Whilst commuting to and from work I listen to a lot of people airing their views on Talksport.
Since England's sorry exit from the World cup there has been a lot of drivel spouted by people that is absolute nonsense. One of the biggest fallacies relates to how it was all down to the primadonna players not caring.
Whilst it's true that players might not get the same buzz from winning with England as was so well described by Jamie Carragher, there is no way that the players weren't interested in winning the world cup.
Even if you genuinely believe a certain payer is only motivated by money (and I don't believe a professional footballer would make it if money was their only motivation) that player would still want to win the world cup, if only for the commercial and sponsorship opportunities it would open up!
The second issue that is annoying me is the people (like talksport presenter Adrian Durham) saying that the FA copped out by not sacking Capello.
I think I'm right in saying that he was saying before the world cup that Capello was the best manager for the job yet 4 games later he should be sacked!
Let's put that into perspective, England didn't perform to their best and there seems to have been some problems in the camp that we might have to wait to hear about in someone's autobiography at a later date.
Capello undoubtedly made some mistakes but he will learn from them.
Also, when you actually look at the results, yes we were abysmal against Algeria, and we didn't play great against a US team that beat Brazil last year and we would have won that game but for a bad goalkeeping mistake.
Against Slovakia we played well and then there was the Germany game. Look at what Germany did to Argentina who everyone was raving about before their last match! Yet we managed to pull 2 goals back (ok one was ruled out wrongly) and then we were undone by a great counter attacking team when we were pushing forwards trying to get back in the game!
Despite all of the above we still didn't play anywhere near the level we should have, and that, in my opinion, is because we failed to find a system to accommodate all of our best players.
I believe that the best team is not always your best 11 players and by trying to play Lampard and Gerrard together as he did made our team worse. Clearly he should have taken Adam Johnson and/or Ashley Young to play on the left. Even when he brought Joe Cole in, it was to play on the right instead of the left.
Against the lesser teams in qualification we coped because of the vast difference in quality of players but against stronger opposition we were exploited, especially by Germany who saw what I have been bleating on about all season which is Gerard's inability, or more likely unwillingness, to track back and Germany exposed that side of the field time and time again.
I do feel though, that Capello will learn from this and we will be better for it next time around.
What we also need to understand though, is that defeat to one team alone should not be a reason to sack a manager which is something that the Argentina team have done amazingly enough considering their good showing up until they met Germany.
Anyway, in terms of poker, not a huge amount going on but I am playing the GCBMPT side event on Friday (why the main event final is on at the same time as the World Cup Final I can't understand!)
I have another blog post in my head about mid winter breaks but I;ll do that one next week and update what happens on Friday.
Since England's sorry exit from the World cup there has been a lot of drivel spouted by people that is absolute nonsense. One of the biggest fallacies relates to how it was all down to the primadonna players not caring.
Whilst it's true that players might not get the same buzz from winning with England as was so well described by Jamie Carragher, there is no way that the players weren't interested in winning the world cup.
Even if you genuinely believe a certain payer is only motivated by money (and I don't believe a professional footballer would make it if money was their only motivation) that player would still want to win the world cup, if only for the commercial and sponsorship opportunities it would open up!
The second issue that is annoying me is the people (like talksport presenter Adrian Durham) saying that the FA copped out by not sacking Capello.
I think I'm right in saying that he was saying before the world cup that Capello was the best manager for the job yet 4 games later he should be sacked!
Let's put that into perspective, England didn't perform to their best and there seems to have been some problems in the camp that we might have to wait to hear about in someone's autobiography at a later date.
Capello undoubtedly made some mistakes but he will learn from them.
Also, when you actually look at the results, yes we were abysmal against Algeria, and we didn't play great against a US team that beat Brazil last year and we would have won that game but for a bad goalkeeping mistake.
Against Slovakia we played well and then there was the Germany game. Look at what Germany did to Argentina who everyone was raving about before their last match! Yet we managed to pull 2 goals back (ok one was ruled out wrongly) and then we were undone by a great counter attacking team when we were pushing forwards trying to get back in the game!
Despite all of the above we still didn't play anywhere near the level we should have, and that, in my opinion, is because we failed to find a system to accommodate all of our best players.
I believe that the best team is not always your best 11 players and by trying to play Lampard and Gerrard together as he did made our team worse. Clearly he should have taken Adam Johnson and/or Ashley Young to play on the left. Even when he brought Joe Cole in, it was to play on the right instead of the left.
Against the lesser teams in qualification we coped because of the vast difference in quality of players but against stronger opposition we were exploited, especially by Germany who saw what I have been bleating on about all season which is Gerard's inability, or more likely unwillingness, to track back and Germany exposed that side of the field time and time again.
I do feel though, that Capello will learn from this and we will be better for it next time around.
What we also need to understand though, is that defeat to one team alone should not be a reason to sack a manager which is something that the Argentina team have done amazingly enough considering their good showing up until they met Germany.
Anyway, in terms of poker, not a huge amount going on but I am playing the GCBMPT side event on Friday (why the main event final is on at the same time as the World Cup Final I can't understand!)
I have another blog post in my head about mid winter breaks but I;ll do that one next week and update what happens on Friday.
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