Before We All Get Carried Away…

…about how we’re going to win the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, here are some stats to consider:

* Howard Webb is English and he’s a policeman. From Rotherham.

* There have been seven World Cup tournaments held in North, Central and South America. All seven have been won by teams from South America – but  worryingly for Brazil, the hosts have won only two of them (Uruguay in 1930, Argentina in 1978)

* Howard Webb is will be 43 in 2014, so he probably won’t be refereeing in Brazil.

* England have never got past the quarter finals in the four ‘American’ tournaments we qualified for. Our best performance in South America was the quarter finals in Chile in 1962, which was the last time we played in a South American World Cup. The last World Cup game we played in North, Central or South America was the ‘Hand Of God’ game…which is a almost a quarter of a century ago anyway!

* Howard Webb is from Rotherham, which is nearly 6000 miles from Johannesburg. It’ll probably be warmer in Rotherham today…but let’s see how Howard Webb (the English referee who’s a policeman from Rotherham) handles the heat of the World Cup final! We’ll be back after an annoying Hyundai advert about cars playing football.

Not sure who’s going to win tonight, but Holland’s price is probably far too big – however, the stat I like is that the country which eliminates Germany from the competition is far more likely to win it than the one that eliminates Brazil; it should probably be Spain in that case, but there have been a couple of times when Brazil were knocked out by countries that went on to win for the first time – Argentina in 1978 and France in 1998 – but both of them were hosts, which seems to count against Holland.

Let’s just hope the game is a good one. Unlike any of ours.

Update: my wife has just berated me for not knowing that Howard Webb’s wife is called Kay. Good job the BBC made up for this omission.

Howard Webb Gets The Final

Breaking story from Sky News: Howard Webb will be the referee in the World Cup Final. Thoroughly deserves it as far as I’m concerned; the only drawback will be that certain commentators will feel the need to mention the fact that he’s British every thirty seconds or so.

New Flavour From Walkers

Leaves something of a bitter aftertaste…feel free to circulate but please leave the site address on the graphic if you do.

Germany 4, England 1

That’s it for the 2010 World Cup. Next game: Hungary at Wembley in mid-August. Thanks for reading, we’ll have more reaction when we’ve calmed down a bit.

Don’t Mention The Euro

The 1966 final has cast a shadow over past five or so decades: in some ways it’s difficult for those of us that do not have our own memories of the game to really believe it happened and that we actually beat the Germans, despite being witnessess to the win in Belgium in the European Championship and the simply astonishing 5-1 win in September 2001.

Playing the Germans in tournament football always seems to signify the end of an era. The 3-2 quarter final defeat in 1970 – after leading 2-0 – ended England’s reign as World Champions: just over two years later a 3-1 home defeat in the European Championships was the beginning of the end for Alf Ramsey: it was another eight years until we qualified for the final stages of a major international tournament. In 1982 two of the best players we had in the 1970s – Kevin Keegan and Trevor Brooking- made their only appearances in the World Cup in a 0-0 draw that knocked us out of that tournament, Keegan famously missing a late header. A similar story with the 1990 semi final: no-one would have predicted that game would have been Paul Gascoigne’s last game in the World Cup. Even when we hosted the European Championships in 1996, the Germans beat us. Last game at Wembley: Germany won.

So before this afternoon’s game, let’s not forget that our record against them since an Alan Shearer goal beat them in Euro 2000 is three wins and two defeats. And that they have never beaten us in a tournament game over 90 minutes in neutral territory.

There’s every reason to be confident of an England win within the context of what’s already happened in this tournament. The draw with the USA was dire, but the USA won the group and only crashed out to Ghana last night in extra time. The Algeria game was terrible and looking back on it that result cost us the group rather than Landon Donovan’s late goal against the Algerians; we’re in the ‘difficult’ half of the draw because we deserve to be. The Slovenia game was a must win and England woke up and started to play something like tournament football.

We’ve not had anyone sent of yet (don’t worry, there’s plenty of time for that), we’ve not had the opportunity to thrash a poor team with ten men and we’ve not lost a game to the team that eventually finished bottom of our group have we? We also have an Italian coach: if you’re wondering why that’s significant, look at Italy’s record against Germany in the World Cup Finals. The Germans have never beaten the Italians and that includes two semi finals and a final. They won’t beat them again this year either!

