Get your Vuvus out for the lads...
23/06/10 03:24
England are through to the Knockout Stages!
Well we did it! Hands up who had England to be heading home? OK, OK, put your hands down, thanks for your faith guys ;-) All by the skin of our teeth as we scraped a 1-0 win against the mighty Slovenia. Just as importantly as the result was the way we played (notice all the first person tenses in this review because we won!) What a difference though from many players on the field particularly our resolute defence of Cole, Upson, Terry and the other one. I'm not going to say we're going to win the cup but getting through the Groups was the objective and you'd have to say mission accomplished. It must have been because we were playing in red; all the best teams play red! Defoe scored a peach and blimey even Joe Cole came on, admittedly he did very little but he got a few minutes under his belt. We were looking like topping the table but the other match in the group between USA and Algeria was settled by a late goal from former Everton striker, Landon Donovan. This saw the biggest soccer nation in the world (well, nobody else calls it that) top the group with England nestled in behind just edged out on goals scored. Then came the wait to see just who we'd be up against next.
The evening games decided group D and apparently Germany played Ghana whilst the Aussies took on Serbia to see who would go through. Sadly for them, in true Arsene Wenger stylee "I did not see it!" Not because I was out out or attending an official state opening of a new branch of Lidl nor was I queuing for the new iPhone, I was in fact watching a blooming tennis match! Not any old tennis match but a record breaking tennis match on Court 18 at SW19. A game that had the first sets played out yesterday and finished two sets all because of bad light. So this French bloke and the other fella (American I think) came back at 2pm to finish the deal. Well the thing about Wimbledon is that final sets don't finish in tie-breaks and you have to win by two clear legs (sorry games). Maybe your average set might last an hour and a long one might even finish 14-12 but not this one. This Duracell (other batteries are available) of match finished 59 each! In fact it only finished because they ran out of light again! Short of nipping out for a couple of miners hats with lamps, these guys called it a day and agreed to come back tomorrow. They had been on court for nearly 10 hours of play, I'm not sure what Dan Maskell would have said about that! Would you believe (I'll be done soon, don't worry) that the final set which was over 6 hours was longer than any match played before in it's entirety. Ooh I say!
So all in all, it got dark and we went back to the football :-) Germany dug in and Ozil scored a corker of goal and in the other game Australia managed win 2-1 over the Serbs despite the Serbians missing a golden opportunity to equalise near the end. The result of all this sees Germany top the table and will go on to play... drum roll please... England! Although Germany beat Ghana it was the Africans that managed to go scrape through on goal difference as the first to represent their continent. Ghana will now play USA in the next round.
And so to the Footcall league...A few 3s for the England result from Harry Whitehouse, Colin Jessop, James Vallender (thanks for looking after us today James & Laura) and Danny Searle so they all move in the right direction. Even I managed to guess that one correct along with Peter Short and once again Kate Blake and Dan Mackenzie pick up a bunch of points.
The other games sprinkled red squares a plenty, apologies if I miss anyone off, let's congratulate Louis Turney and Nick Stacey, Matt Clark, Patrick Ferguson, Kev/Zoe and Olly and especially Simon Dudson for guessing his first correct scoreline (go easy on him, he's a Man U fan!) Unbelievably Adrian Frisby is storming up the charts into 84th. Sadly after climbing up Gemma Evenden and her dog Sophie drop back down again, everybody say aaaahhh!
So we have a new leader once again, in fact he's been there before, Kevin Appleton moves topside with Paul Firmston close behind and yesterday's top boy, Dean Smith drops to fifth... it's fast and furious in the world of Footcall.
I'm done. Byeeee!
Dj
PS. Thank you to those who have emailed me in appreciation for my ramblings (of a madman), keep em coming, it's nice to know some of you are reading this nonsense!