Danish ‘beer’ and Yank shirts

What’s the world coming to, or rather the English Football Association?

First it was the pollution of the 3 Lions national home with Carlsberg Lager, not at all ‘probably the best beer in the world’ as the Danes would have you believe. With the abundance of great English ales I have never understood why we are subjected to this cold, pale yellow, ‘Europiss’ from plastic glasses.

But that has been there for a while. I guess there was hope with the new Wembley that some true English ale, like Newcy Brown or London Pride, would replace the condensation covered green pumps, but sadly no.

Not enough with that, now Nike will be the shirt provider. Gone are the days of Umbro. After Nike’s smart acquisition of the traditional football brand, and then it’s subsequent sale last year the writing was on the wall. You could see the signs when the previous England home shirt came out with small gold spots, or whatever they were, all over the shoulders, very nice!

The new shirt will be worn by the 3 Lions very shortly. It isn’t the one below, sadly.

Umbro no more

When will the US giant start calling the shots on Roy’s squad selection, or even who starts. Remember Ronaldo’s surprise appearance in the 1998 World Cup final, he wasn’t on the team sheet 72 minutes before kick-off, the power of Nike!

Goodbye Umbro…

Zlatan, who’s Zlatan?

That was the question of my youngest daughter before I left for last night’s game. Well she is half English after all.

An ‘interesting’ experience in the new Friends Arena against a Swedish side just having recovered a 4 goal deficit against Germany to draw 4-4.

The stadium impressive even if not 100% complete allowed us along with many of the 2000 travelling England fans to have short sleeves thanks to the inside temperature of 20C.

The crowd, made up of 47,000 Swedish fans and about 2,000 English didn’t deliver the atmosphere expected with that amount of people watching a football game, the England fans soon launching into that old favorite ‘You’re supposed to be at home’. I’ve never been able to hear the players comments to each other in a crowd of even half that.

England looked lively out on the wings with both Baines and especially Johnson making runs forward and this created a couple of early chances that weren’t taken. England’s central defence didn’t look comfortable and the communication with Joe Hart seemed not to be working as they clashed early on.

Sweden took the lead on 19 minutes, inevitably through Zlatan whose first shot was blocked by Caulker, but was strong enough to get his foot to the ball and push it into the top corner.

England then started to pass the ball around well using the width of the pitch, with Osman playing a key role. Young broke clear and delivered the ball in for Wellbeck to equalise 10 minutes before half time and then Gerrard’s free kick saw Caulker put England ahead just before the break.

Caulker scores on debut

England’s travelling army taunted Zlatan as being a poor Andy Carroll, this would be rued when the final whistle was blown.

Well on the way to a convincing victory…

No changes for England at half-time and soon into the 2nd half we began to take the play to Sweden again and shots by Gerrard and Osman

On the hour, probably timed by one of the Premiership managers, Celeverly and Young were substituted for Wilshere and Sturridge. Wilshere immediately getting into the thick of things and making his presence felt. Still England looking for the elusive third goal.

Then came the turning point, on 72 mins Hodgson made a 3 man substitution with Shawcross, Jenkinson and Huddlestone taking to the field to replace Johnson, Caulker and Gerrard. Gerrard received much appreciation for his 100th England cap.

From then on Zlatan, who had already enjoyed more space than he should have been given, impressed himself upon the final stages of the game. A well timed pass from Svensson into the path of Zlatan taken down on his chest and shot past Hart to level for the Swedes.

7 minutes later Sweden were awarded a free kick outside our penalty area. Who else but Zlatan, now on a hat trick, should step up to take it. A mistake between the wall and Hart see Zlatan strike the ball hard into the bottom corner, 3-2 Sweden.

Hodgson now brought in Zaha for his senior debut and he was quick to show his eagerness breaking up the right with deft footwork.

England were trying hard in the final minutes to find an equaliser but it was proving difficult. 4 minutes of added time were announced. Into the first of these saw Joe Hart, not having his best night as England’s No.1, hesitate and then come out to head away the ball from Zlatan. Zlatan backed off and performed an overhead kick from long range and a tricky angle to leave Hart stranded and the 3 Lions 4-2 down. The home crowd finally found their voices and the England fans also applauded his goal. So 4 goals and a yellow card, for removing his shirt by the Norwegian referee.

Who’s Zlatan?

Hodgson during his post match interview was right to point out there were many positives, the pace on the wings from Johnson and Baines, Osman’s influence, Wellbeck and Young up front, Wilshere’s return and a glimpse of Zaha.

But today, the English press talk mainly of Zlatan.

Next up Brazil!

The Swedes again

Friendly?

On Wednesday next week the new national arena in Sweden, the so called ‘Friends Arena’, will host it’s first ever sporting event, Sweden v England, an international friendly.

New Friends Arena

It’s 14 years ago since I watched England lose to Sweden in the ‘old’ Råsunda. We took the lead in the first minute through Shearer, but this was neutralised on 30 minutes and then a couple of minutes later Sweden took the lead, which they held to win 2-1, and to top it off Paul Ince was sent off. The England ‘fans’ didn’t take this situation lightly and already showed their displeasure by emptying certain fluids onto the Swedish fans below them in the stadium during the game. The situation worsened at the end of the game with the alcohol fuelled English hardcore smashing the upper windows in the stadium and throwing the broken glass onto the fans leaving the game.

It was far from a friendly atmosphere, hopefully a repeat performance will be avoided, both in terms of the result and the crowd situation.

