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.

England 3-1 Egypt (FT)

Before the game started the lineup looked a bit second string to me. Leighton Baines made his England debut, but Egypt fielded the same side that won the African Cup of Nations in January; confusingly both sides were wearing their change colours, although the words ‘cynical marketing ploy’ spring to mind as England’s new ‘away’ kit was only launched yesterday and tonight’s game was presumably supposed to inspire us all to go out and buy it at the first opportunity.

John Terry was booed during the introductions, when he first touched the ball (less than ten seconds into the game) and throughout the first half; it was comparatively mild and seemed to die out in the second half.

The game started brightly and it was soon obvious that Egypt were a good test for England; the visitors looked comfortable with the ball, knocked it around nicely and were not really under stress defensively despite some early England pressure, but yet again English passes seemed to be going astray.

Anyone expecting a 6-0 win would have been disappointed; when Egypt took the lead after 23 minutes with a goal from Mohammed Zidan, it could hardly be described as ‘against the run of play’ although Matt Upson’s slip made Zidan’s job a lot easier. It was tough to find a word that adequately summed up England’s defence at that point but ponderous and unconcerned spring to mind. If the defence is not considerably tighter then anything beyond the second round this summer is going to be a bonus; anyone who saw Brazil’s second goal against Ireland on Tuesday night will appreciate that. On the other hand, we were without the services of a few of our first choice defenders tonight.

Zidan’s goal ought to have woken England up: the slow motion close ups of Wayne Rooney showed exactly how frustrated the Manchester United striker was. To their credit, the Egyptians were showing other teams how to defend against England: pack the midfield and cut off service to Rooney, who really is the only genuine world class player we have.

Half time arrived with England losing 0-1 and it felt a little like some of the World Cup tournaments of the past: losing to a decent team that may have been underestimated before the game, no real sign of any breakthrough and players beginning to become frustrated.

Yet what followed was a validation of why Fabio Capello is paid so much money by the FA. He made four second half substitutions, each of which contributed to the final result. Carrick and Crouch replaced Defoe and Lampard at half time and made an instant impact: Carrick started the move that resulted in Crouch’s equaliser. Then Shaun Wright-Phillips replaced Theo Walcott and James Milner came on for Steven Gerrard who – it has to be said – did not do a great deal other than to pass the captain’s armband to Wayne Rooney when he was substituted.

Twenty minutes after coming on, Wright-Phillips scored and England had taken the lead. Milner’s shot was parried into Wright-Phillips’ path by Essam El Hadari, who flapped at the Manchester City winger’s snap shot. Crouch made it 3-1 five minutes later; the Spurs striker was awarded the Man  Of The Match award despite having played for exactly half of it.

So summing up,  from our point of view it wasa game of two halves: the first half was as lacklustre and the second half was encouraging. Gerrard and Lampard will no doubt probably start against the USA in June, but if they’re going to be as anonymous as they were this evening they might find themselves on the bench at half time; Defoe – and particularly Walcott - are in danger of not going to South Africa at all and that despite some of the dark mutterings on Radio 5 before the game, Robert Green should be our number one goalkeeper.

A few random observations before it’s time for bed:

* Does anyone else find it odd that a Danish brewer is the official beer of English football?

* Clive Tyldesley’s observation that ‘Zidan’ is not spelled the same way as ‘Zidane’ is about as fatuous as saying that ‘Pillao’ is not spelled the same way as ‘Pullao’  in different Indian restaurants or ‘Sechwan’ is not spelled the same way as ‘Szechuan’ in different Chinese ones.

* Beating Egypt does not make England champions of Africa, although it’s a nice thought.

* Latin American and Meditteranean referees will almost always blow for foot up regardless of the circumstances and also tend to do so if a sliding tackle comes in from the side. Looking confused or bewildered will not stop them.

* Michael Carrick is arguably a better all round midfield player than Frank Lampard at the moment.

* Wayne Rooney should be England captain.

