France 1 - 0 Portuguese Diving Squad

[mcgillianaire]

Congratulations to the crowd for booing Cristiano Ronaldo. It was perhaps the best part of a boring match in which France were content to win 1-0.

Portugal's strikers put in another disappointing effort. For all their possession and goal-scoring opportunities, it's fortunate a team that couldn't score a goal in their last 278 minutes of normal play, didn't make the final.

And to end this post, I share the latest posting on soccerfans:

Oh, homebound Portuguese team:

Have a safe flight. Hope your plane doesn't dive as much as its passengers do.

Comments

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

Rooney and him made up.

SGE has a pretty decent record for England in terms of number of competitive games (not) lost, as I recollect (although if you read my post, I said 'not completely outstanding'). Resentment against him now seems to be a case of sour grapes, frankly. Don't know much about Chelsea, but the fake sheikh deal at least, was entrapment, pure and simple. I'm surprised the paper didn't face more of a backlash for that. I might add that it certainly didn't seem to serve the English public's interests.

I suppose this all stems from England's collective self-delusion around every major tournament. Supporting England at football is like rooting for Henman at Wimbledon. The team's not the worst, but it doesn't ever have what it takes to go all the way, and emotionally investing in a tournament victory can only ever lead to heartbreak.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Resentment against him now seems to be a case of sour grapes, frankly.
I didn't like him before and I still don't like him. There is definitely an element of sour grapes but it's no coincidence the FA picked an Englishman, even if he doesn't have the greatest experience, to succeed him.

At least supporing England is not like supporting Spain. Every four years you're convinced they're gonna win because they play one very good game in the group stage and then they crash out before you can say Bernabeu.

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

And all this time I thought he was Scottish. Bah.

no coincidence the FA picked an Englishman
There was a lot of talk in the press about how they wanted an English (and later, British) candidate. But really, it only hurts them if they choose to limit their search to people who don't necessarily have the same caliber: keep in mind that the top 6 Premiership finishers last season all had non-English coaches.

And I thought we'd already established that I don't support Spain because I expect them to win tournaments, but because I like the way they play football. As an England fan, of course, you have recourse to neither of those explanations :-)

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Yeh, I agree about the problems with limiting the search to Englishmen.

Personally, I'm surprised they chose McLaren. Sure, he's been with the national team for 5 years but there are several other British choices with exemplary club records. McLaren's club record isn't that great.

It wasn't too long ago, as one article rightly pointed out, that he encouraged his players to cautiously play the ball into the corner to retain a 0-0 scoreline with Liverpool on the first day of last season!

If however he has the guts to relegate Lampard to the bench and start with Hargreaves and Carrick in holding positions and push Gerrard up, as well as make the Liverpool captain, captain of the national team, then I might be a bit more enthused about his prospects.