 Saturday really was a bad day for me because not only did England crash out on penalties again, Brazil also went out so my bet on Ronaldinho and Co. to win the tournament went down. I also had Ronaldo to finish as top goalscorer so that went up in smoke as well.
I was really disappointed with the tactics Sven Goran Eriksson employed in Gelsenkirchen against Portugal because Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard should have been employed alongside Wayne Rooney to give him some support.
The 4-5-1 system really needs the wide midfielders to get forward but that’s not David Beckham or Joe Cole’s game so a central player needs license to roam wherever they need to go.
Sadly that didn’t happen and we’re out again.
Rooney’s red card was an extremely harsh decision and you have to say Cristiano Ronaldo did absolutely everything possible to ensure he’s not playing in the Premiership next season.
Ronaldo obviously saw a temperament problem with his Manchester United team-mate and he played on it.
We’ve now heard that Beckham has stepped down as captain although he will still be available for selection. For me, that’s the best thing that could’ve happened and it should have happened before the World Cup in my opinion.
Beckham has struggled to find his best form at the tournament and he’ll know that himself, but he’s not the only one. He’s been a great servant to his country and a great ambassador for the game, but if we’d had a manager with real guts then we would’ve gone into the World Cup with someone like John Terry as captain.
Becks has enjoyed some wonderful moments for his country and has been a great player, but he’s more famous than players who have been outstanding for England if you know what I mean.
That’s not his fault, but just the way the game has gone. If I’m honest, I don’t think he’d get in an all-time England XI but that doesn’t take away what he has done. The one moment that sticks out a mile is his goal against Greece at Old Trafford to get us to the World Cup in 2002. That was something special.
Becks is likely to play on under Steve McClaren but it’s the end of the line for Eriksson now that we are out of the World Cup.
I have to admit that I quite like Sven as a person and I’ve been out to dinner with him and we got on well, but as a football person I haven’t learnt anything new apart from that a foreign manager can detach himself from the press.
As a tactician and a motivator he hasn’t shown anything new. He has been paid a lot of money and not delivered.
I wasn’t too impressed with Luis Felipe Scolari yesterday either when he pushed Ronaldo up front late in the game because it didn’t work. He was their most dangerous player but the change just took him out of the game.
In fact, all it told me was that Scolari was guessing at his tactics because Portugal were never going to score in the game and I doubt they have it in them to reach the final.
But it just goes to show that coaches do have an influence on how games pan out.
Look at Argentina boss Jose Pekerman. He cost his side the World Cup and needs to take a long, hard look at himself because when he took Riquelme and Crespo off his team played frightened football instead of frightening the Germans.
Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge now but I’ll have more tomorrow.
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