Outclassed.
Out.

They deserve to go home. Well done Germany.

Steve McMahon on NBC in the US.

Germany made England look "overweight" - nicely put

How did we go from smashing the mighty Slovenia 1-0 to struggling against an average Germany side in less than seven days?

Spoilt,pampered,overrated and well beaten by an average German team.Never mind they have all had a nice little holiday in South Africa,a little golf,a few beers,picked up a nice gift for their Wives,Girlfriends and Mistresses,then home to be spoilt,pampered and overrated all over again.

Extinct. One nil to Darwin. Game over.

England were shit. Clueless. Lethargic and over confident. Keeping the ball is not enough. Waiting for the opposition midfielders to bring the ball to you so you can tackle is just idiotic. Not changing it at half time was naive. And bringing Heskey on when we're chasing a game is just bullheadedness on the part of the manager.

I'm out to the garden to drink Pimms.

Golden shower more like.

because on this showing they couldn't find their way home if it was next door. Rubbish, from coach to team, top to bottom. Over 4 games, only David James and Ashley Cole can hold their heads up. The rest ought to give their wages back - or, better still, give them to charity because they don't deserve a penny. This was the worst England WC performance I can remember and possibly ever.

From a pathetic group campaign, through a round of pompously arrogant pre-match posturing prior to taking on Germany, England’s “golden generation” have been inept and inadequate. Cosseted by their clubs, kept away from the fans, living in their massive homes, surrounded by their collection of Wags - sometimes their own, sometimes other players’ – counting their money, bullying the bottom half of a desperately uncompetitive domestic competition, too frightened to ply their trade overseas because they know they’d come unstuck, these are not men, they’re spoilt children.

Prior to the World Cup, you could buy shirts, posters, flags with their faces superimposed on the team of ’66. What a joke. They were professionals, grown men able to handle the greatest pressure that any England side has ever been under, the pressure of delivering a promise on home soil. Did they wilt, did they hell. They got on with the job. Nobby Stiles or Steven Gerrard? I know which one has the more talent, but I know which one I’d rather have in my team. And Nobby must be 70 now.

English football has created a raft of footballers who are fine when the sun is on their backs, when they’re surrounded by overseas talent in a Chelsea, Liverpool or United side, knocking seven bells out of Bolton, Wigan or Blackpool. But when it matters, when it gets hard, when the big games are won and lost, they can’t cut it. Sure, they talk a good game, “We’ve got a great bunch of lads, the spirit’s good”, but when they have to go out and deliver, you can’t find them. Did Wayne Rooney got to South Africa or has he been on holiday in the Wirral for the last month? And why were there no English teams in the last four of the Champions League this year? Because the Premier League has been found out.

It’s the home of Englishmen who’ve never had the guts to test themselves by playing overseas, and of foreigners, mostly on the way down, ready to take the inflated pay packets that the Premier League offers, a league where, at the top end, there are perhaps six taxing fixtures a year on the domestic scene.

Getting paid an annual salary in the millions seems to do something to the appetite. Every side England have played at this World Cup was much less rated individually – at least amongst the myopic pundits on this side of the channel – but each one wanted a result far, far more. Questions will be asked about playing 4-4-2, but Capello knows that asking Englishmen to do anything more complicated causes their brains to fry and they get even worse. And if your back four – estimated basic weekly salary around £400,000 between them incidentally – can’t play, really can’t play, certainly can't run, and are more interested in keeping their shorts clean than making a crunching tackle, what formation is going to work?

In the real analysis, we had a group of 23 players who were nowhere near as good as anybody thought they were – and that applies to the players more than anyone, players who have underachieved on a monumental scale for England for a decade now, yet think they’re the greatest footballers ever to walk the planet. Yes, they’ve had their bad luck, but so does every nation. The difference is that luck or not, England haven’t looked good enough to win anything in an age, no matter what those who write the headlines at The Sun and the Mirror and the Mail tell you. Because at tournaments, you need to be a professional, you need to focus, you need to compete, and you need to handle the pressure.

