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Last Tuesday on these pages I wrote a piece raising the question of England and Fabio Capello succumbing to a national syndrome of mindless optimism which ultimately has adverse effects at a tactical and technical level.  Now, not to go over old ground again (and I admit that two bad performances certainly prove very little), but if we don’t ask questions now, it could very easily be all over by Wednesday.

England’s desperately poor performances against the USA and Algeria are not entirely surprising. Despite some ‘good results’ and a ‘solid qualification record’ on paper, England played a brand of football focused on the ‘3 points are all that’s important’ mantra borrowed straight from the premier league where performances and style come second to the results.

At either end of the spectrum, teams are vilified for their approaches, Arsenal are nice on the eye, but toothless and weak, while Stoke and Bolton et al are perfunctory and uninspiring but gets results.

Now it seems, English football is suffering from the very same unique feature that makes the premier league the most exciting league in the world.  The frenetic pace of the game in England, where all our players play, and the immense pressure and media scrutiny, on the top four teams in particular, has its consequences and they are coming home to roost. In fact, they do at every major International tournament but we choose to bury our heads in the sand.

English players like Frank Lampard who has scored a staggering minimum of 20 goals from midfield in each of the last 5 seasons (28 this season) are the epitome of this. Lampard is a permanent feature of the Chelsea side along with only 2 other English teammates, the rest of the team is made up of continental trained players who are comfortable on the ball and do what the England players either don’t do or can’t do.

The same is true at Liverpool where Gerrard, who’s season has been poor by his own admission, is allowed free-rain while their two other quality players in Mascherano and Torres try to inspire a squad of mainly foreign players who are average and workmanlike at best.

At Arsenal, Arsene Wenger it would seem has a natural tendency to trust, if not prefer, non-English players. And at At Manchester United, Wayne Rooney is the central pivot around a team that is in the perpetual generation transition, from the old guard of Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs into Darren Fletcher, Micheal Carrick and Anderson. It is a transition that has certainly not proven easy in recent years for Ferguson at Old Trafford, his signing of Owen Hargreaves for £17 million from Bayern Munich could have solved this but for his injuries.

England and United, have missed Hargreaves, his class in central midfield is something no other player can produce. His absence may not have been felt straight away, for United it was not until the Champions League final against Barcelona last year when United where outplayed in midfield and the engine room procession game of Xavi, Inesta and Busquestes looked light years away from that years Premier League champions.

Granted, Ronaldo’s shoot on site attitude that night with one eye on the Bernabau was not the embodiment of team spirit, but the manor of that 2-0 defeat should have focused English minds more than it seems to have.

For England, the qualification campaign was rarely the test of footballing prowess the media built it up to be. With only England qualifying from a group that contained a waning Croatia, an average Ukraine, a non-descript Belarus team and Kazakhstan and Andorra who are ranked 129 and 201 in the world. Alongside these matches, in 2009 England were involved in some friendly matches against what we consider football equals. They didn’t go well; the Spanish gave us a lesson much like that administered by Barcelona to United in the Stadio Olympico with another 2-0 win.  Then a 1-0 defeat to Brazil and a 2-2 draw with the Dutch (after they were 2-0 up and a Jermaine Defoe equaliser in the 76^th minute helped to save face) were hardly the basis for us to be considered favorites for the tournament.

The Dutch, Italians, Brazilians, Argentineans, Germans and the Spanish all have domestic leagues we consider poor and uncompetitive, but only Jermaine Pennant and David Beckham are the players of any note to be deemed worthy. English players are more expensive I hear you cry, well yes, but who knows why. Is our ‘passion’ (something that’s given far more credit than it deserves) that valuable?, is it more valuable to our players and league than the ability to keep the ball?

Receive, Pass, Offer, Receive, Pass, Offer, the three word mantra of the Massia repeated over and over until it becomes second nature is yet to be replaced on the terraces and pitches in England.  Before I ruptured my anterior cruciate ligaments playing for Hull Cities youth team 10 years ago, even at 18, the call from the sidelines to defenders and deep lying midfielders could be anything between ‘just get rid of it’ or ‘just put your foot through it son!’ Those players I played with have grown up to now be journeymen lower league players who it seems are passing on  the same tactical words of wisdom they received then – not exactly progressive.

I cant imagine that Welsey Sjneider, Cristiano Ronaldo or Frank Ribery were encouraged to do anything other than run with the ball or receive, pass, offer. How else would they have become so much better?  It’s a difficult answer to accept and more difficult to put right, but at least lets acknowledge our weaknesses.

