Did my eyes deceive me or did Jamie Carragher come on as an England substitute specifically to take a penalty in the shoot-out ?
Beckham’s ‘retirement’ as England captain is interesting. I suspect he will play on until he has 100 caps (currently has 94) and will then ‘retire’ completely from international football.
John Terry will be awarded the captaincy for two reasons. Firstly, no-one would be able to understand Steven Gerrard in press conferences. Secondly, Terry reacts in the precisely right way (openly weeping) to defeat in penalty shoot-outs.
Steve Maclaren is already tainted by association (either he agreed with
Eriksson’s bizarre squad selection, tactics and substitutions or he
disagreed and was overruled) with this pathetic showing and the media
campaign to oust him will start immediately has already started.
If Gerrard and Lampard’s penalties were the result of hours of hard practice on the training ground, then I would hate to see their efforts without the benefit of that additional preparation.
Wayne Rooney is a excellent footballer but is an immature, young man with a volatile temperament who is not blessed with much intelligence or self restraint. It was almost inevitable that Rooney would lose his self control at some point during the tournament, particularly when carrying the hopes of the country on his shoulders and being forced to play the lone striker for two games.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s intervention was also completely predictable. After all, he is playing for Portugal in the quarter finals of the World Cup. After Alex Ferguson backed Ronaldo in his row with Ruud van Nistlerooy, it will be interesting to see the consequences of this incident at MUFC.