What you don’t need to be is John Terry, trying to instigate a revolution because the boss had the temerity to take the captaincy off you after you behaved appallingly earlier in the season. What you don’t need are “inside sources” complaining that they’re not allowed to have a drink, or that men who have the money to give them access to the greatest range of gadgets and gizmos complain they're are somehow still bored, that they’re pining for their wags.

What you certainly don’t need is footballers – the luckiest men in our society by the way – watching video messages from soldiers in Afghanistan and then talking about what they’re going to do at the World Cup to honour “our boys” in the same breath. Do you think those men on tours of duty, who don’t see their families for great stretches of time, who miss the birth of their children, who put themselves in mortal danger spend their time trying to undermine their commanding officer or complaining that life’s no fun? If I ever see another English footballer trying to ally himself to some proper heroes again... Those men and women handle pressure, life or death pressure, every day of their lives. Our footballers go weak at the knees as soon as an important game comes around. It’s pathetic really.

The golden generation – or the golden girls as this lot should be more properly referred to, no offence ladies - are just the vanguard though, for there are more and more generations to come. Plucked from schools, dropped into academies as kids, given equipment, never asked to do any proper work, never questioned, pampered and preened, they live the lives of the old French aristocracy. And we know what happened to them. Time for the revolution, time to get rid of the scourge of over funding of footballers, time for them all to get a dose of reality. Time also to learn the lessons of yet another abject failure rather than looking for excuses. Are you with me comrades?

giving directions to distended-stomached tourists.

Not much fun, but probably better than watching the match.

we are not good enough and never were (see previous WC threads). Poor first 11, three subs used J Cole, Heskey, W Phillips, enough said. Now we are losing the bloody cricket. Fuckity, fuckity, fuck!

P.S. well done Germany, Ouzil made Rooney look like the player he really is and before the Rooney apologists start name me one BIG game, just one where Rooney has excelled.

P.P.S same goes for Super Frank by the way

P.P.S Bresnan has just won the cricket for us, he has balls unlike, oh I can't be bothered.

When they asked the German fans who will win, and why - they said "Germany, because we have the better team".

When they asked England fans the same question, they said "England, because we have the better players".

Find a system that works, and choose the players who play those specific roles the best. If it means leaving a 'Star of English Football' out, that's the way it has to be.

'passion' and 'pride'. Not enough talk about 'passing the ball', technique' and 'scoring a goal.'

There are not the players there from 1-11 to do it plus no-one has given the Germans, or indeed any of the other teams you played, enough credit.
I heard: a) 'We should win this because individually we are better than them' and b) 'This is a mediocre German side'.
So starting with the latter - that's an object lesson in modern pass and move, interchanging football from a mediocre German side than can play in a variety of styles.
(BTW Lawro's bleating about the German keeper being all over the place in the second half was embarrassing.)
And, on the former, you are not individually better any more - it's clap trap perpetuated by everyone involved in top flight English football.
If you are better, can you name one England player who looked as technically gifted as either Ozil or Schweinsteiger, the latter of whom, despite not being 100% fit, bossed that game today.
Ozil, Schweini and Lahm must be on similar money to many of the English players (just as the Argentinians and Brazilians are) and it doesn't dull their appetite.
So it has to be down to technical ability.

Certainly looked more technically gifted than anyone else on display today and he can play across the midfield and up front. It's that level of technical flexibility that England doesn't have.
Terry also appears to be one of those players where the legs go in the blink of an eye as opposed to a long, gradual disintegration.

how members of the German team grow into the shirt, while the English seem to be diminished by it.

*snaps vuvuzela over knee*

- assuming England still intend to contest the European qualifiers, then a few selected suggestions (from a Scotsman who takes no pleasure in the kind of performances that England have given in this World Cup)

- Joe Hart - you are number one for the European Championships. Whether or not the rest of the team gets told only an hour before kick off, you are guaranteed to start unless injured.

