Penalties Again. And It Still Hurts…


Anguish & Despair. It Can Only Be Penalties.

In 1990 Gazza cried, in 2002 Seaman cried and now with our latest exit from another World Cup tournament it’s former England captain David Beckham’s turn to feel a countries anguish.

It never gets any easier.

And losing on penalties again!

I don’t know what it is with England and penalties do we just not practice them or do we just lose our bottle? Why do the Germans find them so easy?

And we could have all predicted how England would be knocked out of the World Cup – it’s always the same story:

Going out with a fight in the Quarters!

And yet again England didn’t deserve to go out.

England started the game in a lively fashion and managed to put Portugal on the back foot in the early parts of the game. Portugal were really missing the invention of Deco and throughout the game did not have any real threat going forward.

The best chances were going to England.

And then Rooney lost his cool. The United forward appeared to stomp on Chelsea defender Ricardo Carvalho and unfortunately it was right in front of the referee.

But as England went down to 10-men it was Portugal who seemed to be a man down.

England played with blood, sweat and tears and made the clearer chances – but we just couldn’t take them.

Ironically it was the unpopular Owen Hargreaves who was the man of the match for me – he was running everywhere and for a holding midfielder was pushing the team forward at every opportunity.

But as time ticked by the dreaded penalties were inevitable.

Frank Lampard, who for me has had a terrible tournament, took the first spot-kick. Just like against Hungary in the friendly before the World Cup he missed from the spot. Why the f*ck doesn’t he practice them?!

Missing one is unlucky but two in quick succession is just pathetic.

And once the first one was missed the writing was on the wall.

England were out again on penalties. And the other ironic thing was that the only England player to actually convert his penalty was a ‘German’ – he was never going to miss!

And it was the diving tw*t Cristiano Ronaldo that sealed our fate…

 

4 thoughts on “Penalties Again. And It Still Hurts…

  1. Believe me, England deserved it.

    English FA paid millions to probably the worst coach in the history of the world cup finals to sit on the bench to look clueless. Walcott selection is now legendary. I really believe that if you or I became England’s coach, the law of probably would guarantee us making better decisions by sheer fluke than any decision Eriksson has made in the last 4 years.

    One better performance (about time) from a bunch of over paid prima donnas and you are praising them. Blood & tears my arse. To me they were just Spurs with a bigger average pay roll – big game bottlers.

    I also dislike C. Ronaldo, but don’t blame him for being pushed by your little angel, or converting the penalty, yes you are supposed to score them. Don’t blame him for your loss.

    If they performed better during the game (like scoring, for example) it probably wouldn’t have gone to penalties anyway. England had all the best resources but couldn’t do a better homework on penalty taking / saving. You know why the Germans are so good at penalties, they practiced like hell! Why was Mad Jens so good at saving them? They studied Argentine squad players’ penalty taking pattern for the last 2 years and summarised it on a ‘cheat sheet’ Mad Jens tucked inside his socks. Once he knew who the next penalty taker was he took it out and read what the trend was probable is for this taker.

    England forgot about penalties.

     
  2. Hi 4 Life…..since 1982 I have been trying to get some official use of a system I designed right back then for ridding us of Penalties for ever. I called it ‘The player Reduction system’, and at the time I had the backing of Bob Wilson & Jimmy Hill, who both advised me to put it forward to FIFA & UEFA & the FA. I did, and I did not receive one reply.

    My system condenced to one para = After 90 mins and its a drawn game, the manager / coach has to take of three players. Which players is up to him. If in the very unlikely event of it remaining a draw after 20 mins, the manager coach has to take off a further two players. In games when my system has been used (by my brother in Australia) no games have ever reached this stage, as some fresh substitute has always scored. But the reductions can carry on until someone scores so ending the game.

    Recently on Elite Football talk, they ran a debate into my system and had 2500 hits in a few days, the majority backing it. Please try the same debate on your site and let us see what the fans think.

     
  3. You can’t just get rid of penalties, they’re all part of the knock out system!

    England will just have to actually start PRACTICING them instead of trying to miss – I mean 3 out of 4 missed is pretty pathetic!

     
  4. GunnerPete has it right – the thing you need in extra-time is SPACE, which you can only get by reducing the number of players.

    Remember, extra-time and penalties ONLY exist because they seem fairer than simply tossing a coin after 90 mins to see who has won. they are simply there as a tiebreaker, and surely we can find better tiebreakers.

    My general feeling with regard to “deserving” things – if you can’t score, you deserve to go out. If you happen to still go through, you are incredibly lucky and undeserving.

    Maybe now Owen Hargreaves can get the respect he deserves. Gerrard was the only member of the midfield who could match him for effort, intelligence, and a contribution to England winning. Hargreaves did for Gerrard and Lampard what Makelele did for Zidane or Mascherano did for Riquelme, and he deserves to be seen as indispensible.

     

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