England Qualification & South Africa,

by Paul
(Sussex)

Once again i feel the need to write about the English national team.
Having just played two qualifing games against the weakest teams in their group the Kazahks and the Andorrans, England come away from these two games with a record of played two - won two and rightly so against two very poor sides, but its not the victories that matter here its the way we gained these wins, 10 goals scored and none conceded, two decent performanaces and England are pretty much qualified for South Africa 2010.

Having watched both games with friends i sat there after both games and still there was critisism of England's perfomanaces in these games, why though?

I listened to comments along the lines of "that score line flattered us", "we were lucky not to concede" and so on.
What is the problem with England fans? Why is there constant critisism of the team and management? Why are we never happy?
In qualifing a win is a win regardless of how well you play, you don't get extra point's for playing well or bonus points for how many goals you score.
The point of qualifing is to get to the tournament, yes playing well help's with player and supporter confidence, but it can also lead to delusion's of grandure which has been a problem for England for years and years believing we are a great team when in reality we are a very good side but by no means great.
For many years ive watched football studied the results and always seen Germany, Italy, France and other big footballing nations hammer the minnow's of european football, hitting them for six or seven goals sometimes more, all the while watching England play the same teams proved to be a painful experience at times making 90 minutes seem like an eternity, now the England team with Fabio Capello in charge are doing that, going at teams like Andorra and giving them a real beating and looking confident in the process, the days of scoring one or two then sitting back thinking thats it job seem to be gone, which is good news for all concerned, we are currently the top scorers in european qualifing, top of our group with seven wins from seven games and looking in good shape with younger players coming in and doing the buisness too.
Maybe against Kazahkstan we were lucky not to concede early on, but the point is we did'nt and won comfortably, Capello was right in the post match interview when he was asked "what would happened if you let in that chance in the first couple minutes?"
His reply "we would have won 4-1"
But in reality it does'nt matter if the perfomance was a ropey because teams such as Kazhkstan are never going to make it easy for you in their own back yard, they know they can't win the game the best they can hope for is to destroy your game and stop you playing well or even play the game of their live's and get a draw, so we were never going to go there and play a wonderful passing game and look like world beaters because of the way these teams set up and the poor standard of the pitch all you can do is go there and get a result, which England did after riding the early storm and looked very comfortable in the process, unlike past effort's when a game against the Kazhk's was a nervous ride until the goal scored in the 60th minute or so was enough to settle your nerves.
We may also have been lucky not to concede but again its another clean sheet, and John Terry at the back its looking good for England's defence espcially when we have players of the ability of Matthew Upson and Joleon Lescott to come in when Rio Ferdinand is injured.
Yes England are good shape for South Africa 2010 but lets not get too carried away yet there will be some very good sides there as always, the Dutch and Spain are looking very good, Italy are always dangerous due to there technical football and winning mentality the same as th Germans who again will probably get to quarters at least. Then of course theres the south american sides Brazil are very impressive form Paraguay also doing very well in qualifing the only real shock has been Argentina strugging so badly, but that is mainly down to Maradona not being experineced enough to get the best out of one of the best squads around.
Then of you have the dark horses Russia, Australia, South Korea and some of the African nations such as Ivory Coast, Senegal and Nigeria. These are all teams that will be very difficult to get results against and im sure if they get to South Africa they could well do some damage to the world top sides.

But i believe England have a very good chance of doing well in South Africa i would never go as far as saying we could win it because you need a lot of luck to win the World Cup, but yes England will be a threat and I don't think there will be too many teams who would want to play against an England team managed by Fabio Capello, I believe the biggest danger to England's chances of doing well in South Africa is injuries and themselve's.