- Ashley. You are a very good left back, one of the best around. But you won't learn anything new at Chelsea, and you need to become an even cleverer player once your pace starts to go. Also, the UK press are going to be all over you when the divorce starts. Move overseas. Take up the offer to go to Madrid or to Italy, and improve.

Joe, you've been let go by Chelsea, and there's a suggestion that Machester or Liverpool are too far away from London for you. Do yourself a favour. You might like it. Or, better, you could go overseas too.

James - why go to Manchester City? You'll not start 50% of the games, probably. A year or two in Serie A, if they'll take you, might be just the job.

Aaron. Put down your razor, stop shaving silly patterns in your hair and eyebrows, and learn how to cross. Remember that David bloke who hung around the squad in SA? Get him to give you a few lessons.

Emile - thanks for all the memories. There's the 5-1 in Munich, and...well, thanks for all the memories.

Owen. Get well soon.

Wayne. Take all of the summer off. Play with your son. Enjoy your family. Don't read any papers. Try and remember what it was like to enjoy your football.

John - good defender as you undoubtedly are, on occasion, you bring too much baggage with you. Drop the 'I am the real leader' schick, or if you can't, then cheerio.

FA - sell Wembley as a concert venue. And if you are going to appoint a foreign coach, then no matter what their credentials, make sure they can speak fluent (not pidgin) English.

Employed by the banks - the banks and Rupert Murdoch run UK footie.

Their margin is much much smaller on the performance of the national team.

Why would you expect the players or their employers to give a flying f*** what any of you think about this?

Lampard's "goal" - which was very clearly over the line - had been given?

not the best from England. Not the best.

England haven`t had a decent goalkeeper since Peter Shilton
The only world class defender around is Ashley Cole and he´s not much of a defender.
Gerrard and Lampard on their day are fantastic but they cant play together.´
Wayne Rooney does not cut it at international level
The English FA dont know what theyre doing and unless the appoint a fearless, forceful manager with long term vision and give him much more than two years, they will continue to bollox things up
The English press will continue to build up the team and then cut them down and set out to sabotage them at every turn. It´s in their nature, like the scorpion crossing the river.

for possibly the first time in my life I got a footie prediction right - in an earlier thread I predicted last 16 for England, just because when you look at the squad there is so clearly a paucity of talent and lack of strength in depth. There literally is not one player in that squad who can create things and do the unexpected from midfield, and the quality of strikers is embarrassing.

I don't buy the notion that it is a lack of effort, or that somehow they have had their will and passion sapped by their ridiculous wages and privileges - nor, even, that it is a result of the nature of the Premier league. There are any number of players at this world cup earning huge wages, and even some of them who play in the Premier league - but they seem capable of playing. Just look at Tevez and co at the game tonight. Ultimately it is simply down to a lack of talent, and that can only be because of the way the game is coached and developed in this country from childhood.

PS - Maybe Sven wasn't so bad after all - quarter finals in all his championships looks suspiciously like over-achievement for this country...

would you not like to be paid off and spend the rest of your years tanning yourself in the Italian sun. The English FA know, well, sweet FA.

What's odds will you give me that Harry Redknapp will be England manager before July is out?

but when I was watching the game I started to believe that the english players had forgotten that they were wearing the red jerseys today...because every pass ended up at the feet of a guy wearing a white one...
Compare that to the germans who seemed to have a psychic connection every time they passed the ball to a space where a team mate suddenly appeared at the same time, though he was nowhere near that spot when the kick was made.
And the english defence was like a gate swung open with a big welcome sign on it, when it ought to have been a chain link fence with a sign saying "Beware Of The Dog"...
As I said; I feel for you; but I can't say you deserved any better.

So there's nothing left to do except laugh it off and enjoy the rest of the tournament.

Which leaves the question, who are we pulling behind now? I think my preferred winners, in rough order of preference, would be:

1) The Netherlands - I've got/had some good Dutch friends in my time, they play decent footie and they 'deserve' a win far more than England ever have.

