There's some seriously weird karma floating around England. Lose John Terry. Win over Kazakhstan. Lose John Terry and Ashley Cole. Who knows what's coming against Belarus on Wednesday.England slammed the Borats, 5-1, on Saturday in its World Cup qualifying match. No need to pore over every detail, but this one was close until the visitors tired and England's talent and superiority buried them with three scores in the final 20 minutes.
Belarus is a different creature; and Wednesday's road game could foster a different result.
Therefore, in the interest of timeliness and voyeurism, let's relish the impending doom and misery of England's football fandom--and do so through this week's journey around the football blogosphere.
- More Than Mind Games has some insight into Scotland-Norway and England-Kazakhstan, and rightly points out that Ashley Cole's gaffe took some pressure off Matthew Upson's performance.
- The New York Times Goal blog has a player-by-player review of the U.S.' shellacking of Cuba, 6-1.
- Speaking of karma; Fabio Capello, Rio Ferdinand and others have tsk-tsked the ticket-buying public for booing Ashley Cole. How dare they? Check out the Reuters Soccer blog for more.
- More on Ashley Cole from 101 Great Goals. Odious?
- Times have changed. Players have forsaken their "benefit of the doubt" in favor of HUGE contracts. Prospect Magazine has some excellent analysis of the dynamic between fans and players, and the disconnect that exists.
- EPL Talk says it's madness to boo Cole.
- More Ashley Cole bashing: 4Sportsake says it's not out of order to boo Cole despite the apologists.
- Enter the apologists: OnlineGooner. Imagine if England had lost.
- More from EPL Talk; For those of you who watched England on Fox Soccer Channel, you noticed that there was no live commentary. Nick Webster and Warren Barton did the pre-game analysis, and the play-by-play was more of a discussion between the two in studio; no switchover.What do you think?
- Another good read: Soccer Weblog looks at an officiating experiment in a U-19 tournament where two extra assistant refs are on the pitch.
- Did we mention the U.S. beat Cuba to advance in CONCACAF's mysterious qualifying tournament? Soccer News Brief has a good rundown.
- Soccernews covers the angles on Brazil's rout of Venezuela. Kaka scored once and set up another. Robinho had two of the "sublime" variety.
- 101 Great Goals has links to all the goals from South America, including those Robinho tallies.
1 comment:
I think the English press are vastly underrating Belarus and think they are going to be like Kazakhstan. They've quickly forgotten that ex Arsenal player Hleb is just one of several skilful Belarus midfielders.
A draw there would be a good result I reckon, especially as the atsmosphere will be something even England's jet-setting players wont have experienced.
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