Capellos English seems to have taken a convenient malfunction but before the Sven-esque tide of uncomfortable quasi-xenophobic tirades come his way, lets benefit from his neutrality and get a clear answer from him; are our players good enough?

It seems from his approach, we are not capable of playing a receive, pass, offer game. He has allowed England to ‘revert to type’, playing a big target man in Heskey and hoping the players who are luxurious midfield goal scores for their teams, play loosely in a formation and system that lacks any central premise. What type of football would he like to see us play? Or are we already playing it, its just our chickens have come home to roost and results are hard to come-by when teams are so organised and defensively mature.

We wonder why our ‘great players’ like Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney don’t play well for England, well its because we don’t have Mascherano, Drogba or Scholes in our England team. Hargreaves, remember was vilified by the moronic sections of the British tabloid press and its devout England fans before 2006 when he demonstrated his ability and worth to the team at major tournament. Only when more players follow in his footsteps, be it career-wise, or in on the field ability, will England be good to watch and able to mount a challenge not based on kick and rush football.

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It’s a major sporting event without the staple stories of mad scrambles for tickets, are we witnessing some historic moment of social and sporting progress? Well, the stories of ticket prices with plenty of zeros tagged on the end have yet to surface. Robbie Earle aside, ticketing scandals have so far not made the headlines and most outlets have had some coverage touching on the plight of South Africa’s social and economic inequalities. This is of course commendable, but once we scratch a little deeper and we learn that South Africans and other natives of the continent wont be able to afford entry to the stadium, the scramble for tickets will be done by the worlds visiting fans and could be quite orderly and reasonably priced. What a legacy that would be for the first African hosted World Cup.

A less ordered and at times less polite scramble is going on in the world’s largest continent Asia. Which team to support?

The legacy of the first World Cup hosted in Asia in 2002 has yet to bear fruit on the field since South Korea superseded all expectations by finishing third under the leadership of the mercurial Guus Hiddink after knocking out Spain and Italy en route. They have qualified again along with their 2002 co-hosts Japan but in South Africa this summer they are only joined by one other Asian team, North Korea.

The worlds most populous country China failed to qualify again and with India the second and Indonesia the fourth that’s half the worlds people looking around to adopt a surrogate. With strong football cultures rooted in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines amongst others, over 3bn ‘unattached’ Asians are proving a marketing mans dream. Billboards, magazines and TV commercials are as blazoned with world cup themes selling anything and everything, as in Europe.

Whether or not Terry Venables crooning is likely to convince karaoke crazed nations in South East Asia is anyone’s guess, but its certainly worth a try. Japan are an unadventurous if hard-working team who rely on Keisuke Honda for flair both on and off the pitch. South Korea are similarly lead by Park Ji-Sung and neither team has garnered support amongst fellow Asians.

The North Koreans however do have what the salesmen call a USP, they are not one of the richest countries in the world either. The wealth in Japan and South Korea do form a disconnect with the average football fan (Asian or not) who probably see more of themselves in the everyman industry of Wayne Rooney or Carlos Tevez.

With the group of death now looking quite tame, the North Koreans will have found new fans around the world and not just in the same way your girlfriend fawns at puppies in the window of the pet shop, but in admiration of their play. The desperately disappointing 0-0 between Portugal and Ivory Coast makes for some of the more interesting remaining group games in which supporting North Korea could be much more of a realistic pursuit than mere tokenism.

Most countries are showing the matches on free to air channels at much the same times and in much the same way that the English Premier League is shown. Many will have some connection with one of the qualified teams, be it through a family member working abroad or relative, etc and these numbers could form a large proportion of a teams overall support, if appreciated.

The USA is unlikely to be popular in Vietnam but will have many a follower in the Philippines where American culture and sport have trumped all for years. Once the playoff finals between the Lakers and Celtics are settled, the obsession with Basketball is likely to switch to football. The Philippine sports superstar Manny Pacquiao is rooting for Mexico, while the countries strong Latin heritage has lead to a surge in Spanish and Italian shirts appearing in Manila.

With England’s 2018/22 campaign not exactly the runaway favourite, and with only 168 days of making nice left, perhaps if England in South Africa can tap into the Asian market, the campaign could take on a whole new look and feel. Less about England itself and maybe with more of a global feel to it than South Africa has mustered.  At the very least it’s a huge opportunity not to be missed, one you would hope those running the bid have an eye on. The uniting effect North Koreas performance last night had took everyone by surprise.

The worst thing has been the injuries to Torres. Maybe if Torres had not been injured so much things would be different.

He has been our main striker and scored a lot of goals for us last season. And this season could have been totally different with him.

