Image: Belated congratulations to Darren Bent on forcing his way back into Fabio Capello’s thinking, winning a place in the England squad to play the Euro 2012 qualifier (correcting earlier error – see comment) against Bulgaria on Friday. Let us hope he gets a meaningful slice of the action.
England
Chamakh, Defoe, Van Persie … an A-Z guide on who to boo
So who in football makes your hackles rise? Do the cheats, the poseurs or bonebreakers enrage you most – or is it a certain ref, manager, TV pundit or Fleet Street hack? I’ll start my own list here, but everyone is welcome to add to it, filling in the missing entries or second-guessing my choices. If the responses flow, I’ll keep bringing the item back to the top of the site (and insert your updates) …
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A list of who to cheer would be shorter. I’d put Howard Webb on mine, for dealing as well as he did – give or take a couple of errors – with the uncharacteristically thuggish Dutch in the World Cup final. But then I know he’d just reward me with one of those point(s)-denying decisions of his against Sunderland. Aaron Ramsey will definitely get a Salut! Sunderland cheer, but first he must recover from that horrendous injury.
So let’s make it, for now, an A to Z of the players, management, officials or others to whom we should consider giving a torrid reception in the 2010-2011 Premier League season. I will set the ball rolling; your job is to fill in the gaps or improve on my selections.
Luke’s world: banish Benfica blues – see our fantasy England team
AND come back later today for our Eric Roy interview
Here would be as good a place as any for people to post their thoughts on Benfica 2 Sunderland 0. The official club site’s stuttering text coverage had us playing some good stuff at times, though we were often second best. Consolation for two Sunderland players (one of whom played last night): they’re both in the make-believe England team Luke Harvey selects in case Capello banned his entire World Cup squad from the next game, as Laurent Blanc has done in France …
When Laurent Blanc announced that the 23 French players who travelled to South Africa would be banned for the next match, the English media made sure we knew just who the new manager could call upon to face Norway.
Real Madrid players Lassana Diarra and Karim Benzema, alongside Arsenal’s Samir Nasri will be likely call-ups for the match, having been omitted from the World Cup squad.
South Africa: the World Cup in letters
It’s over. Well done South Africa. Congratulations Spain. And here, using the letters of the host nation, is the first of our looks back on the 2010 tournament …
S
– Spain, worthy winners on the night, and just about overall, in a generally unimpressive event
Luke’s World Cup: roll on 2014
Almost done in South Africa but it seems an awful long time since England were still involved. Luke Harvey tries to look forward four years to the next World Cup and wonders where our version of Mesut Ozil might come from …
Salut! Sunderland’s World Cup coverage has betrayed an uncanny resemblance to Christmas day in the Harvey household.
Much as we begin our Christmas Day as a united and happy family, we also began the World Cup with arms linked and faces smiling; we were ready to will England to victory.
And much like Christmas Day, it’s all ended in rather petty squabbling.
A Dutch treat – and fab for Fabio
Having just watched a fine second half performance by the Netherlands to overcome Brazil (though Van Bommel should be quietly told that Salut! Sunderland would have booked him for the rotten offence of trying to get an opponent – Michel Bastos – sent off, and then again for his two subsequent fouls in successive minutes), I was already happy enough. But Jeremy Robson‘s thoughts on Fabio’s continued employment have just brought another smile to my face …
Fabio Capello is still the England coach. For now at least he remains in the employ of the FA. It’s hard to imagine what sort of conversations took place to reaffirm the Italian’s tenure.
Who’d be the most hated man in England?
How do we choose the next England manager? We no longer turn to a committee of octogenarian football administrators, but there are always the sports editors of the tabloid press, TV pundits and Glenn Hoddle’s spiritual healer. And if they can’t help, says Luke Harvey, we could do better than consult ancient Chinese history …
The empire, long divided must unite; long united must divide.
Perhaps a quote taken from Jonathan Hu’s novel recalling the 206 BC-220 AD period of ancient China needs a bit of a stretch to apply to today’s England national football team. But in my view, it can be used to offer an accurate portrayal of a collection of footballers in utter disarray.
Who next for the England manager’s post?
Jeremy Robson ponders the list of possible contenders for the England job, if Fabio Capello does not stay on. He finds one omission surprising, though there is just a slight suspicion that he may be taking the Mick (and a much stronger suspicion about an SFR dongle’s ability to work on a French TGV, which explains why Jeremy’s piece was cut almost in half for most of the day …
Harry Redknapp
Roy Hodgson
Martin O’Neill
Stuart Pearce
Steve McClaren
Tony Pulis
Sam Allardyce
David Beckham
A N Other
These are the candidates for the England manager’s job. Well, at least these are the
names that The Guardian feels worthy of inclusion in its list of potential replacements
for the beleaguered Italian.
World Cup Soapbox: time for a fresh start
There’s constructive criticism, there’s the occasional understandable tantrum, and there’s downright cruelty to footballers. I thoughtPete Sixsmith had already been as damning as it was possible to be in his assessment of England at group stage. But comparing yesterday to our worst times as Sunderland fans – has the man no heart? …
As Joan Dawson put it when the fourth goal went in: “We’re Sunderland fans, we are used to rubbish like this.” It didn’t make the abysmal performance seem any better, but it did throw things into perspective a wee bit.
Terry and Upson as Breen and Collins; Barry as Shaun Cunnington; Rooney as David Rush; Johnson as Cec Irwin, Steve Whitworth, Bernt Haas and any other ineffectual show pony full back you care to name … this was a performance that had me looking into the past and being able to equate the national team with all the worst things I have seen at Sunderland over the years.
Why football’s technology-free days are numbered
We will never know whether Lampard’s goal might have inspired England to better things in the second half. Germans will counter that we’ll never know about Wembley 1966 either – in each case, of course, the match would have continued at 2-2. ButJeremy Robson has no doubt that such a spectacular error, compounded by the offisde Argentinian goal later, will finally force football to accept the inevitable …
Regardless of what Fifa might have been saying about the use of video technology, it’s a safe bet that there will soon be goal line cameras used to make crucial decisions.
Until now, there have been a host of reasons put forward to halt the use of technology in aiding assistants. The occasional decision in the odd game has never previously considered as providing sufficient weight to the argument for installing the nevessary equipment.