International Football thread

[mikesiva]

Paulinho scored a good goal there....

[Alviro Patterson]

Paulinho scored a good goal there....

Must have played headers and volleys as a child

[yuppie]

Did i see a score that read USA 4 Germany 3. Great result for the US, though we wont mention who was missing for the Germans

[sussexpob]

Nice to see England are claiming somekind of positive from the schooling they got from Brazil yesterday. If Brazil hadnt been full of greedy players looking to score hollywood wonder strikes from 25 yards then England would have been crushed. Brazil are a different level of quality.

The sad thing is, this is also the worst Brazil team I can remember... and they are still 10 times better than us.

How long will it take for Wenger and Hodgson to realise that Theo Walcott shouldnt be getting into Wigan's team, let alone their two respective teams... the hesitancy in his play is terrible, he lacks creative ideas

[Gingerfinch]

I didn't see the game but England scored two good goals at least. A facebooker did mention us getting steamrolled in the first half, which isn't surprising as we find it difficult to pass and keep the ball.

[SaintPowelly]

The problems arise from Hodgsons "big club only" mentality.

Shipping Danny Welbeck around the world on the slight chance he will be fit, rather than selecting the ( joint ) top English goal scorer this season ( Lambert ) pretty much sums up the issues.

With the exception of the 2 GKs from Reading and West Brom, everyone else came from either City,United,Arsenal,Liverpool,Chelsea,Everton or Tottenham.

[Gingerfinch]

Ironic really, as Hodgson has only done ok, when managing small teams.

[SaintPowelly]

Ironic really, as Hodgson has only done ok, when managing small teams.

I'd be amazed if it was him only that selected the team.

[Aidan11]

I quite enjoyed that match last night.

Shame we couldn't pull off the win but this was better than your average friendly.

[Alviro Patterson]

Too easy to say Brazil outclassed England, yes they might have played a better style of football but it wasn't that effective. Only criticism I have of England is the lack of early pass and spending longer on the ball than necessary.

[Alviro Patterson]

I quite enjoyed that match last night.

Shame we couldn't pull off the win but this was better than your average friendly.

Oh definitely, that and the German cup final was a joy to watch.

[sussexpob]

Too easy to say Brazil outclassed England, yes they might have played a better style of football but it wasn't that effective. Only criticism I have of England is the lack of early pass and spending longer on the ball than necessary.

It was pretty effective. The only fault with Brazil was the insistance of Hulk/Neymar to score wondergoals from the Edge of the box. When Brazil kept the ball and worked the space they went through England like a hot knife in butter. If it hadnt been a friendly they would have smashed England, the lack of killer instinct was maybe down to the conditions.

One noticable thing was the channel running from Brazil. England plonked two banks of four in the midfield but the midfield running from Brazil remained unchecked... a few times Cahill checked his run to pick up the deep man coming through, and a few times he got sucked into following the man leaving a gap... no one in the midfield seemingly wanted to track the runner, and you dont want someone the quality of these Brazilian forwards having the ball and running onto your back four... Pirlo killed England in Ukraine by sitting like a sniper in the grass in that advanced pocket role.... lessons arent learned.

The most worrying thing though was how much possession England wasted.... even if you are doing nothing with the ball, keeping it stops the other team scoring... in the first half England just blasted it up field to Rooney who was man marked by two centre halfs and with no one even playing off him to make a flawed tactic at least understandable.... then the ball came back and the pressure mounted, thankfully for England they ended relatively unbloodied, but against a major team in a major competition they lose the game inside that 45 minutes.

All in all they need to be more dynamic... they need to actually move when they dont have the ball, the midfield support has been no existant recently.

[Gingerfinch]

Too easy to say Brazil outclassed England, yes they might have played a better style of football but it wasn't that effective. Only criticism I have of England is the lack of early pass and spending longer on the ball than necessary.

It was pretty effective. The only fault with Brazil was the insistance of Hulk/Neymar to score wondergoals from the Edge of the box. When Brazil kept the ball and worked the space they went through England like a hot knife in butter. If it hadnt been a friendly they would have smashed England, the lack of killer instinct was maybe down to the conditions.

