This probably isn't of much interest to many of you people but I had to give my opinion.
Well we do or someone like him. After England’s poor performance in the midweek 0-1 defeat to Spain, the media blew the whole thing up, raising the time old questions “Why can’t Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard play together in the same midfield?” and “Will the so called “Golden Generation” of English football ever win the desired World Cup?” and once again the media have slammed the blame onto the management and players. This time round the blame on the players was justified, there was no creativity, willingness or determination to score after Spain scored. The management were also in fault in this loss not playing players in the right positions, who plays a right footed player on the left any idiot wouldn’t do that, but this wasn’t a surprise after 5 years of management failure under Sven whatever his name was.
Well what is the real cause of the Golden Generation's failure to win anything, is it the manager or is it the players not being able to play together at international level. Well the answer to the defeat on Wednesday was both, the team was imbalanced from the beginning and then Gerrard and Lampard didn’t do anything together.
So by the sounds of it, the manager is the one at fault for our Golden Generation's failure to win, but is it really, in every competition that our Golden Generation has played we have reached the Quarter Final stage of it, but then we have run into the same man every time in each of the three major competitions. This is probably the most overlooked reason I saw when people were talking about why England fail to win anything, and was the main cause behind my choice to write this.
The man Big Phil Scolari has knocked the Golden Generation out in each of those competitions. I believe the reason why England fail is that they don’t have a manager that is of the likes of Big Phil, first time he managed Brazil in the 2002 World Cup, fair enough Brazil were better then our Golden Generation then, but then in Euro 2004, he managed Portugal, and everyone knew that on paper our Golden Generation had the edge on the Portuguese, but it was our bad luck combined with Scolari’s managerial abilities, our star player Rooney was injured in the early stages of the match and from then we lost on penalties.
Then in last years World Cup, probably the peak of the Golden Generation failed right from the beginning with lack lustre performances and scraping wins against opposition we should’ve easily beaten. We dragged our way into the quarter finals to yet again face Big Phil and Portugal, this we clearly had the better team on paper but the team performances were clearly against us.
Once again bad luck befell our star player Rooney, getting injured by a Portuguese player in the months building up to the World Cup, Rooney barley reached fitness, only to have our other best striker get a serious knee injury, which he is still injured from. This lead to Rooney playing with an unsuitable partner in Peter Crouch, as there was no other option since the management made a suicidal choice to bring a 17 year old, who had never played a single minute of top level English football.
The match started ok, but lead to a frustrated Rooney stamping on the nuts of a Portuguese player, and then another Portuguese player telling the ref to send Rooney off, but then ironically England played probably the best football they played in the entire competition from the minute Rooney got sent off and in the end were very unlucky to score in normal or extra time and the Golden Generation’s Penalty shoot-out curse once rounded off another failure.
So what could be the real reason for England’s Golden Generation's failures, are they cursed against the Portuguese, especially Big Phil or do they need Big Phil or manager similar to him, or are the players cursed. The answer would become a lot clearer if a manager of the like of Big Phil came along.
Wow, this was so easy to write, while it'd be so hard to write that much for school.
Comments
In my opinion, Gerrard and Lampard are compatible in the same team, because although they are both centre midfielders, Gerrard is a more defensive one, I have the impression that he played there on the first years of Liverpool, while Lampard is a more attacking one. I think that England's problem is defence, you don't have a reliable goalkeeper since David Seaman, and at sometime even he conceded a strange goal, I mean, I like Paul Robinson, but he's not from the same category as Banks or Shilton. Neville does well, but he passed his prime (we have the same situation on the left side of defence), and sincerely I think that Ferdinand isn't half the player that critics say he is (not joking. I think the same thing about Ricardo Carvalho from Portugal). Besides, the midfield section strangely doesn't seem to work, I don't know why. I thought that with the exclusion of Beckham from the team it would work better, but it's the same thing. You got to remember that Joe Cole isn't recovered yet, so the English team didn't fought against Spain at his best level. Owen isn't recovered yet, I think, so you didn't played with your best attacking duo too (in my opinion). About Luiz Felipe Scolari, I don't have him on such an high level. For you may seem that Portugal's performances in the last Euro/World Cup were a miracle (in some situations they were...), but, as you said for England, the generation that played on those games was our Golden Generation too, it ended when Figo walked out of the national team. You may think that I'm pushing them too hard, but the final from Euro 2004 was supposed to be won by us, instead, we lost because of his stupidity, having played with Greece one time and lost, he played them again with the exact same tactic. Result?? Bulls***. About World Cup, we where lucky on the game against England, we were outplayed with one more element on the field, which is crazy, because I think that in the both tournaments, England and Portugal were equal teams in strength and played football. He is a coach than, even losing, will not risk something, the maximum that he does is trade one forward for another, or put an attacking midfielder instead of a defensive one, while he should put a forward. I don't like him, and for the people that think that he saved Portugal, then see Euro 2004, Humberto Coelho was in the bench and Portugal gave a show. Uff. This is huge. I wait about your opinion about MY opinion. lol
England need a manager that is better, much better than an average coach (which is what Steve is!) and Gerrard must also play in the middle with a holding midfelder (I like Parker the best) and Lampard must be dropped to the bench!!!
-professorkev-
Chat to you later Shaman.
jayjay0924