passing, nudging, back kicking, shooting... teamwork.

and what's more on current showing, nobody ought to.

Awesome display, squad has got great strength in depth, including the ledge that is CRESPO and with their growing confidence they are going to be really hard to beat. They made S&M look like a park side....

England meanwhile continue to struggle with the under whelming Sven and a squad that is already showing the folly of his initial squad selection.

Sven is playing his usual waiting game.
We just were, incredibly off target last night, Lampard should have had three goals, and Crouch two.
I am not usually optimistic about England at footie, but I am at the moment.
I think it will peak at the correct time.

I think it will peak at the correct time.

Martin,

It "peaked" 40 years ago !

...Having made a living from being "up and coming", for my entire life, I am all ways full of optimism!

I am not one to forgive easily, l was wishing for the Argies to get hit. I hate em, for cheating
on us, and now Marrdona (spelling) is a hero!!!???
I suppose looking at it l am a true Brit..
Germany....no they bombed our chippys...thank you stan
France to smarmy
Holland to cocky
Poland .....yes they can beat any of the above, but dirty
Spain...they torture donkeys
Italy, well they are good, and they can beat all of the above
ENGLAND? Leave em alone, does it matter if they play to just win?
What do we prefer a cracking world cup final, but England lost, or a crap final but we won????
We were crap throughout the tournament, but we won?
Which matters?? As am no real fan can anyone tell me
which is the most important?
If we don't win, Come on Brazil.
EVERYONE bear in mind my football knowledge can be written on a postage stamp. I am only writing my feelings. I am no pundit.
just

Aslan

Everyone seems to have felt the same as I did when I saw it.
Many more impressive individual strikes but this was absolutely stunning teamwork; it actually looked like one of those computer generated goals.
24 passes!
I must say; from watching so far there are some teams - Argentina, Spain (they looked fantastic to me), Brazil, Italy, Czechs (best individual so far in that new Arsenal player)... which are so far superior as teams that I fear England (with numerous ingredients and some great players) will have a very hard time beating them.
One consoling thing... they cannot get another goal as good as that so perhaps Argentina have peaked too soon (which you certainly can't say about us!).

Our main hope has to be that we will improve our game against the better teams, in the same way the big teams do in the Premiership.

Hopefully there will be more space as these teams won't sit back with everyone behind the ball. The likes of Lamps & Stevie G can take more control and start to dictate games and will be able to get forward more.

We are still going to suffer from the forward line though as Owen looks very lacking, Rooney is obviously not match fit, Walcott has never played at top level and Crouch would struggle to get in most of the other WC sides. Most teams took 5 or even 6 strikers, we took only 4 and packed out the midfield options which looked a mistake before and even more so now. How we could have done with Defoe/Bent or Beattie against Paraguay or T&T.

Without them and no sign of him actually playing Walcott we end up playing route one football which at this level is always going to struggle.

Still the main thing is we're through to the next stage and hopefully the inclusion of Rooney will allow for a more expansive game with movement across the midfield rather than just humping the ball up front. It certainly seems insane that with one of the most talented squad ever we've resorted to old style Wimbledon.

Let's hope SGE or our highly sought after next manager
Big Mac (yawn) can actually get us playing football, then we should be able to assess out chances better. We certainly have one of the best defences and a potentially brilliant midfield so if they can get them playing who knows.

let's all thank God for John Terry!
Another thing - you don't mention Aaron Lennon who I was most impressed by.

TERRY should be the next England captain, he's got the lot and is the closest you'll get to a Terry Butcher/Tony Adams but with more skill.He'd inspire far than DB and would drive the team on as he does week in week out at Chelsea.

Great quote on Becks in one of the papers after the T&T game "Like a trainee midwife,he struggled with his delivery". Still I wish more players could hit a cross in like him.

As for Lennon, he looked like he has done for Spurs this year, fast, dangerous and potential creator of chances. He deserved his chance and took it well, what will Sven Gordon do now though? He's not going to play him ahead of DB and I can't see him putting DB at full back again!!

What do we prefer a cracking world cup final, but England lost, or a crap final but we won????


Either scenario is so unlikely to happen that I wouldn't worry about it !

They have 2 matches left - then are on their way home.

The only thing I can be sure you'll enjoy is the certainty that Italy will beat USA today.
Other than that I think it's been the best World Cup ever so far; I can see an Argentina vs Spain final which would be excellent; and I still think England could do better than expected!

as shown on the BBC today, you must try to track it down.
It's - as you would guess - fantastic.

It comes from a song lyric, JK .....

"40 years of dreaming" !