Features, Ian John, World Cup 2010 POSTS

The Alarm Bells Were Ringing… Thank Goodness…

Published by Ian John on June 24, 2010

I admit it, I tried to write this article yesterday before the England game with Slovenia. I sat down and pondered what I would write, how I could convey the mood of a nation before the game, how we could be pragmatic if we failed to qualify for the knockout stage and whether I should second guess the team Capello was going to pick.

Despite several attempts to start, I just couldn’t get the article focused.

This is, often, what it is like watching England in the World Cup finals. Buoyed, artificially perhaps, by the hope peddled by the press that this could be ‘our year’, the country responds with a display of nationalistic pride that is rarely seen. Flags adorn cars and houses. A bad performance and productivity in business falls, a good and the whole nation is buoyed.

Consequently, given our two disappointing showings before yesterday, it is easy to understand why, perhaps, I was under a cloud. The whole nation was and we desperately needed a performance to bring some sunshine back, to mirror the glorious skies in the UK for the past week.

Did we get it?

Well, we qualified and we won. They are the basic facts. The performance was certainly much improved and a far cry from the shambles we witnessed against Algeria. There were plenty of positive points from the game. Defensively we looked decent, apart from a few scares caused partly by Slovenia’s tall attackers and a rather disappointing pitch. The midfield was much better balanced and of course, Defoe scored.

However what was most impressive for me was the change in attitude and intelligence. Yes Capello stuck to his 4-4-2 system, but for some reason, this wasn’t rigid yesterday. Rooney shifted wide left to great effect, Defoe chased and harried all day, Milner was Mr Perpetual motion. Cole and Johnson were more involved going forward, Lampard and Gerrard began to influence midfield like they do for their clubs. The attitude was right, the motivation was there, the spirit was right. No wonder at the end of the game Fabio was a tad emotional.

Admittedly, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. We were still terribly wasteful in front of goal and really should have been out of sight by the start of the second half. That inability to take our chances left the entire country on tenterhooks for the last 10 minutes or so. While missing chances against Slovenia and taking just the one, is all well and good, we need to significantly improve for the better sides, when we may have far fewer chances and need to take more.

So, if the performance against the US was a 5/10 and Algeria a 2/10, then this was a solid 7/10, the only thing not pushing it higher being the lack of goals.

The USA qualified from the other game, a last gasp Landon Donovan goal taking them through. It was perhaps a little harsh on Slovenia, but there can be no denying that the US were far more deserving of going through than either Slovenia or Algeria. Indeed, had they not had two dubious goals disallowed (one against Slovenia, one against Algeria), they may well have qualified far more comfortably. I think they’ll be too strong for Ghana in the second phase.

England meanwhile move on to face Germany in the last 16. Old rivalries reignited once again for what promises to be another World Cup clash of titanic proportions. Franz Beckenbauer has already, twice, castigated England and in doing so, given Fabio and his team the perfect team talk ahead of the game. Lets just hope we avoid penalties eh?

However, I’m more confident now than I was 24 hours ago. Writing this article was a lot easier.

The Alarm Bells for England were certainly ringing after the first two games, lets hope that they just may have woken us up.

As with Germany up next and a possible quarter final with Argentina on the horizon, anything less than our best is most certainly not going to be good enough in either of those games.

Image Courtesy of ***Ranjan 78*** on Flickr.com

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