England Fans' Thread

partially a result of all the EPL coverage I guess

Excellent. We won't have to put up with his wavy top lip in interviews.

Poor guy

The column was written by Simon Kuper. He contrasts the 2000-world view of England with the 2010-world view. Kuper lives in France and has found "a bizarre universal English patriotism is arising." In France, Union Jacks are common among the French youth to which he adds "yes, I know it's not the English flag - go tell the French."

if we did get the results - it would almost certainly screw-up Kuiper's 2nd trend!

I could live with that :-)

I never realized just how ugly he is.  Incredible.

Gerrard captain? Pfffffffffffffffffffffft.

 

Dawson (Gawd bless im) on soccernet.com:

"For Rio to get injured, there would be no worse feeling for him as a player. To miss the biggest tournament in the world as the captain, I feel for him. I missed the Carling Cup Final in 2008, and there was nothing anyone could have said to me that could have made me feel any better. For Rio, the feeling will be the same, but it's a chance for me now."

I think most people will understand his intent, but Carling Cup = World Cup? I don't think so.

C'mon Jnr - give the guy credit, he's not implying that the cups are equal.

It's the relative importance of the occasion to the player in question that is being equated.

 
exactly

the carling cup is a big thing for tottenham


Downey262010-06-08 12:34:16

Yeah - you're right and I guess he is saying that no matter what anyone says the player who is missing out will feel gutted.

Although I suppose for Dawson it would hurt because Spurs went on to WIN the cup.

Barry rules himself out of USA match

So what's the starting line-up going to look like versus USA?

Haven't you heard...not any more - we have bigger fish to fry

My guess:

Green/James
Johnson   King   Terry   ACole
Milner/Wright-Phillips   Lampard   Gerrard   JCole
Rooney   Heskey

Anyone disagree? I can't see Crouch starting over Heskey and despite Defoe being better strikers than Crouch and Heskey he just is not good for the teams formation given Rooney. Looking forward to it for sure! Been really average recently and finishing was terrible against Platinum Stars. James is semi-injured and rumours Capello is iffy on him too.wellyphoenixfan2010-06-09 19:13:53

Maybe it's because Calamity doesn't wave his arms enough:

Focusing on the goalkeeper heightens stress and increases the likelihood a penalty will be saved in a World Cup 2010 shoot-out
Penalty shoot-outs at this year's World Cup in South Africa could be less heart-breaking for England fans if penalty-takers heed the latest advice from psychologists: they should do everything they can to ignore the goalkeeper.
Ignoring the goalie minimises stress levels and allows the brain to process the best way to place the ball in a specific part of the goal, said psychologist Greg Wood at the University of Exter, who led the research into the psychology of penalty shoot-outs.
"When players are anxious, they're more likely to worry about the goalkeeper. There's a tight lock between where we look and where the shot or any actions tend to follow: because you're looking more centrally, you're more likely to hit a central location, making it easier for the goalkeeper to save it."
Psychologists already know that looking at something tends to shift your movements towards it. "If you're driving and looking to the right you tend to veer to the right," said Wood.
People are naturally conditioned to focus on anything in the environment that they find threatening, and during a penalty the only thing that threatens the success of the player is the goalkeeper. "Our findings suggest we should try to ignore the goalkeeper and focus on where we are kicking the ball," he said.
Goalkeepers, meanwhile, would do well to wave their arms or whatever else they can, within the rules, to distract penalty-takers if they want a better chance of keeping the ball from the net. In his research paper, due to be published in the Journal of Sports Sciences, Wood cites the example of Bruce Grobbelaar, who used the famous "spaghetti legs" technique to distract players and help Liverpool beat AS Roma in the 1984 European Cup final.
"If the goalkeeper can make himself more threatening, he is likely to capture the attention of the kicker even further," said Wood. In the 2005 European Cup final, Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek waved his arms so much during the penalty shoot-out that he managed to save three out of five of the shots.
In his experiments, Wood fitted 18 volunteers with eye-tracking equipment as they took a series of penalties. For some, the pressure for success was heightened by offering a cash prize for the most goals scored in the competition. On the other side, goalkeepers were asked either to remain stationary or to try and distract the kickers by waving their arms up and down.
Afterwards they were asked to rate their anxiety level.
When the penalty-takers were most anxious, they tended to focus more on the goalkeeper. The length of time their eyes were fixed on him also increased if the goalkeeper was using some sort of distraction technique such as waving or jumping around.
When the kickers were anxious, 45% of shots that were on target were saved by the goalkeeper. When they were calmer, that save rate dropped to around 20%.
England have a terrible record in penalty shoot-outs, losing around 70% of the time, according to Wood. His tips for the England team in the coming weeks include staying as calm as possible in the buildup to a kick. "I'd try to get them to take a penalty as they do in their normal training environment. Under non-anxious conditions, you will score far more penalty kicks than when you're anxious."
Penalty-takers could take comfort from the fact that they are in charge, he added. "Realise that you're in control of the situation, the outcome is heavily in your favour. If you hit a shot to the top corner or the inside of the post, the goalkeeper's got little chance of saving it."

perhaps Gerrard - or whoever is left as captain by that stage should cunningly conceal a bunch of blindfolds upon his person in extra time

A cunning plan:

"Honest ref, the Butcher/Brown head bandage just slipped down"

Agree with you on Heskey,  I think he'll start - at least until Barry is fit then maybe Gerrard/J Cole will move up top with Rooney. BUT...surely Lennon ahead of Milner or Wright-Phillips?!

yeah Lennon defo to play,Milner off the bench.

It won't matter which of them plays on the right, England will whack the USA.

That is whack with the Maori pronounciation isn't it?

Whack just seemed better than beat.

I did get what you meant.

Opps forgot about Lennon Yeah I expect him to start there ahead of Milner however I wouldn't be overly surprised if Milner starts as Capello seems to rate him. I expect that Milner/Lennon will get dropped should when Barry returns and JCole will go on the right, Gerrard on the left UNLESS the Lampard/Gerrard combo actually goes well. I would be pretty surprised to see a striker dropped.

England supporters thread SB.

Go to the England troll thread if you don't have anything constructive.

EGel grapadura2010-06-10 23:26:28

Since when has EG been a mod????

Best. Mod. Ever.

Oh, I'm sure HN will regret the day he decided to throw me the keys

Haha well I hope you don't have any crackdowns on any of my Paston-related posts

Hah. Hope we've well and truly crossed that bridge.

Clear your inbox btw

Its the World Cup? Surely you gotta be expecting some stats on how Paston is the best keeper there?

Cleared btw.

We won't do much this tourney. There are NO Everton players in tyhe squad. Every time England have  DONE WELL they have had Evertonians in the side....

kill joyyyyyy

shot LG

Okay at 1-1 against the USA and three minutes to go, may be that flat performance v Japan really was a true reflection. Wakey wakey England.

Green is going to feel sick.

Look at the wage/value differences between the 2 sides and the outcome of the game. I'm not going to put the draw down to Green's error, he saved one that should have gone in too and the yanks had plenty of chances on goal so a fair result. My point is, it doesn't matter too much at this stage of the WC, which team has the stars and who doesn't, teams like US, south Africa, NZ etc can get results at this level against more highly fancied opposition.

Maybe that's why USA snuck a draw - Tim Howard  M.O.M