Dead rubber? Did not realize such a thing existed until I made a lame effort at watching last night’s match up between England and Netherlands.
This was by no means the best performance by the England national team. One would only hope that the talent in view could have produced a fascinating contest.
Well, that was not the case.
Given the fact that, caretaker manager Stuart Pearce has had a good record at the U-21 level, and that he had received much of the credit on instilling the concept of national team football for most of these players at the youth level, he would seem like a natural fit to succeed Fabio Capello, for a while at least.
Well, that was not the case either.
Other than handing over the Captain’s armband to Scott Parker, who by the way deserved it on the basis of his brilliant performances at the club level, everything went wrong. The formation, the initial team selection and the subsequent placement of players throughout the game.
The captain had a great game though, proving his worth for the title. What more can you ask of a captain when he throws himself in front of everything? If only, the rest of the players had only but 10% of his spirit. At one point, Dirk Kuyt almost killed him. But did that deter him? No. We know Parker cleverly beat relegation. Now, I think he will also beat death.
Moving forward, there was no momentum in the entire game other than the last five minutes in which they managed to score two goals. The tweets going back and forth on how people hated watching England because of their style of play was much more entertaining than the game itself. It is the lack of guile and imagination in their play that worries them, to be honest.
Going at this rate, you wouldn’t think that they were the ones who invented football. However, the game in itself had the following interesting displays:
- The kit had no blue for the first time ever.
- Sturridge’s socks were at a slightly more acceptable height last night than he usually wears them in the colors of Chelsea.
- The hoardings at Wembley advertised the fact that the new kit was “inspired by St. George”. Wasn’t he from around Syria or somewhere there?
In conclusion, the only question at the end of it was, why do I bother watching these friendly internationals? I believe this was Stuart Pearce’s first and will be his last game in charge of England senior team. We saw Gerrard being substituted because of that cursed hamstring of his, Smalling almost dying and Huntelaar getting a mouthful of the pitch but one has to remember that this is just a friendly, England will play far more worse come summer at the Euro 2012.