One noticable thing was the channel running from Brazil. England plonked two banks of four in the midfield but the midfield running from Brazil remained unchecked... a few times Cahill checked his run to pick up the deep man coming through, and a few times he got sucked into following the man leaving a gap... no one in the midfield seemingly wanted to track the runner, and you dont want someone the quality of these Brazilian forwards having the ball and running onto your back four... Pirlo killed England in Ukraine by sitting like a sniper in the grass in that advanced pocket role.... lessons arent learned.

The most worrying thing though was how much possession England wasted.... even if you are doing nothing with the ball, keeping it stops the other team scoring... in the first half England just blasted it up field to Rooney who was man marked by two centre halfs and with no one even playing off him to make a flawed tactic at least understandable.... then the ball came back and the pressure mounted, thankfully for England they ended relatively unbloodied, but against a major team in a major competition they lose the game inside that 45 minutes.

All in all they need to be more dynamic... they need to actually move when they dont have the ball, the midfield support has been no existant recently.

That's pretty much how I heard what happened.

[Alviro Patterson]

Too easy to say Brazil outclassed England, yes they might have played a better style of football but it wasn't that effective. Only criticism I have of England is the lack of early pass and spending longer on the ball than necessary.

It was pretty effective. The only fault with Brazil was the insistance of Hulk/Neymar to score wondergoals from the Edge of the box. When Brazil kept the ball and worked the space they went through England like a hot knife in butter. If it hadnt been a friendly they would have smashed England, the lack of killer instinct was maybe down to the conditions.

One noticable thing was the channel running from Brazil. England plonked two banks of four in the midfield but the midfield running from Brazil remained unchecked... a few times Cahill checked his run to pick up the deep man coming through, and a few times he got sucked into following the man leaving a gap... no one in the midfield seemingly wanted to track the runner, and you dont want someone the quality of these Brazilian forwards having the ball and running onto your back four... Pirlo killed England in Ukraine by sitting like a sniper in the grass in that advanced pocket role.... lessons arent learned.

The most worrying thing though was how much possession England wasted.... even if you are doing nothing with the ball, keeping it stops the other team scoring... in the first half England just blasted it up field to Rooney who was man marked by two centre halfs and with no one even playing off him to make a flawed tactic at least understandable.... then the ball came back and the pressure mounted, thankfully for England they ended relatively unbloodied, but against a major team in a major competition they lose the game inside that 45 minutes.

All in all they need to be more dynamic... they need to actually move when they dont have the ball, the midfield support has been no existant recently.

If such a style of play is reliant on wondergoals then it is not effective at all, gives rearguard setups the opportunity to play to their strengths. That said lumping it forward to a striker is more akin to League Two than international football and defeats the purpose of stifling the opposition.

The reality is England don't have the personnel to play dynamic football and i'm not sure if Hodgson has the tactical nous to employ it.

[sussexpob]

The reality is England don't have the personnel to play dynamic football and i'm not sure if Hodgson has the tactical nous to employ it.

Why dont they? If they want to play like German teams all they need to do is work harder. Its not about technique(well it is, but not terminally) but about work rate and movement.

I mean look at Bayern... they dont have to play any extravegant passing or through balls, the passes are made easier because the runner makes it so... intelligent and well timed running makes passing look better. England get the ball and there is never an option, no movement, and so the defenders can suck into the ball and close you down. That is the key.... most English fans, managers or pundits have little understanding of the creation of space in a football match... the answer when nothing is on is to take the 10-90 chance and throw the ball in the air... if the opposition doesnt balls it up, it gets you nowhere.

I mean look at the stats... we had more completed passes then Spain apparently before the Montenegro match... yet never looked like a team who cut deep. Its easy to pass the ball to each, but if its going nowhere so do you.

I find it strange you would slag Scolari's method off... his players movement and setup was very good. They found space between the lines because their players movements created such space and in unison too. The fullbacks double up with wingers onto the opposition, which sucks the defence wider and allows the strikers to drop back and link with the midfield, or the midfield to push into the gaps created and operate in areas of space which draws the last line of defence in and creates exposible space... the key is that, the opposition team is countering your movement so much that when they get the ball they are forced to play hurried because you have men between the channels blocking the space... or you hoof the ball back to them....

On the flipside, England simply went for killer balls that never came off....there was never any process of wearing down the opposition or working the ball. The problem then stems when Frank Lampard actually has a through ball pay off and we have to hear about what a great player he is... he just wastes possession all the time through a match.