2) Argentina - my favourite South American country when my wife and I travelled there, plus I think Maradonna's celebrations and post-match interviews would be worth the entry fee alone.

3) Brazil - it always seems vaguely comforting when they win it.

The hype which had nothing to do with the players is now being used as a stick to beat them with. "Golden Generation" was media hype and rubbish. This generation never looked to have a greater quotient of good international players than any other. They didn't even qualify for the last Euros and were equally rubbish at the last WC. At what point did they appear to be "golden"?
They're just pawns of the tabloid push to whip the nation into a frenzy of self-delusion. It works every time.
(P.S. I'm Irish)

With the exception of Italy twice (1982 & 2006) I speculate that the majority of World Cup winners since 1974 have had teams who play in a wide selection of European and international leagues and, as a result, in a wide variety of styles.
English players are paid so much in the Premiership that they stay at home and, as a result, can play only one way.
This England team has one gear, one way of playing and its failings have nothing to do with the tactical acumen of the manager.
Too many players who look great in the Premiership were found lacking and no amount of 'individually we are better' is going to make the pill taste sweeter.
Terry, Cole(s), Gerrard, Lamps, Wazza and Johnson were the only Champions league players on view today and they were poor. In the goldfish bowl of the Sky Premiership (shite cliché, I know) they look brilliant very week as highlight package after highlight package unfolds. But they are ageing and increasingly poorly equipped to deal with technically and tactically adept opponents.
There was no technical flexibility in midfield, no basic skills in defence and not one creative player on the pitch for England.
The ONLY moment of creativity for England in four games was one Milner cross off the right touchline.
There are few of those England stars who could play abroad and that's the reason why few ever do. As well as the fact they are paid so handsomely to appear brilliant in teams packed full of mediocre foreign players.
My point therein is: With the exception of Tevez, who is the Premier League star who has lit up this tournament?
Plenty of Bundesliga stars have, though.

is probably quite happy he stayed at home/went on his holibobs after being left out of the squad.

Engerlund Engerlund Engerluuuund
Engerlund Engerlund Engerlund
Eger-luuund EN-GER-LUND!

A chant as dismal as our football.

World Cup 2014 will be difficult for England. I don't think there are the obvious quality [players] coming through who can replicate what we have currently.

--Trevor Brooking

You want to replicate them?

I've read the comments above with great interest, so I thought I'd stick my own thoughts down:

1) The Premier league and the FA want different things; the Prem is basically a multi-national industry that happens to be set in England. The 39th game would've taken it abroad, and it'll surely happen in time. We've been crap even when foreign players were in the minority, so it's not the only reason we're bad, but it's now less a case of "where will the next batch of world-class English players come from?" and more "where will the next top-flight English players come from?". The only way young players get better is to play in the top flight; if you're not the finished article at 19, you're practically condemned to the lower leagues. In Spain, players develop later.

2) None of our top players play abroad, hence they only know one style of play, and lack the capacity to change the pace of a match. The Premiership makes the mistake of equating excitement with quality, but watch Italian or Spanish league football and it can seem rather dull, but the players are technically miles better and they can play the game at different tempos.

3) The ratio of qualified coaches to players at all levels in England is way behind the best European teams. When I was 8, we played on full-sized pitches, and you'd either win 15-0 or you never touched the ball. No-one I knew was technically any better at 11 than they were at 9. "We're doing one-touch football today, lads!" Why? Who plays one-touch in a real game? It should be ten-touches, to make players comfortable on the ball.

4) We won the World Cup in '66 with a great group of players, who were an anomaly in terms of what this country generally produces. Uruguay have won the World Cup twice, but you don't hear them tipped much come tournament time. We are actually probably on a par with Sweden, in terms of what should be our general expectation, but the Sun will have you believe we're Brazil.

5) We have, on the whole, poor weather. Getting out in the sun and dribbling around develops skill almost as much as coaching.

6) We're buggered. Really.

I am a lineman for Fifa.
And I stand by the corner pole.
Lookin' in the sun for another open goal.

