Haha, no problem Just a case of wrong interpretations, no harm done in the end. 

Anyway, I really hope England gets their act together for Euro 2012. Especially when it comes to their coach. I never saw Capello as a good coach for England (it just felt to me that his strategy never quite fit the style that England's players are used to in the Premier League).

The problem was the England side that qualified was non-existant in the side that played in the finals. The qualifying side is what gave us justified hope we could win this. Then they turned up to the finals and well... you know the rest.

Yeah, I remember that England had a very smooth qualification, winning 8 games in a row, qualifying early and then just experimenting different strategic approaches, which lead to a loss in the game against Ukraine (correct me if i'm wrong).

It's a shame for a team to lose itself like that along the way, probably too much confidence from the players and the coach? 

Everybody has missed the main problems with the England side I think - they play old fashioned.

• I'm afraid 4-4-2, with players that are out of position and don't play 4-4-2 for their clubs, doesn't work.
• England had 2 central midfield players, Germany had 3. You can't get overrun in midfield.
• England don't have any truly imaginative players, like Ozil, or Messi, or Kaka.
• England play 'Kick and Rush'
• It doesn't seem to mean as much to many English players.

Really, it's the Premier League's and FA's fault. The Premiership is uber competitive, but allows no room for English players to develop. England need to learn how to play silky football as well. Way too much emphasis among English players is about strenght, passion, courage, desire and all that BS - bottom line is that England need to be able to pass the ball way better, and be comfortable on it.

In England, it's club before country. I don't see that anywhere else in the world.

True. there's also too much money and too many foreigners in the Premiership. What do Saudi or American owners care about England winning the WC? Will a Scottish manager rest English players just before the season ends?

Will the FA make changes needed that could safeguard places for English players or stand up to club owners who only want to make money? Shorten the League every two years?

I want to see the best of the world playing in England but if it's at the detriment to English players than something has to be done and the FA are the ones with the power to do it but wont. It seems the Premiership is there for everyone but the fans and homegrown players.

Oh well I'll cheer myself up with the new series of Top Gear tonight.

well that was embarassing,watching german goals rain in,have to take it on the chin though stiff upper lip and all that,

i'm a maradona fan now,come on diego show the world,i'd like to see a holland v argentina final,

on england the 4-4-2 and playing players not in their best positions seems to be a problem for all england managers foreign or not,i'd like to see an englishman in charge again,i'd give the job to beckham and see what he can do,can't do anyworse than others and might bring us into the modern world of football,i undestand people might laugh at this,but anything is worth a go,i think

@sci-fi,i understand you're upset but i think your consistent claim to be the only real england fan is quite irritating and immature,who are these people who only pretend to support england,you need to lose with a bit more dignity

This describes one of the biggest problems an English national team always has to deal with: Too high expectations by fans and media. Many other national teams have this problem as well, but in England high expectations make historically less sense than in BRA, ITA, GER or ARG imo. I called the English national team football's most overhyped national team a few days ago in the WC sweepstake thread. I can't say if the English team was overrated as I never really care about English national teams (and I've been watching EUROs and World Cups since 1982). This may sound arrogant, but it is not meant arrogant. It's just that I never saw an English team at a EURO or WC impress me (they impressed me with their latest WC qualiiying results though, but good qualifyings never matter at tournaments).

I always care about other national teams way more than about the English team. English national teams always have great potential (like many other teams which participate in tournaments), but they have already proved often enough that they're not a threat to the historical top teams during EURO/WC tournaments. I think  we can't underestimate the impact of tournament histories, it's always in the back of the players' minds. If we look at German teams for example, they have historically the most problems during the K.O. phase of a tournament with ARG, ITA and especially BRA. FRA became a very tough opponent with their first EURO win in 1984 as well, but already starting with the Zidane incident at WC final 2006 they were slowly destroying their own national team (and will surely come back with a new good young team, just as ITA will). ESP has replaced FRA as the new hard-to-beat European opponent (for everyone, not only for Germany). And then there's one more team German national teams and their fans historically "fear" far more than England's teams, despite the unforgotten wins against their great '74 and '90 WC teams: The Netherlands (GER-NED matches are often extremely close and their excellent Gullitt/van Basten team beat "us" in the half final of "our" EURO  tournament and became champions in 1988).

Anyway: The current German national team is the best one since the Matthäus team from 1990 imo. Most of the time it's a pleasure to watch them play, but it will be very hard to win against Argentina (provided ARG wins tonight, MEX will be on fire).

So far the 4 strongest teams at this WC imo are Argentina, Portugal (they proved it in the Brazil game, which everyone called boring, but which I found interesting and revealing), Spain and Germany and we saw some very good performances from nearly all South American teams, especially from Uruguay.

I'm also very curious about the next performance of the Dutch team. They've already won 3 games, but there's a chance we haven't even seen their real strength yet.

If this very good, but young German team or the experienced Argentinian team with the special Messi touch won't win the tournament, I personally hope we'll see a first-time world champion this time, e.g. ESP, POR or NED. I just hope it won't be BRA this time, they can have their sixth title in 2014 (and so far they play as if they already had 2014 in mind).

another poor linesman.

Rosetti kinda knew it was offside, but his linesman said "nope".

Well, it seems that FIFA has made it's choice for the teams that should go through the Quarter-Finals