Germany.
But at least he then had the good grace to stand there in that Wembley tunnel and admit to camera that he was out of his depth on the international stage.
Now do I want to say “I told you so”, that Fabio would not lead this Golden Generation to glory but I’m sure through the 49 posts on here tagged with the name Fabio Capello, it maps out in the two years he’s been England manager the reasons this was going to end in tears. As a German team completely destroyed England’s bunch of superstars.
OK so I really want to say it. Yes I did say, and stick down on my coupon they’d get through this 2-1 and then get stuffed by Argentina, but it was always there that as soon as they met a half decent side it would be all over.
It was all summed up by a German fella on the streets of Frankfurt on Saturday when he stated his nation side were “a team, who play like a team with no superstars”. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth by our Teutonic neighbours about Kevin-Prince Boateng taking out Ballack in the Cup final, well hell it really did them a favour and a half. Just imagine it here if the same had happened to Roone or Gerrard. Wouldn’t have been detrimental to the team would it?
So everything is there from Fabio following on from Svennis and the McClown in picking names, star names, crowbarred in, the usual suspects that have failed even more miserably this time than they failed in previous tournaments.
It’s all there about how expectations were raised by scorelines during qualification, rather than any analysis of the actual performance. It was a piss easy qualifying group, as was the first stage of the actual World Cup, it should have been a cruise.
Thankfully the performances since the warm up games haven’t been overlooked as much because of results, well they really couldn’t be with those first two group games but there was a bit of it in the third. It was Slovenia for god’s sake.
And there was a point yesterday when I thought here we go again. This is going to be the moment they can use to gloss over the crap that had gone on before. Yes, Lampard’s goal. Here we go again, it’s Maradonna’s hand, it’s penalties, it’s going to be the hard luck story used to paper over the cracks. Amazingly it didn’t turn out so as English commentators, ex-players and current managers admitted we should have been 3 or 4 down by then, two all would have been a travesty.
Though of course I did hear certain reporters, who apparently cover football as a job, saying on TV that, up until the goal was not given, England were a match for Germany. You’d have to wonder how they’ll keep their job.
But we were still in it and Fabio can lift them, make changes, and England could sill win it. But who gave that half-time team talk? Was it Svennis? As they came out in the second half looking even more lethargic and uninterested, it looked as if Sven had been in there to give one of his classic Ian Duncan Smith orations. Hell it looked as if Sven had been in constant contact with Rooney throughout the whole tournament.
So that’s another of feathers in Fabio’s cap floating away, what about changes, he makes better substitutions than before. Ah yes we need goals, I know well take off Defoe and put on Emile Heskey, that along with the introduction of Joe Cole really changed the game didn’t it. It was so damn obvious who would be replaced, you knew no matter ho badly Rooney and Gerrard were performing they wouldn’t be traipsing off the park.
As for the latter my pet subject on here of late. Steven Gerrard. What a waste it was taking him wasn’t it. What was even worse was making him captain, it meant he had to play. Look at the games in which he has led the team. What a leader he was during that. My god, when my aunt states that she “knows nothing about the game” but why the hell was Gerrard always shooting wide of target when there was others better placed? It’s called “the pursuit of personal glory” auntie. It’s what the type of player who whinges about where he wants to play and has to be crowbarred into the side at the expense of the team does to try and justify his position. Hollywood.
It should be the end now for Gerrard, his 84th and final cap – highlights being two games against the Germans a decade ago and a couple of games against Andorra – hell Carlton Palmer was only crap for 18 caps. It should be the end for most of them. It’s now time to throw grandad out with the bathwater. How many times are this Golden Generation going on be allowed to get away with this?
But, they ask, where are the players coming through? Well England were runners up to Germany in the U21 Euro finals last year, as with the senior squad they were thoroughly beaten but there was something like six members of the German squad there yesterday, whereas with England there was one, Milner. Earlier this year England beat Spain to win the U-17s European Championship, the Mexican’s won the U-17 World Cup a few years back and their senior squad is full of those players.
It should now be a priority to make sure those England players are playing first team football and that their progress into the full senior side is not blocked by old duffers who have a big name, get paid a lot of money in the Premier League but have underperformed and failed repeatedly when it really counted.
As for the manager, he has to go, no ifs ands or buts. This campaign pretty much matches up with the worst that’s gone before. It’s there with three Euros, ’88, ’92, 2000 and 2008. In other words Fabio is down there with Taylor and Keggy and McClown – the worst we’ve ever had. It’s there with the worst of Bobby Robson but even Bobby got a good performance out of the team in his two World Cups. There was nothing here from Fabio to match Poland the game against Argentina after we’d scored in ’86, nothing to match that German semi in ’90. One very mediocre performance against Slovenia that nearly resulted in us exiting at the Scottish stage followed by the most abject display in the biggest ever defeat at a World Cup finals.
There’s no excuse for him keeping the job.
As for a replacement, well the first question that should be asked at the interview is “do you think Gerrard & Lampard can play together?” if the answer is not along the lines of “what have these two got to do with the future of England” met with a reply of “don’t call us…”
I’ve heard it said we can’t have another foreign manager after this debacle. Well I do believe that the German FA have pretty much made a mess of Joachim Löw contract extension for after this tournament…
We knew that the midfielders – Gerrard and Lampard – always support the forwards and that their midfield would be open.
We knew there would be spaces. Our objective was to set Terry up with Klose to force him to come out of the defence.
We knew the full-backs would be very much to the side, and that would create space that we could penetrate.
We knew they might become impatient and lose their discipline. We did that successfully.
We could have been 3-0 up in the first half because we did penetrate them Joachim Löw
Penetrated. That’s one way to put it
He was the brains while Jurgen was the face that got to the last semi, the final of Euro 2008 and now this. Worth a punt?