I hear you singing in the terrace.

I can hear you thru the whine.
And the Fifa Lineman,
says it’s not over the line.

I know I need to go to SpecSavers.
I need to look again.
If only Fifa brought in lineside video,
It would ease some of the pain.

And you need me more than want me.
Because playback is not around.
And the Fifa Lineman,
is still on the ground.

The better team won. England were struggling in a qualifying group that had the USA, Slovenia and Algeria in it. They never looked hungry enough for the ball to win any of these games, so how could they possibly do any better against quality opposition. 4-4-2 against Germany was lunacy and played right into their hands. But the Germans were faster, more skillful and had better tactics than England. England's best player was David James who made some superb saves and still let in 4 goals. It could have been much, much worse.

pretty gloomy for us. Yes the Germans deserved to win. Clearly the better side and they now have a squad of players who will grow and improve. Place your bets for Euro 2012 and WC 2014 now.

as for England. When the so- called Golden Generation step down who is there to replace them? Capello recalled Carragher, tried to persuade Scholes and would have included Beckham had he not been injured. Point that raises...who else is there. The German U21s beats England U21s 4-0 in the U21 final not too long ago. How many of that German team made the WC squad compared to the England team?

The real problem for our national team is that the Premier League is far far too powerful. For that we can blame Sky but more blame should go to the worst run organisation in the world bar none - the FA.

Until the issue of foreign players is resolved we cannot compete because the body of England qualified players of not wide enough. Beats me how an Arsenal fan can also support England. I know of one who wanted France to win the WC because of the number of Arsenal players in their squad. Eh?

they might develop something resembling technical skill.

It's good fun , isn't it? But where does it get the England football team? I can't answer but like every other England supporter I wish I could. I do know that the loss of Capello will alter things not one jot. If change is needed (and I think every one agrees it is) then he is just the sort of character to push things through. The money issue leaves a bitter taste but it is a red herring. The team (not the players) were not good enough. Coaching, continuity and younger fresher players could (with the accent on could) improve that. It may at least stop any further movement backward.Make no mistake at the moment it is more likely England will move further backwards. For all the talk of no young players, our Under 21 squad do quite well. We could even be ever so humble and investigate the German youth structure, that is where the great team work comes from (note I say team not player).

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/121844-totally-rank-the-book-trades-ve...

Coming up from South Africa, a big shower of shite.

(c/o my mate Hugh)

in the Brazil game, the commentators are talking about some bloke called darren as the best linesman in the world. He's english.

The lion roars again.

According to today's Guardian, "Prior to this tournament, there were only 2,769 English coaches holding Uefa's top qualifications. Spain has produced 23,995, Italy 29,420, Germany 34,970 and France 17,588."

Still, next goal's the winner, aye kids?

...on what you mean by 'top qualification'.

I'm open to correction on this, but I understand that the FA does its own courses at the lower levels, so the lowest UEFA badge you can do in England is the UEFA B badge. That might account for the difference in numbers.

Does anyone know more about this?

Charles Hughes, one time FA technical director. He was the man responsible for the generation of coaches talking about penetration and the development of 'route 1' football that dominated the late 80's and early 90's. It was oft repeated that around two thirds of goals were scored in moves of less than 4 passes (or something similar). I always wondered about this, as I considered that it may not have been the move itself but the change of pace that did it. If such a move happened in a passage of play where the scoring side had the ball for long periods (I'm thinking Liverpool 80's style here, with Ian Rush banging them in) then the stats would be skewed. The coaching culture became saturated with this penetration idea. And from what I've heard some say, it still exists.

The English game hasn't even moved on from this, even though the most successful sides of the past twenty years haven't exclusively played that way. We are still obessed with the 'big man up front' idea at some low level. That type of English game is naive, shallow and ultimately all too easy for the high quality international sides to play against, as a young German team clearly showed us. In contrast we defended badly, were static for large periods and had no tactical adapability.