A couple of weeks ago, Fabio Capello was being ridiculed everywhere; tomorrow, the red tops might be demanding an honorary knighthood. But remember that if we win, there’s a good chance we’ll be playing Argentina. A bit like beating the Cybermen in order to face the Daleks.

Here’s the team.

England 1, Slovenia 0

Second place in Group C, as it stands we’ll play…errr…another team on Sunday. More later. But it could be…well…them.

Slovenia Preview (World Cup Version)

Difficult to know where to start for this one: I don’t think any of us were expecting the current situation to be this dire. If we don’t win and the States beat Algeria then we’ll have been knocked out in the group stages for the first time since 1958.

We previewed our game with the Slovenes last year (the original article is here) and not a great deal has changed for them: Robert Koren has since been released by WBA and they have not been allowed to replace striker Nejc Pecnik (broken ankle).

Let’s start with the numbers. We won 2-1 at Wembley last September with a penalty from Frank Lampard and a Jermain Defoe goal before Zlatan Ljubijankic got one back for them six minutes before time. Since then they have only lost once (against Russia in the first leg of the qualification playoff in November) in their last nine games. In that respect, they’re actually doing better than us as we’ve lost twice since beating them: the last qualification game against Ukraine and the defeat in the desert friendly against Brazil.

When I have a punt I normally only look at away form for tournament games and this is where things start getting a little worrying. Over the last 20 games our form is better than theirs, but over the last five games Slovenia have outperformed us and have kept three clean sheets to our…ummm…one. And before you ask, that doesn’t include the game against the Platinum Stars, which sounds like some kind of Swedish pop band from the 1970s than a genuine football team.

That stat alone indicates that there won’t be many goals tomorrow. Under 2.5 according to the bookies, although interestingly the spread betting firms seem to think it might be around 2.6 but that might be to attract people who think this game is going to be a walkover (in the same way as Algeria was). Consecutive England clean sheets aren’t out of the question – the one bright spot so far is the defence – but once again it’s our lack of firepower up front that’s a problem.

As for all the other stuff…Fab and JT might be doing a wonderful job papering over the cracks, but there’s absolutely no doubt that there’s something wrong in the camp. So look out for various ‘inside stories’ being flogged to the tabloids after English interest in the tournament ends (but remember not to buy any featured in the Daily M*il) and enjoy the rather wooden declarations of love and peace while you can because if we go out tomorrow the fallout is going to be  absolutely spectacular. The only thing saving us from being a total laughing stock is that France have done that with their usual Gallic flair: in footballing terms we’re playing about as well as Greece, who are currently packing their bags after losing to Argentina.

I’ve had a couple of calls tonight about where I’m going to watch the game and to be honest I don’t know yet…but I’ve not ruled out behind the sofa. I’m also not completely sure if all red is the right choice sartorially (Wales anyone?) and when it comes to making a prediction here I have to be honest and say that I really have no idea what’s going to happen. I know what I’d like to happen, but I’m not prepared to put my money where my mouth is.

The best case scenario is an England win, but realistically speaking – and that takes out recent form into account – we may be looking at a tense game that might not be decided until well into the second half. An early England goal would be nice but wouldn’t necessarily guarantee the right result; it’s possible that an early strike by Slovenia might galvanise England into some kind of action. On the other hand, can we actually play any worse than we already have done?

Still, we’ve been in similar – and worse – situations before and we’ve got out of them. On June 11th 1986 we faced Poland in our last group game needing a win to qualify for the next round. It was a late kick off for those days (kick off was 4pm local time which means about 9pm GMT) and when Gary Lineker scored the third my dad and I made so much noise my mum told us off. Enjoy!

Rubbish

About as bad as Scotland in 1978, and that’s saying something. All down to a scenario that’s very similar to 1986: we need to beat an Eastern European side to go through. Wayne Rooney hat-trick anyone?

Algeria Preview

You often hear pundits claiming that there’s no such thing as an easy game in the World Cup anymore: while they’re probably correct, it’s difficult to contradict the argument that England’s game with Algeria tomorrow night is potentially our easiest game in Group C.