Chequered History

Over the years Sweden has been somewhat of a bogey team for us. Over the last 50 years we have won just 4 times over the Swedes, recently ending a long run of not being able to beat them with the exciting victory this June. Over the 80s and 90s we drew or lost against the Swedes, everyone can remember the Sun’s headline ‘Swedes 2 – Turnip 1’ after our defeat in Euro ’92.

Overall its 8 wins to the 3 Lions, 6 wins to the Swedes and 9 draws.

Continuing the new Era

On the back of the last game, a thriller on 15th June this year, we should be looking forward to a good opening game for the new arena.

With the winter pause now in the 2014 World Cup qualification until March and this being one of only 2 games before it restarts, Hodgson will be looking to get the team functioning well, hopefully getting Wilshire back in as a core member of the team.

I look forward to watching a tough friendly in the new arena with England increasing their unbeaten run against the Swedes.

The key will be almost certainly be keeping Zlatan quiet, if he continues his current form.

England’s winning goal in June

The 3 Lions to win 2-1.

When all’s said and done!

Back in old Blighty

Now that the England squad are back home, the pundits are analysing what went wrong. First though we should realise that the expectations were lower this time, for first time I can remember.

Back home

That said the exit route, a 0-0 draw and losing on penalties in the quarter final wasn’t what was expected as we went into the quarter final.

Looking at the tournament as an (unbiased) Englishman, we as Rio has pointed out, were very defensive and didn’t create so many goalscoring opportunities. The defensive aspect can’t just be seen as negative as had it not been for this France would have almost certainly scored more and the Ukraine would have probably scored. The other aspect of Rio’s comments, which could e seen as some kind of retort against Roy snubbing him, also holds some truth. We didn’t create so many goalscoring opportunities, and we missed some of the few that were created, as all teams do. But as the old saying goes ‘if you don’t shoot you can’t score’, we must have attacking players opening up the oppositions defence, and I think we could use our available talent more effectively.

One such pundit, if you call him that, the Don Fabio, has opened up a wound saying Rooney can only understand Scottish hence his under par performance. I guess he can understand Scottish better than Italian.

There were some positives and negatives as always,

Negatives

We’re out at quarter final stage, again
We lost on penalties, again
We allowed the opposition teams too much possession
We gave away the ball through poor passing, especially against Italy

Positives

Our defence was resilient
John Terry played a key role – now the courts can prosecute him for his behaviour
Steven Gerrard is a true captain, if there was ever any doubt
We can, when organised appropriately, put pace into our attack
We can score ‘fancy’ goals, well one at least

We’ve got 6 weeks to take stock, rethink and prepare before we meet the Italians again in a friendly this time.

At long last

Dominated

Not the same as beating the Germans or Argentina, but the defeat of Sweden has it’s place up there. Especially sweet is waking, as some of us did this morning in Sweden, with the comforting fact that we have finally put this run to an end.

It was probably one of the most emphatic 1-0 victories witnessed by a generation of England fans. England started pushed deep in their own half for a few of the early minutes, but they quickly changed that dominating for the next 20 minutes. This resulted in what was to be the only goal of the game, Barry’s header glancing off the tattooed Majstorovic to become England’s 2000th goal.

Barry gets England's 2000th goal

Encouraging signs

England’s 2nd choice players in many positions worked well together to further expose Sweden’s lackluster performance. The visitor’s passing and finishing often looking like it would be unfitting for a Sunday league match. As predicted Zlatan’s presence on the park seemed to have this effect again as when he was replaced Sweden looked to improve.

However potentially the most encouraging and frustrating was the number of goal scoring opportunities we created but didnt manage to convert. What could the score line have been if we had Shearer or Lineker on the pitch?

Taking all into account not a bad few days football, beating the current Euro and World Cup holders on Saturday night and ending a 43 year jinx against Sweden on Tuesday.

As expected the English press jump on this right away and have us with great chances at Euro 2012. But looking at the seedings and who we may meet in the group stages it might be another story.

Bring on 2012

Us – the Fans

We’ve seen it all before

I can only speak for myself, but I assume that it is quite representative of many hundreds and thousands of others in England and around the globe. At this moment there is a lot of disbelief and frustration, to put it mildly, with the events of the past few weeks.

As I wrote earlier I can remember already in December thinking out which route we would have in the Finals, optimistic of progressing at least to the Quarter Finals or further. After all we managed that in 2002 and 2006.

Looking forward to the start of the World Cup in June, travelling across to England to watch the first game with my mates in Cumbria. Ecstatic, almost unbelieving, when Gerrard scored after 3 minutes against the USA. Unfortunately it all went downhill from there.

Then back in Sweden watching, among many chanting England fans in the Tudor Arms, the poor display against Algeria the chanting turning to jeering ‘Are you Scotland in disguise?’, a glimmer of hope against Slovenia and then the eventual demise against Germany. Afterwards leaving with a sense of despondency, frustration, disbelief and despair at our premature exit.

England ‘Til I Die!

We, the English, have a national affinity for the Beautiful Game. When questioned about my interest in football I often remind people of Shankly’s famous quote “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.”

There will be a lot of ‘chewing the cud’ over our performance at this World Cup, the squad choice, team formation, player selection, tactics, Lampard’s goal that never was, manager’s future, future manager…

“Never mind, the footy season starts soon” I’ve heard a few times in the last few days.

When all is said and done many of the people, like me, that are despondent now will be watching (with renewed hope?) come the 3rd September as we begin our European Championship 2012 qualifying campaign against Bulgaria, if not already at the friendly against Hungary mid August.

I’m England ‘Til I Die!