100million - while James Milner is a £28m target for Manchester City, with Chelsea also on his trail.
When you see performances like this, you can imagine a chairman asking whether they are not considerably over-priced. Rooney, particularly, has had a World Cup nightmare.
This was the tournament where he was going to be the main man and assume the crown as the globe's greatest player ahead of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
He has not risen above the mediocre in four matches, has not scored and had one shot tipped against the post.
Not good enough.
Franz Beckenbauer had it right after all. We have gone backwards, we are a kick-and-rush team and we were "stupid" for finishing second in Group C and having to play the Germans.
Mind you, it is doubtful this lot would have beaten Ghana either. How could it have been this bad?
The players had the best of everything and a £6m-a-year manager in Fabio Capello who had proved himself at the highest level of club football.
All they had to do was go out there and play up to their potential and surely the rewards would come.
Half of this team have been in a Champions League final, where the pressures are surely as great as in a last-16 World Cup game.
What is the matter with them?
England were a goal down on 20 minutes and it could not have been more route one.
Keeper Manuel Neuer booted the ball down the middle over John Terry's head and Miroslav Klose battled his way past the tame challenge of Matthew Upson to slide it beyond David James.
James screamed at his centre-backs and appeared to mouth: "There were ******* two of you."
England were dragged this way and that and keeper James bailed his defence out by saving another Klose shot with his legs.
But on 32 minutes he was beaten again as Klose combined with Thomas Muller who laid a ball across to Lukas Podolski.
It seemed at first that Podolski's touch was too heavy. But he managed to get his shot away and the ball went between James' legs and into the far side of the net.
This was carnage but there was hope five minutes later.
Upson made up for his error on the opener by bravely climbing to meet Gerrard's cross and head in as keeper Neuer came flapping out of his goal.
Then came the big moment of controversy.
Lampard's beautifully guided shot cleared the despairing Neuer, hit the underside of the bar and bounced over the line.
It was so obvious and it was not as if the linesman's vision was obscured either.
Lampard knew it was in and Capello was celebrating on the touchline - but play went on.
German journalists in the press box found it all highly amusing.
Was this revenge for 1966 and Geoff Hurst's infamous goal?
Hurst's was debatable, Lampard's wasn't even an argument.
Capello claimed, had the goal been given, it would have been a different game - that psychologically the whole dynamic would have changed.
As the officials left the field at half-time Rooney held his arms wide indicating how far he thought the ball was over.
David Beckham waited to add his opinion too.
Germany coach Low revealed: "My assistant Oliver Bierhoff told me it was a goal by Lampard but I did not tell my players at half-time. I kept quiet about it.
"I just said to them they must keep their concentration and keep fighting hard in the second half."
Rooney was still arguing as the teams kicked off at the restart.
And, soon afterwards, Lampard hit the bar from 30 yards. Joe Cole replaced Milner but he had only been on the field three minutes when the Germans made the game safe.
The annoying thing was it started with a Lampard free-kick which crashed against the wall, but Gareth Barry lost possession to Muller on the edge of the box.
Germany broke to devastating effect with Muller playing it out to Bastian Schweinsteiger and racing all the way up the field to take the return and smash the ball past James at his near post.
Barry was at fault again in the 70th minute as he failed to get in a challenge on Mesut Ozil by England's right touchline.
The German star got away with ease and squared for Muller to finish from close range.
Capello's response was to bring on his non-scoring striker Emile Heskey for Jermain Defoe.
The manager really had given up all hope - as had the rest of us.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/worldcup2010/3031550/Germany-4-England-1.html (which explains the poor quality of English throughout the articule)