Re: World Cup - Group B
oh ok :fifa:
that was your 30k th post 
congrats 
Re: World Cup - Group B
well, what else can I say: with a Dutch coach your team is about to surprise :k:
Re: World Cup - Group B
He was equally impressive in the first half as well and no way a butter finger:hoonh:
Re: World Cup - Group B
i only caught the last five minutes of this match cause i thought it would be a cakewalk for sweden...how they proved me wrong!
Re: World Cup - Group B
Shinoo lets see what happens. I expect England to improve and ofcourse Rooney will be back. They are seriuos contenders this time around with the type of players they have.
T&T were really a surprise in match against swedes but swedes lacked calm in front of goal. Good point for t&t.
Re: World Cup - Group B
Todays stats:
T&T Team: Hislop, Avery John, Sancho, Lawrence, Gray, Birchall, Edwards, Theobald (Whitley 66), Samuel (Glen 53), Stern John, Yorke.
Swedish Team: Shaaban, Linderoth (Kallstrom 79), Mellberg, Lucic, Edman, Ljungberg, Alexandersson, Anders Svensson (Allback 62), Wilhelmsson (Jonson 78), Ibrahimovic, Larsson.
Goals: NILL
Yellow cards: A John (T&T), Yorke (T&T), Larrson (Swe)
Red cards: A John(T&T)
Re: World Cup - Group B
You know, watching the Ref give out so many cards, reminded me of Collina, not that he gave too many cards, but he was the best Ref ever! I miss him and his tind. :(
Re: World Cup - Group B
...yeah, Collina was the best!
Re: World Cup - Group B
So of you guys are so quick to judge England. You bloody amateurs! 
England clearly suffered in the heat today. Owen played the full 90mins of the last friendly and only lasted around 60mins today showing the heat was too much for him. Did any of you even see the post-match interviews? Beckham, Gerrard and Lampard were clearly exhausted and Beckham was still gasping for beath.
Tactically Sven is still unsure how to shuffle his team when substitutions are made. I think today he may have realised leaving Defoe behind was a big mistake as once Owen left, Crouch was isolated with only Joe Cole linking up with him.
The rest of their games including those of the knock out stages will be early evening kick offs where the heat will play a lesser role so you’ll notice a marked improvement in performance thats for sure.
Re: World Cup - Group B
Sweden should be ashamed. It was their match and they blew it time after time. Hislop and Sancho played big roles for Trinidad, good tie for them
Re: World Cup - Group B
Great day for England all round. Not only did they win, but T & T and Sweden drew!
Now all England have to do is win one more match and they are through.
I think T & T took alot out of themselves today, especially having to hang on with only 10 men. Playing in the evening on Thursday will be alot better for England and im expecting them to put in a much better performance to put T & T away.
After that we can take it easy against the Swedes, who we havent beaten in about 40 odd years.
Re: World Cup - Group B
I was very very very disappointed with England. I don't like them much, but I thought being so OVERRATED they would at least do better than this. ALL this hype about England will stop, and it will stop now after they show just how good they are against Paraguay. Yes, I thought the match was pitiful, it reminds me of the Greece matches where they play like snails.
Re: World Cup - Group B
not only that, I hear the grass on the field was .0000000000001 inch thicker than the mandated fifa regulation. Also, there was a group of paraguyans out there stopping almost every england attempt at goal. worse yet, those hispanics occasionally even tried to shoot the ball at england goal. when these latinos showed up at the pitch, the mighty england who are in no way, shape, or form overhyped by their own media were clearly caught off guard. They thought those slightly cleaner version mexicans were there to cut grass. Who knew those dirty latinos would start to play football against the mighty england who are in no way, shape, or form overhyped by their own media.
To make matter worse, I farted three times this morning. And as we all know by watching south park, more you fart, the more you contribute to global warming. I am afraid my three farts were enough to drive the temperature up in deutschland which clearly made beckham, who also by the way is absolutely positively not over-rated, uneasy.
You see, it’s never england’s fault when they lose. Those pesky latino landscapers should’ve known better. They were there to mow the field but decided to low-ball the *mighty england who are in no way, shape, or form overhyped by their own media *by engaging in a game of football instead.
As far as the temperature is concerned, well clearly god is to be blamed for that. How dare he turn off his a.c. and making the *mighty england who are in no way, shape, or form overhyped by their own media *play in such horrible condition. God forbid if england ever has to play in 80+ weather. Why would god do such thing against the mighty england who are in no way, shape, or form overhyped by their own media.
Re: World Cup - Group B
Paraguay are tough opponents. Ask Brazilians and Argentina. They couldnt beat Paraguay in qualifiers. Argentina couldnt even score a goal. That shows Paraguay is not a light team by any means.
Having said that, I wont defend England's performance. I will blame Sven for being so inexplicably defensive. He has so many incredible players in the squad but he holds them back for larger periods of time. If and when the likes of Gerrard, Lampard and cole are allowed to play the way they play for their clubs, we will see a different and cavalier England. But still, this performance is by no means a yardstick for things to come and it is bound to get better.
I am still stumped how Sven makes such great substitutions :D
Re: World Cup - Group B
Aha, you see, England didn’t lose. They won. And that was just 24 hours ago.
Poor memories 
Re: World Cup - Group B
This article was too damn funny :omg:
Talk bout taking the piss.
English Really Know How to Fret
By Chuck Culpepper, Special to The Times
June 10, 2006
LONDON — Not to dwell in my American birthright of hyperbole, but from my residence here, it feels as if the smallish land mass of England might’ve unfastened itself from its earthen moorings, split from Wales and Scotland and commenced floating aimlessly in the Atlantic, neighboring the Canary Islands by now for all we know.