Squad For Brazil Game Announced, As Are More Injuries…

Here’s the squad for the game on Saturday (ITV, 4:15pm):

Goalkeepers: Ben Foster, Robert Green & Joe Hart

Defenders: Wayne Bridge, Wes Brown, Gary Cahill, Glen Johnson, Joeleon Lescott, John Terry, Matt Upson & Steven Warnock

Midfielders: Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Tom Huddlestone, Jermaine Jenas, Frank Lampard, James Milner, Shaun-Wright Philips & Ashley Young

Forwards: Darren Bent, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe & Wayne Rooney

Missing: Ashley Cole (fractured leg, will apparently miss a few weeks),  Carlton Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard (who – despite being supposedly injured - started on the bench at Anfield before being used as a sub v Birmingham this evening), Emile Heskey, David James and Aaron Lennon. David Beckham will be missing due to LA Galaxy’s playoff game against the CIA’s team in Texas, Houston Dynamo.

A point worth making here: despite currently being placed second in the Premiership, there are no players from Arsenal.

Dunga announced the Brazil squad last week and contains no domestic players because Serie A (the Brazilian version) is coming to a climax; with four games left, there are only six points between the top six clubs.

The Brazilian squad:

Goalkeepers: Julio Cesar (Milan), Doni (Roma)

Defenders: Dani Alves (Barcelona), Fabio Aurelio (Liverpool), Juan (Roma), Maicon (Inter), Michel Bastos (Lyon), Lucio (Inter), Luisao (Benfica) & Naldo (Werder Bremen)

Midfielders: Alex (CSKA Moscow), Julio Baptista (Roma), Elano (Galatasary), Josue (Wolfsburg), Lucas (Liverpool), Kaka (Real Madrid), Felipe Melo (Juventus), Gilberto Silva (Panathinaikos) & Fabio Simplicio (Palermo)

Forwards: Carlos Eduardo (Hoffenheim), Luis Fabiano (Sevilla), Nilmar (Villareal), Robinho (Manchester City) and Clive Tyldesley’s favourite Givanildo Vieira de Souza (aka ‘Hulk’) of FC Porto.

More later in the week, but before anyone gets carried away, our record against Brazil is pretty ropey. Since we first met in 1956, we’ve won three times in 22 games, the last victory was almost 20 years ago when ‘Match Of The Day’ anchorman Gary Lineker scored the only goal of the game and Dunga was a player rather than the manager; we’ve lost three of the last five against them.

Lastly, on a sad note, it looks very much as if Dean Ashton of West Ham United and England will have to retire at the ridiculously young age of 25; he sustained an ankle injury at an England training camp in 2007 which he’s never fully recovered from.

Quick Round Up For This Weekend

The list of confirmed qualifiers for next year is as follows:

Australia, Brazil, England, Ghana, Holland, Japan, North Korea, Paraguay, South Korea and Spain. Possibly the only surprise there is North Korea (making their second appearance in the finals) but all of these countries have qualified before. The play off situation is still wide open so we’ll take a look at that nearer the time; the other story that we’re monitoring is when (rather than if) Diego Maradona and Argentina part company. The last time Argentina failed to qualify was in 1970 but there’s a real chance they may be missing next year.

Back to the Premiership this weekend for all but one of the England squad: game of the day has to be Manchester United v Spurs (ESPN 5:15pm GMT) as it’s second v third and should feature a lot of England players. Arsenal v Manchester City should also be worth keeping an eye on.

Clive Tyledesley was on form on Wednesday, wasn’t he? Croatia are our ‘skeleton in blue’ (perhaps not any more), he mentioned France but obviously hadn’t been fed the information that not only were they losing but their goalkeeper had been sent off, Steven Gerrard is only a inch and a half taller than Dario Srna and Croatia is an old country (it became a kingdom in 924) but after union with Hungary in 1102 it eventually became part of the Hapsburg Empire and only became truly independent again in 1991.

Finally, did anyone else notice the pitchside advert informing us that beer is available in pubs? Thank goodness for that…I’d been wondering where I could get some for next year. Imagine if you could watch football in pubs, that’d be great!

Enjoy the weekend.