The Algerians do not travel well; the Desert Foxes also have a very poor recent record against European opposition. As well as losing 1-0 to Slovenia last weekend, they have also recently suffered 3-0 defeats to both Ireland and Serbia. Algeria have won three away games in the past year: 2-0 against the mighty Zambia during World Cup qualification, and wins over Mali and Ivory Coast in the African Nations Cup earlier this year. Algeria were lucky to win the latter: they trailed 2-1 going into stoppage time.

Only three of their squad of 23 play in Algeria including two of the three keepers, one of whom (Faouzi Chaouchi) was to blame for the goal the Slovenians scored on Sunday. The rest of the squad play in Europe and it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that six of them play in France. Closer to home, defender Nadir Belhadj and midfielder Adlene Guedioura play for Portsmouth and Wolves respectively; Madjid Bougherra is a Rangers player, which might explain why he’s not exactly been backwards in coming forwards today.

Compounding their poor record in front of goal, they’ll be without striker Abdelkader Ghezzal, who was sent off for two stupid yellow cards in their first game. Veteran striker Rafik Saifi (who plays in the French 2nd division
for Istres) or the relatively inexperienced Rafik Djebbour of AEK Athens are the only other options at striker: Saifi is the only player in the entire squad who has scored more than ten goals at international level.

If you fancy a punt, it’s possible that we could keep a clean sheet (only Brazil in 1970 and Romania in 1998 have scored against us in corresponding group games since 1966), but in case you hadn’t noticed we’ve got a few issues of our own. Apart from the inclusion of Gareth Barry, the team for tomorrow is still a mystery and – perhaps more worryingly – Stevie G’s goal against the USA last Saturday was the first time an England player had scored in an ‘away’ game since Jermain Defoe scored twice against the Dutch before the start of last season: we don’t have any Japanese defenders up our sleeve for this game. Wayne Rooney and Emile Heskey haven’t scored in an away game since the 4-0 win over Kazakhstan just over a year ago – although I agree with John Motson that Rooney is due a goal for England.

It’s possible that there won’t be that many goals in this game: one of the less appealing scenarios (other than an Algeria win or another draw) would be something similar to the win over Trinidad & Tobago in the last World Cup. That game was going nowhere until two late goals settled it. The last time we failed to score in the second group game was in 1990 (a dreadful goalless draw with the Dutch) and we haven’t scored three since beating Argentina in 1962.

For anoraks and train spotters, here’s the list of the second group games England have played in:

1950: England 0-1 USA (yes, that game)

1954: England 2-0 Switzerland (we beat the hosts!)

1958: England 0-0 Brazil

1962: England 3-1 Argentina

1966: England 2-0 Mexico (Bobby Charlton scores from just outside Wembley station)

1970: England 0-1 Brazil (the Gordon Banks save, the Bobby Moore tackle and a thin…well, thin-ish…Francis Lee)

1982: England 2-0 Czechoslovakia

1986: England 0-0 Morocco (Ray Wilkins gets sent off)

1990: England 0-0 Netherlands

1998: England 1-2 Romania

2002: England 1-0 Argentina (the Beckham penalty)

2006: England 2-0 Trinidad & Tobago

Overall: P12 w6 D3 L3 F13 A5 (so that’s less than a goal a game)

11 Lions expects (and really, really wants!) an England win, although it may not be the landslide that some fans seem to be expecting. Having said that, a convincing win would be just what the doctor ordered and would set us up nicely for the last group game next Wednesday.

We’ll have some kind of reaction either late tomorrow night or on Saturday morning, although after a hellish work week Saturday lunchtime might be a more realistic option. Enjoy the game…and spare a thought for the French.

Only joking!

Robert Koren Does Robert Green A Favour

Slovenia have just beaten Algeria 1-0 thanks to a Robert Koren goal, which means we’re now in second place behind the Slovenes; our next opponents (Algeria) are bottom and their performance this afternoon was very reminiscent of their African Cup Of Nations effort; substitute Abdelkader Ghezzal of Siena was sent off for two silly yellow cards (shirt pulling and deliberate handball) and keeper Faouzi Chaouchi did his best Robert Green impression. The bookies are currently quoting England at roughly around 1/4 to beat the Algerians but our outright win odds have drifted since yesterday: average price is 8/1 with best odds being 17/2, which is roughly the same as Holland.

Our potential ’round of sixteen’ opponents start their campaigns today: Serbia are about to kick off against Ghana and later on Germany take on Australia.

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