Portugal on Penalties
I called it yesterday: nil - nil, Portugal on penalties. History repeats itself from Euro '04.
Here were the PKs:
Simao: nice
Lampard: Balboa is right - no confidence
Viana: ripped - post!
Hargreaves: powered it past off keepers hand
Petit: Another clear miss!
Gerrard: Weak. Not placed well and tipped off.
Postiga: Faked out the keeper nicely.
Carragher: Brought on for the PKs. And screws up!!!
C. Ronaldo: For the win... yes. What will be the reaction back in Manchester when he comes back for the season?
The post-game is absolutely right - Ricardo was absolutely great. The PKs weren't the best, but he even got a hand on Hargreaves' blast. Awesome.
Howard said last night "england has to win a shootout one of these tournaments, don't you think?" Aaaaah, no. I think England is forever doomed in PKs. Did anyone really have ANY confidence in Lampard or Gerrard? They were horrible the entire tournament, and were just weak in the PKs. I have no idea how to fix PKs, but whatever England has been doing since, well, forever, it hasn't been working. England's PK history:
'90 WC semis: loss
'96 Euro semis: loss
'98 WC second round: loss
'04 Euro quarters: loss
'06 WC quarters: loss
So, Christiano Ronaldo played. He looked pretty good, fairly good pace, and had a few good chances. (Note to Dave O'Brien - it's ChristianO Ronaldo, not Christian Ronaldo.)
4-5-1 vs. 4-5-1 makes for a boring midfield match. Nobody was really interested in winning. Nobody really pushed forward - everyone was more interested in preventing a counter.
Until the Rooney red card, England had better posession, and in that you could see the loss of Deco. But the Rooney red card was deserved, I thought (I was incredulous until I saw the replays that clearly showed what Rooney did). Who knows how strongly Rooney stepped on him - it might, MIGHT, have been some acting on RC's part. But, I'm sorry, you just CAN'T step on someone's groin. You can't put the referee in the position of deciding how hard the step really was. You just can't put the referee in that position. Rooney's temper, AGAIN, was his undoing. You can see why he did it - he was frustrated at being the lone striker with virtually no touches at all. So you know it. But understanding where it came from isn't the same as excusing it: he should be crucified in England.
Obviously, the Rooney red completely changed the game. England actually had a few chances afterwards, but there was no sustained attack. And Portugal was able to keep control of the midfield for the most part afterwards.
Also, how good was Miguel again? He so dominated Joe Cole that Sven gave in and subbed Cole out. That side of the field was just completely ceded to Portugal.
In the end, the loss was Sven's fault. The 4-5-1 just was never going to get it done. It put Rooney in an untenable situation. And there was never enough to get it done otherwise. You don't have enough forwards, and thus no chance to score. I ripped Arena for not putting his team in a position to win. Sven has to take the same hit.
Here were the PKs:
Simao: nice
Lampard: Balboa is right - no confidence
Viana: ripped - post!
Hargreaves: powered it past off keepers hand
Petit: Another clear miss!
Gerrard: Weak. Not placed well and tipped off.
Postiga: Faked out the keeper nicely.
Carragher: Brought on for the PKs. And screws up!!!
C. Ronaldo: For the win... yes. What will be the reaction back in Manchester when he comes back for the season?
The post-game is absolutely right - Ricardo was absolutely great. The PKs weren't the best, but he even got a hand on Hargreaves' blast. Awesome.
Howard said last night "england has to win a shootout one of these tournaments, don't you think?" Aaaaah, no. I think England is forever doomed in PKs. Did anyone really have ANY confidence in Lampard or Gerrard? They were horrible the entire tournament, and were just weak in the PKs. I have no idea how to fix PKs, but whatever England has been doing since, well, forever, it hasn't been working. England's PK history:
'90 WC semis: loss
'96 Euro semis: loss
'98 WC second round: loss
'04 Euro quarters: loss
'06 WC quarters: loss
So, Christiano Ronaldo played. He looked pretty good, fairly good pace, and had a few good chances. (Note to Dave O'Brien - it's ChristianO Ronaldo, not Christian Ronaldo.)
4-5-1 vs. 4-5-1 makes for a boring midfield match. Nobody was really interested in winning. Nobody really pushed forward - everyone was more interested in preventing a counter.
Until the Rooney red card, England had better posession, and in that you could see the loss of Deco. But the Rooney red card was deserved, I thought (I was incredulous until I saw the replays that clearly showed what Rooney did). Who knows how strongly Rooney stepped on him - it might, MIGHT, have been some acting on RC's part. But, I'm sorry, you just CAN'T step on someone's groin. You can't put the referee in the position of deciding how hard the step really was. You just can't put the referee in that position. Rooney's temper, AGAIN, was his undoing. You can see why he did it - he was frustrated at being the lone striker with virtually no touches at all. So you know it. But understanding where it came from isn't the same as excusing it: he should be crucified in England.
Obviously, the Rooney red completely changed the game. England actually had a few chances afterwards, but there was no sustained attack. And Portugal was able to keep control of the midfield for the most part afterwards.
Also, how good was Miguel again? He so dominated Joe Cole that Sven gave in and subbed Cole out. That side of the field was just completely ceded to Portugal.
In the end, the loss was Sven's fault. The 4-5-1 just was never going to get it done. It put Rooney in an untenable situation. And there was never enough to get it done otherwise. You don't have enough forwards, and thus no chance to score. I ripped Arena for not putting his team in a position to win. Sven has to take the same hit.
posted by Al at 11:36 AM
2 Comments:
Al, congrats on getting england-portugal on the nose!
and yes, sven didn't use his personnel to best effect (i still think, as i said yesterday, that he should have started lennon, and what was the point in bring walcott along if you weren't going to insert him at some point when you needed speed?), and yes, lampard had a really poor world cup (gerard i thought was fine, but not up to his usual standard), and yes, rooney deserved the red card (and if the red devil fans want to harass anyone, it should be rooney for his continued immaturity, which is the one thing that could keep him from being the european, if not world, player of the year in 2009-10, when he should be right in his prime).
but in the end, what made the difference is that cristiano played: i don't think portugal would have won it without him....
meanwhile, i should have gone with my gut on france - as you noted, their defense has really tightened up, almost to '98 form. at this stage, with england out, i'm rooting for zidane....
PS, Al, if you haven't seen it, here's an online posting from the new yorker of a very nice piece it ran in 1966 on the world cup that year:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/articles/060703fr_archive01
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