England beat Ecuador today 1-0 with a Beckham freekick. Great performance by Carrick. Carrick really did make the difference to England performance. With the temperature being around 35C it was really important to keep possession of the ball which we are usual poor at. His passing was excellent. Carrick only lost the ball once in the whole match. Also excellent from Rooney and Ashley Cole (he made a fantastic block which stopped them scoring). Joe Cole not as good as last few game and was subbed before the end. Beckham didnt do much apart from the goal – which was excellent. He hasnt been that good this tournament but he may have an excuse today because he said he wasnt well. He actually threw up after he scored the goal. They didnt show it on BBC (during the match you could see he wasnt feeling right), but on ITV they showed it. Ewww! LOL
Lampard was crap and should have been subbed. He had some great chances to score and just messed it up. Some other negatives for England is that Robinson once again had a poor game. The central defence made a few errors and are not performing to their potential.
Hargreves again had another good match. Gerrard didnt have a great game really. Lennon came on for Beckham at the end and did really well with his pace. Did well to waste abit of time. Carragher came up as well and did a good job to help defend the lead.
The ref wasnt the best in the world and made some poor decisions – he was fooled by the Ecuador play acting.
When England get ahead there is the tendancy to just hold on for the lead and really end up hanging on. We didnt do this as much as normal thankfully.
I was a little worried before the match with all the changes. Surely we should try out these things in the friendly matches. However its pretty much worked for Sven. In this world cup Sven seems to have changed in some way. He seems abit more ‘angry’ and aggressive. Its good to see. I think hes thinking its his last tournament so ’sod it, just go for it’!
We are gradually getting better and are in the quarter finals. We will play the winner from the match tonight between Portugal and Holland. I won tempt fate to say who we could be playing after that.
It will interesting to see what team Sven puts on next Saturday. He surely drop Carrick now. I think the side which started should start next week. Rooney just seemed to get better and better as the match went on.
In other world cup stuff the match between Mexico and Argentina had an amazing goal. Argentina were not that good and Mexico really went for them. It was 1-1 at the end of normal time. Rodriguez scored an amazing goal. He was about 25 yards out and controlled it on his chest and then volleyed it into the top corner. That was the winning goal.
In this world cup we have had some fantastic matches and fantastic goals – right from Lahm’s goal in the very first match. One bad thing about the world cup is the number of yellow cards. There have been loads. Many have been for stupid things like a little bit of time wasting.
COME ON ENGLAND!!!
UPDATE:
I have just watched the Portugal v Holland game. The game was ruined by the ref. 16 yellow cards and 4 red cards. Most of the yellow cards were not right – they were mostly just perfectly fine tackles. The game ended 1-0 to Portugal (who will now play England).
Deco was really unlucky to get sent off – he got his 2nd yellow goal for abit of time wasting. Actually he was pushed over in the incident. The ref should really use some common sense – he could have just added some extra time on, now he has potentially ruined a players world cup. Figo was lucky to stay on after headbutting a player – the ref didnt see it (behind his back) but he gave him a yellow card (linesman must have told him). If the ref didnt give a yellow card, FIFA could have looked at the incident afterwards and may have even banned him for a good (which would have been good for England). Bronckhorst (Holland) was also unlucky to get sent off (his second yellow card was just a normal tackle). After they were sent off Bronckhorst and Deco (who are Barcelona team-mates) could be sent on the side talking – properly about how stupid the ref was. (The players were not exactly great themselves and didnt help with their playacting – in particular the dutch players).
There was a fair amount of diving as you would expect – it really is something that needs to be kicked out of the game. Van Persie as usual cheated as did Robben.
Ronaldo was subbed early on after getting injured – it was a very poor challenge by the Holland player. It looked like a dead leg. This injury usually takes a week to heal so it will be interesting to see if he plays against England. After coming off Ronaldo was crying – I feel sorry for him. However he will have many World Cups ahead of him. What this game will be remembered for was a pathetic referee performance – he just totally lost control of the game. However this is good for England with Deco and Costinha not able to play.
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