Sorry.
It’s just that the Motherland feels spectacularly unhinged after six manic weeks of World Cup build-up, six weeks of first-rate spectacle for an outsider, six weeks fixated on one metatarsal.
A “metatarsal” is a bone in the human foot, a fact English children know better than any children on Earth. On April 29, as his Manchester United club took a drubbing at Chelsea, the foremost talent among the 50 million English, Wayne Rooney, fractured a metatarsal.
Among English all-stars, Rooney’s broken right fourth metatarsal (2006) thereby joined Michael Owen’s broken right fifth metatarsal (2005), Ashley Cole’s broken right fifth metatarsal (2005), Steven Gerrard’s broken left fifth metatarsal (2004), Rooney’s broken right fifth metatarsal (2004), David Beckham’s broken left second metatarsal (2002) and Gary Neville’s broken left fifth metatarsal (2002) to bolster a point:
The English constitution includes stupefying beer capacity and lousy metatarsals.
By early May, we citizens and residents and illegal aliens plunged into the netherworld of excessive knowledge about Rooney, the goal-maker, the exhilarating rough-houser, the inelegant alternative to Beckham chic, the working-class bulwark from a rugged Liverpool neighborhood bound to be rugged with a name like Croxteth.
We learned Rooney would sleep in an oxygen chamber for quicker healing. We learned he danced at the World Cup party at the Beckham palace. We saw this TV teaser: “Rooney Kicks Ball!”
We learned we should hope against hope there’d been sufficient recalcification in the metatarsal, approaching the most-awaited scan in world history in Manchester on Wednesday, or WAYNESDAY, as the tabloid Mirror proclaimed it.
And there’d been sufficient recalcification! And the metatarsal had mended! And the Motherland could turn its attention to …
Oh, no it couldn’t! There was more, still! Sven-Goran Eriksson, England’s dour 57-year-old Swedish coach and inexplicable woman magnet, said he and Rooney would decide on Rooney’s match-fitness! Maybe June 20 against Sweden!
And Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United’s feted manager and keeper of a leviathan self-image, said Rooney’s club should have a say! Definitely not June 20 against Sweden, and maybe not after that!
And there were lawyers consulted, and visions of prospective lawsuits should Rooney compound his injury, and a much-reported telephone call from Eriksson in Germany’s Black Forest to Ferguson in the Swiss Alps or the south of France, or from the Alps or south of France to the Black Forest, during which somebody apparently hung up on somebody else!
And I began to think my native nation mentally balanced, when I do know better.
Why would one metatarsal matter so much? Three small reasons and a big one:
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England is enjoying a presumably golden generation of football players.
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England awaited this golden generation of football players even when Rooney was 15 and still throttling kids in Croxteth and other untelevised places.
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England is a genuine World Cup contender, a second wagering choice behind the Brazilian kings-of-kings.
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ENGLAND HASN’T WON A WORLD CUP SINCE 1966.
In fact, England hasn’t reached a final since 1966. Number of semifinal appearances since 1966: one. Number of quarterfinals: three. Round of 16 exits: one. Exits in group play: one. Did not qualify: three. (That must’ve been fun.)
This 40-year drought exists and looms and hovers and taunts and menaces and baffles and saturates and starves and unnerves despite England’s status as the home to the most glamorous sports league — the Premiership — on Earth, a league boasting 102 of the World Cup’s 736 players, 28 more than any other country’s league.
To have reached not even one World Cup final since a 1966 day when nobody on the pitch or in the stands wore any color, just black and white…
There’s a hunger.
So the other day, the venerable BBC aired more than an hour of live television both boring and jaw-dropping.
We saw the England team’s buses pull up to Luton Airport, north of London. We saw the players disembark from the bus and walk up the steps to the airplane.
We saw the plane taxi toward the plane line. We saw a private jet take off before it. A delay followed, so there was time to outline the menu for the 100-minute flight to Germany: sandwiches, stew, tea, scones with jam and clotted cream.
*“You see it now maneuvering into position … Any moment now … Will be getting final clearance from the tower … Still moving along slowly, but it will go at full thrust … Seat belts fastened….”
- (Sure about that?)
*“Its wheels lifting now, carrying the hopes of all England fans into the skies as she takes off into the sunlight!”
*All the clotted cream and metatarsals, off into the clouds, the cameras trained on the jet for moments more.
Today … versus Paraguay.
It’s time.
Re: World Cup - Group B
more :omg:
Even in Victory, English Fans Fuss
*England’s over-hyped. What lousy tactics. What shoddy passing. Too much reliance on set pieces. What inept attacking. The coach is clueless. Why is Owen Hargreaves on the team? Why isn’t Jermaine Defoe on the team? Why is Michael Owen removed after only 55 minutes? The coach is clueless. **What a lousy second half. Why can’t we ever handle the heat? Why does Beckham spiral into mirage and just start plunking long balls?
**We’re lucky we have such an easy group. Quarterfinals, at best. **The coach is clueless. We pay him four million pounds a year? *Then, the best: Sven must go.
Re: World Cup - Group B
5abi jee what would LA times know about football. Have they even seen one? Do they even know how to spell football? This is like The Times commenting on that poor man's cricket, baseball.
Re: World Cup - Group B
Ehsan, by Baseball, you mean the girl's game that be known as Rounders? :D
Re: World Cup - Group B
Sir Lord Ehsan Bhai of Brummistan, the author of these two articles is LA Times special correspondent from London, watching the games from London, reporting from London.
You are more than welcome to attack the contents of these articles, instead of attacking the author, or the great American past time. That is to say, a*ttack the message, not the messenger ;)*