With the former Valencia manager pointing out this very obvious fact, is he admitted that he has made Mistakes this season, mainly in the shape of not getting the best out of Robbie Keane and his teams inability to convert chances?

Fernando Torres was, no doubt, the star of Liverpool’s 2007/2008 season. The Athletico Madrid idol arrived in July for a hefty £23 million and proceeded to score 29 goals in all competitions. This season, Liverpool were expected to challenge Manchester United’s dominance at the top of the Barclay’s Premier League, and for a time they did so.

However, Liverpool faltered, having drawn 6 of their 13 league matches at Anfield and also drawing 3 times and losing once since the turn of the year. Benitez has been criticised for failing to break down teams like Stoke, Fulham and West Ham.

Benetiz has pinpointed the lack of a striker of Torres’ quality as the main problem, but that leads to more questions. If you have noone beyond Torres that can score goals, why let Peter Crouch leave? Why let Robbie Keane leave? Why not focus on bringing in a backup striker in the summer instead of endlessly chasing Gareth Barry? Did he seriously think that he could rely on N’gog and Babel to lead the line?

With this admission, Benitez has taken a small step in admitting that the title is lost and that he made Mistakes. The summer will tell us if he further admits those mistakes, by bringing in a true squad striker who can bring the title closer to Anfield.

He finished the conference by stating:

The squad is good, but there are too many games when things go wrong and that makes a massive difference

Try telling that to Sir Alex’s defence over the past month, however, Manchester United pulled through. Liverpool need a squad, not a handful of stars.

The Guardian reports that while the man chatting to Pumas manager Ricardo Ferreti looked every inch to be the former England and Man City manager, it was instead an impostor, who makes his living from impersonating Eriksson.

“He explained to me that he was looking at players for his first squad selection for Mexico, and I believed him,” said Ricardo Ferreti, the team’s Brazilian manager who had been putting his players through shooting practice.

With his lilting Swedish accent and reputation as a romancer apparently intact judging by the women on his arms, he convinced onlooking reporters too. “All of a sudden he appears with two girls and it looked very strange indeed,” said José Angel Parra, who writes for El Universal. “We’d heard that over there [in Britain] he’d been involved in some scandals so we didn’t know what to think. They sat down behind the goal but then they were called over to the bench.”

The man in question was actually 56-year-old Derek Williams, who appeared to be concerned that Sven’s departure from City would mean he’d be looking for alternative employment. However, it appears that he managed to hoodwink this Mexican club into thinking he was the real deal, although the national federation don’t seem to be all that impressed!

A member of the illustrious Manchester United 500 club, of which there are only the legendary names of Sir Bobby Charlton, Bill Foulkes, Denis Irwin and current team-mates Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville, Scholes has been underrated by many, but revered by his peers.

“Paul Scholes would have been one of my first choices for putting together a great team – that goes to show how highly I have always rated him. He would have been one of the first players I’d have bought, given the chance”

World Cup winning coach Marcello Lippi

He has been the understated star of United’s contemporary golden generation. David Beckham took the limelight with his superstar ability to exploit his appeal, whereas Paul Scholes merely got on with the job quietly and, more often than not, with great efficiency.

The lifelong Oldham fan got his debut, as most youngsters at United do, in the League Cup. He bagged two against Port Vale in late 1994 in his original role as a striker. He played in this role for the first few years, but soon his amazing vision for a killer pass pushed him back up the pitch to provide a crucial link between midfield and attack. In this role he thrived.

He had some magical moments for England. Scoring on his debut to beat South Africa, scoring a winner against Italy in Le Tournoi in 1997 and scoring a wonderful turning effort against Tunisia in the opening game of France ’98. He was an important pin for the 2000 and 2002 England teams of major championships, but retired in 2004 after scoring, finally ending his three-year international barren spell.

It is a testament to the respect and high esteem his peers have for him that England managers have twice asked Paul Scholes to return. Much to Manchester United’s delight, he refused.

He continues to play as if he was a youngster vying for a place and, although his great ability to pick up yellow cards out of nothing still remains, he will surely go down as one of United’s legendary players. Not at least for being an integral part of the team that won the famous treble and finally getting to play in a Champions League final in Moscow last May.

United fans have always been fond of Paul Scholes’ efforts and loyalty to United, and he is seen as an unsung hero around Old Trafford, not least for his inability to talk about his own efforts and his down-to-earth approach. When asked his favourite player in the world by journalists at the 2002 World Cup he replied, not Brazil’s Pele, not Argentina’s Diego Maradona, not even England’s own David Beckham, but Oldham’s striker Frankie Bunn. “He scored six times for Oldham in a League Cup tie against Scarborough you know”. Not a hint of wit or comedy about him.