Since the start of the premier league only four clubs have won it: Man U, Aresnal, Chelsea and Blackburn. Leaving Blackburn's statistical blip aside (because it was around 15 years ago) that leaves three sides with a large number of imports who are also able to adapt tactically in different arenas, especially because of the large amount of (self-reinforcing) European football they play.

But the problem goes deeper. All the way own to junior football, as many have already said. We coach youngsters so badly and ingrain such a lousy culture that all hope is gone for them by the time they emerge from jnnior leagues. Those few who do get to the bigger clubs won't get first team football so have to drop down divisions. This is not a crime but it means they are wasting time playing football at a lower standard than they need to progress. We do currently have some good young players but they will never break through to play the football they need because risk-averse coaches (who, not unreasonably, worry about their jobs with attacks from some increasingly hysterical fans and media) will not risk them, preferring safe options.

Since the start of the PL in he early 90's quite a few people predicted this scenario and now, in combination with shockingly poor leadership from the FA, the chickens have come home to roost.

Sorry, ramble over.

Saturday afternoon 2:45pm and the pulse is nicely ticking over at 150bpm. Awaiting a nice 90 minutes of 220bpm minimum. Wife and son come in, both of whom care not one jot for football. "Were watching the big game!", they chant. No other sporting event, no other Olympic gold medal winner has managed this feat. They have never tasted as many accrid defeats as I have.
This is though why it matters, people who do not care for football care for the England team. It means more than sport, it has a national spirit. That was why it was so hard to see Saturday afternoon drain away, with the accrid taste in the mouth again and two other people even more bitterly dissapointed than I.

...mentioned Arsenal and queried how an Arsenal fan can support England.

Now, I'm not going to address that question here, mainly because it's so self-evidently daft, but I thought it might be worth pointing out the following - after the best part of a decade during which the club has seen a massive decline in the number of English members of its first XI, Arsenal now have a youth squad packed to the rafters with local talent.

Arsene Wenger has always argued that the decent English players are well out of his price range. He get pilloried for playing so many foreign players, but it's a strategy borne mainly of economic necessity.

The club's solution to this problem, recognising the importance of English players, has been to attempt to grow its own. Hence, after several years of trying, we are now starting to see domestic talent filter into the squad - whether the media chooses to pick up on it or not.

The likes of Gibbs, Wilshere and Eastmond have already played for the first XI and there's a long line forming behind them, with the likes of Sanchez Watt, Henri Lansbury, Jay Emmanuel Thomas and Kerrea Gilbert challenging for squad places.

Not all of them will make it, but they're all English, relatively local (most of them were born in London) and have spent the last few years being brought up to play the "Arsenal Way" (that's hopefully the Wenger, rather than Graham vintage).

Now, I'm sure that someone will point out that they won't be the first English prospects Arsenal have had and that they could easily join the long line of domestic players who have had to move elsewhere to find their football (Bentley, Upson etc). You could be right, but at least the club is having a crack at taking English players and giving them a proper football education and a chance to make the first team.

All in all, it's a pretty bold project, it's spawned a fantastic youth side (who I've had the pleasure of watching on numerous occasions the last couple of years) and, frankly, given what we all saw on Sunday afternoon I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned that there's a platoon of English, Wenger-trained pass and move merchants currently being readied for life in the Premier League.

Fingers crossed it works out.

Er… hate to rub salt into the wound (I was hoping for Brazil v England in the final), but, if Germany, Spain or Ghana win, there will only be ONE unbeaten team at this World Cup. i.e. New Zealand. Our coach/manager, Ricki Herbert gets $50,000 (NZ) per year for this (about 25,000 of your English pounds). The whole country knew the starting line up days before each game as well (none of this 5 minutes before getting on the bus). Mr Capello might learn a thing or 2. I’m sure Mr Herbert would be happy to manage England for.. uh… 200,000 pounds(UK) a year!!!. We want him to stay in New Zealand but it seems we may not be abe to afford him, now.
Either way, there’ll only be 2 unbeaten teams at best.