World Cup Preview - Group C - England
Nickname: “The Three Lions”FIFA ranking: 8th
Coach: "Don Fabio" Capello
Game Schedule:
June 12 – England vs. USA (Rustenberg, 2:30 p.m. EST, ABC)
June 18 – England vs. Algeria (Cape Town, 2:30 p.m., ESPN2)
June 23 – England vs. Slovenia (Pretoria, 9:30 a.m., ESPN2)
Prospects: When the U.S. came out of the pot, England fans began to dread another Group of Death draw; however, in the end we couldn't have hoped for better, having missed out on a difficult African team in Pot 3 and France and Portugal in Pot 4. ESPN are hyping the June 12th meeting as a repeat of the 1950 win for the colonials, but in reality it's unlikely to happen. In truth, England have a reasonably free run of things through to the semi-finals. Get ready to dream, lads!
Key Player: Most World Cup winning sides have a world class goal-scorer who knocks in six or seven goals in a month during the tournament. If his ankle is right, Wayne Rooney could be that man for England.
Youngster to watch: Aaron Lennon is one of those rare quantities in international football - a wide man with real pace who truly frightens even the best full-backs.
Who Will Get the Goals: England have a number of weapons, including plenty of goals from distance from Lamps and Gerrard, John Terry headers from set pieces, and of course there's Roon. Hell - even Peter Crouch scores boatloads in an England shirt.
Who Will Get the Cards: After a poor season for Chelski, I fear that John Terry's lack of form will be exposed.
Prediction: With a starting XI full of players with Champions League credentials and an almost fully fit squad, England have its best chance of glory and its best overall squad since 1970. I expect a run of three easy wins in the group stage, followed by tough fought victories over Serbia in the Round of 16 and France in the quarters. That sets us up for a glorious semi-final with (gulp) Brazil on July 6 and...just maybe...a final date on July 11th with Spain (double gulp!).
posted by The Blue Devil @ 9:43 PM
4 Comments:
I honestly worry less about Terry than I do the number of goals that Rooney has to score to get England through this tournament.
Terry's always been a terribly flawed footballer. You only have to endure viewing England's match with Sweden in Germany to come to that realization. His strength has been his leadership, but now that its revealed that he can't be trusted around the WAGS, he's lost that too. If he went down lame, or got sent off, or if Don Fabio just got pissed off watching him sleeping while some bloke nips in front of him from a corner, we've got more of his kind in the squad.
Rooney? That's an entirely different story. He's got to remain fit, stay out of disciplinary trouble, and hopefully cap a run of terrific form for United with hatfulls of goals. I'd almost say that if he doesn't end up Golden Boot of this tournament, England won't have enough firepower to hope to lift the trophy.
ps, if it's goals you're hoping for from Tiny Terrs, you're barking up the wrong tree there too. He got precisely 2 this year in the league, which is 1 more than the number of red cards he was shown. Put in perspective, Michael Dawson got 2 as well, but managed to stay on the pitch throughout the season.
And unless Bent can translate his 24 league goals and Defoe his 18, into something for the 3 Lions, we're really up the creek when it comes to international class fire-power. Crouchies 8, SWP's 4, Lennon's 3, and Joe Cole's 4 don't inspire much hope they're going to factor. Other than Lampard who scores a lot for Chelsea (22! though some are pens), it puts a lot of hope on Rooney's ability to knock in the majority of England's goals.
I hear you on those issues, Gooner. However, I'm still a lot more hopeful than I have been years for two reasons:
1) The current squad is better than it has been in ages.
2) Just about all of the starting XI are fully fit.
In years past, the domestic season has done a number on England's chances, and we've ended up fielding players in key positions who should never have pulled on an England shirt. In 2002, you'll remember that the media attention was on Beckham but we were also missing Gary Neville and ended up fielding bloody Danny Mills in this place throughout the tournament!
As it stands, we've got none of those worries (knock on wood and hope that the horrid Wembley pitch doesn't cripple the lot of them on Monday against Mexico).
As for goals, in 2002, our top scorer was wee Mikey with a sum total of 2 goals. We only scored six goals in the whole tournament and still made it to the quarters!
In 2006, it was even worse. Our top scorer was Stevie G., again with 2 and the whole side only scored 5 in its run to the quarters.
Most of the time, the winning side has a striker who scores 5+ goals. That's what we need from Rooney. If he scores 5 or 6, then I think we can expect Gerrard and Lamps to chip in a couple a piece, perhaps a goal from Lennon, a Joe Cole or whoever the other striker is alongside Roon (Crouch? Heskey?). John Terry? It's true that he had a poor season and doesn't score that much for Chelski, but he seems to be different for England, perhaps because we play differently. He's scored 6 goals for England in 59 caps. That's a goal every ten games. Maybe he (or Rio) can stick a header in. What that means is that we score something like 15 goals over the month rather than 5 or 6. That would make a huge difference and could just maybe have us lifting the trophy in July. Just maybe...
THREE LIONS ON THE SHIRT!!!
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