It is this attitude, to hold things close to him whoever the audience, and of course his loyalty and footballing abilities, that make him more than worthy of joining Charlton and Foulkes in United’s 500 club. It also makes him a big hero for United fans.

For I know he is mine.

The president of the Spanish football federation (RFEF) Angel Maria Villar proposed the nomination of del Bosque to the executive committee which was accepted.
RFEF Spokesperson

As the double Champions League winner settles into his chair at the Real Federación Española de Fútbol offices, having succeeded new Fenerbahce coach Luis Aragones, a trend can be spotted in International Football.

In the summer of 2006, a handful of top European countries turned to bright, young ex-players with little, or no, managerial experience to guide them to international glory. Germany and Jurgen Klinsmann, Holland and Marco van Basten, Italy and Roberto Donadoni.

Lets forward ourselves two years: Holland’s naive defence was breached by Russia, under the experienced Guus Hiddink. Donadoni’s mismanagement of the World Cup winners exposed young ex-players as perhaps not the greatest choice for major tournaments. They may have experience of playing international football but management is more than that. Jose Mourinho is a great example. Never a good player, yet a great manager.

Have football associations now realised that international football needs an experienced and talented manager? Have they seen Guus Hiddink and the experience he has pay dividends with the four countries he has managed? Preparing a team for competitive games when only seeing them every two months (at best) shows a manager for what he truly is. England opted for a proven manager in Fabio Capello. Italy reinstated the World Cup winning Marcelo Lippi. Spain have turned to a proven, trophy-winning manager in Vincente del Bosque.

Granted, Klinsmann went of his own accord after rejuvenating the German side, and van Basten got the Dutch playing football reminiscent of the 1970′s, but the trend is there for all to see.

Franz Beckenbauer, a man I have always admired, is a beam of light that is a constant counter-claim to this current trend. He expertly managed to guide West Germany to the 1986 World Cup final. Four years later, he went one step better and won the World Cup in Italy, at just 45 years of age.

So it may seem at the moment that the larger European teams who have not given a young ex-player the reigns are not willing to take the gamble. But the Dutch and Germans who did, may continue beyond their current coaches and bring around the next Franz Beckenbauer. As always with International Football, there won’t be a quick answer, it’ll take some time to see.

Deco is a player they have courted in a minor fashion for some time, and today they wrapped up an £8m transfer for him pretty quietly. The Portuguese (alleged) partyboy will sign on July 1st on a two-year deal. Deco himself said of the deal:

“It is good for me to be here and first of all I am very happy to be here,”(www.chelseafc.com)

30-year-old Deco was told he was surplus to requirements by new Barca coach Pep Guardiola, and the 8 million could look to be a tidy bit of business as he hasn’t featured prominently. There has been many stories of the playmaker’s partying antics, leading former coach Frank Rijkaard to leave him out of the team. New boss and ex-Portugal supremo “Big Phil” Scolari will stand for none of it.

Deco’s arrival could hasten the move of Frank Lampard to Inter Milan. It’s no secret that Lampard wants to be reunited with ex-gaffer Jose Mourinho. At least that is the view of BBC 5 Live’s football correspondent Jonathan Legard.

“Deco’s arrival looks like hastening the departure of Frank Lampard, who has done little to quell long-term speculation that he is bound for a reunion with Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan.

“Barring a last-minute change of heart on both sides it’s a question of when he signs in Italy, not if.”(Legard)

So Chelsea fans, will you be happy to wave goodbye to Frank and say hello to a man who has won 2 Champions League medals with 2 different clubs, or would you rather keep Lamps and think Red Rom should stop trying to build the new Galacticos?

Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez claimed today on the club website, Liverpoolfc.tv, that his squad is finally ready to make a title bid this season, with a couple new additions and a shored up defence.

“The key, though, is to sign the right players with the right mentality – a winning mentality – competitive players, players who are desperate to come here to win something.

“That is the key for me. We have been analysing a lot of things this summer. For example, we were conceding a lot of goals last season from set pieces.

“We need to know why because the previous season we only conceded six, but this year it has been 16. We need to know why so we can improve in these areas, but keep the team scoring goals in open play.

“We have been really good in defence for three or four years but we need to improve a little bit if we want to be in contention.” (Liverpoolfc.tv)

So Rafa thinks new blood and a stronger defence is the key to a title, but do Liverpool supporters feel the same way?

What do you think Liverpool needs to do to finally bring home the Premiership title this season?