England: I Believe In You

I started this blog about 5-6 weeks ago now. Every time I write on it I get extremely excited about the World Cup. Today I have been looking up England pictures because I am currently making a video to put on here, of great moments and some bad ones too. It is the moments that have defined English football and moments that live in the memory whether good or bad.

While I have been doing this I just keep thinking about that moment in 25 days time when the whistle goes and the tournament begins. My excitement level seems to continue to rise and I don't know how this is possible because at the moment it is pretty much all I am thinking about day and night.

The reason for this post is because I started thinking realistically about our chances this summer. This is what I come up with.

I believe...we have the best manager (Capello) for the job
I believe...the manager has transformed us from a team of great individual players to a great team that can play together
I believe...all of the players have ultimate respect for Capello
I believe...all the players now know that nobody automatically gets picked, the team is picked on form and form alone, not reputation
I believe...Capello is assisted by a great backroom team
I believe...we have a team full of world-class players
I believe...we have a team that has more passion, determination and pride than any other nation
I believe...when the players put on the shirt with the three lions on it means something to them
I believe...that we can win a penalty shoot-out
I believe...we have the best fans in the world
I believe...we can win
I believe...our time has come

I believe all of this things and think every nation will not want to face us. I will be posting the video one day this week when I am happy with the final product.

England Carlsberg Advert and Another Video

I saw this Carlsberg advert promoting England for the World Cup during the Fulham and Athletico Madrid Europa League final and I absolutely love it so thought I would post it on here. It shows a lot of famous faces and every time I watch it I get pumped up and it makes me believe we can win it this summer.
Here it is.




Here's another video I found as well just promoting England for the World Cup and I thought it was really well done.

Capello Announces 30-Man Provisional Squad

So Fabio Capello has announced the 30 players that will battle it out for the 23 spots to go to South Africa. England will be in Austria for a week long training camp and also play against Mexico and Japan before Capello announces the final 23 on June 1st. There wasn't too many surprises in this squad and it is probably fair to say that every player has a chance of going. Here is Capello's 30:

Joe Hart, David James, Robert Green.

Leighton Baines, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole, Michael Dawson, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Ledley King, John Terry, Matthew Upson, Stephen Warnock.

Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Tom Huddlestone, Adam Johnson, Frank Lampard, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Scott Parker, Theo Walcott, Shaun Wright-Phillips

Darren Bent, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney.

Capello now has the unenviable task of having to shatter 7 players dream and tell them they will have to stay at home. I think them 7 players will be:
Dawson
Warnock
Huddlestone
Parker
Barry (I don't think he will recover from injury in time)
Johnson
Bent

I just hope he makes the right decision and there are no regrets when we kick-off against USA on June 12th.

Provisional 30-Man Squad Announced Tomorrow

Firstly the premiership ended yesterday with Chelsea winning the league in style beating Wigan 8-0 (I am delighted). It was a season of twists, turns and surprises. There were more surprising results than usual and for the first time in many seasons a new team broke into the top four. Tottenham finished 4th with the other so-called top four team, Liverpool, finishing 7th.

Now away from the premiership. England's provisional 30-man squad for the World Cup will be announced tomorrow. Now the excitement really starts to build. The selected 30 will go to a training camp in Austria before the final 23-man squad will be announced on June 1st. Seeing as the 30 are announced tomorrow I thought I would pick the 30 man that I would select if I was the manager. So here it is:

Goalkeepers: 4
Robert Green
David James
Paul Robinson
Joe Hart

Defenders: 10
John Terry
Rio Ferdinand
Michael Dawson
Ledley King
Sol Campbell
Ashley Cole
Glen Johnson
Leighton Baines
Gary Neville
Phil Jakielka

Midfielders: 11
Frank Lampard
Steven Gerrard
Gareth Barry
James Milner
Aaron Lennon
Joe Cole
Adam Johnson
Tom Huddlestone
Shaun Wright-Phillips
Theo Walcott
Michael Carrick

Forwards: 5
Wayne Rooney
Peter Crouch
Jermain Defoe
Bobby Zamora
Emile Heskey

Spurs English Players Make A Point

Tottenham beat Man City 1-0 last night to secure that coveted final Champions League spot for next season. More importantly than that though, was the performances from the English players for Spurs.

Firstly big Peter Crouch put in one of his best performances of the season. He scored the winner, looked dangerous, won pretty much every header and showed again that he has great technical ability especially for a player of his size. His strike partner Jermain Defoe also put in a good shift up front. They are a good partnership and compliment each other very well. Both should definitely be on the plane to South Africa.

It was another partnership that caught the eye as well. Ledley King and Michael Dawson both looked solid again. They kept City's attacking threats largely at bay and both looked very impressive. Dawson should be going but there are bigger questions about King. He can only train once a week the day before a game and can only play once a week. Can you really take a player like that to such an intense tournament? I don't think so, I think four centre-backs should be Terry, Ferdinand, Dawson and Upson.

Here's quite an old video of Crouch but it shows how good he is and that he can score all different types of goals.

Gerrard Struggling

I've been very surprised this year that not many people have been too critical of Steven Gerrard. This has to be his worst season yet. In past seasons he has inspired Liverpool, often winning games by himself and constantly raising the bar. This year he has been very poor. I think he may have gone a bit stale at Liverpool and it could be time for him to move. He knows he is going to play every week and he is always picked for England. If I was Capello I would be seriously considering his position in the England team. Yes, He is a one of the best in the world when he is on top of his game but we have rarely seen that this season and its been extremely rare that we have seen that for England. His performances this year was summed up by the amazing back pass against Chelsea this weekend right into Drogba's path that put Chelsea on their way to a 2-0 victory.

Good news for everyone but Spain. Torres is a major doubt to be ready for the start of the World Cup. The downside is that he is expected to be fit for when the tournament really gets going after the group stages. As well as that Spain do have one of the easiest groups. There are also rumors that Xavi may not be fit. He has a tear in his calf but he is playing through it for Barcelona, hopefully he will tear it even more so he can't play. I say that as purely an England fan because as a football fan he is one of my favorite players to watch.

Here's quite a funny Pepsi commercial starring some of the big names that will be playing this summer.

Penutimate Weekend In The Premiership

Seeing as there is so much on the line this weekend in the Premiership, I thought I would do my predictions for this weekends games.
Here they are:

Saturday's Games:
Birmingham 3-0 Burnley
Man City 2-1 Aston Villa
Portsmouth 2-2 Wolves
Stoke 1-1 Everton
Tottenham 4-0 Bolton

Sunday's Games:
Fulham 1-2 West Ham
Liverpool 1-3 Chelsea
Sunderland 1-2 Man United

Monday's Games:
Blackburn 1-1 Arsenal
Wigan 2-1 Hull

Enjoy the weekend.

Lampard Will Be Key

Throughout this blog I've not really had any post that has focused on just one player. Building up to the World Cup now, I am going to occasionally pick a player who I think will be vital for England if we are going to be victorious this summer. The first player I'm going to focus on is Frank Lampard.

Lampard has consistently been one of Chelsea's best players since he joined in 2001. One of Lampard's biggest qualities is his ability to keep going and wanting to improve. He played in 164 consecutive Premier League games setting a new record along the way. In the modern era that is an astonishing record when you think of how quickly the games come around and how managers at top clubs rotate their players. It shows how highly thought of Lampard is and how he takes proper care of himself.

Lampard is one of the best goalscoring midfielders in the world. His record speaks for itself. This season he has scored 20 in the Premiership. That is more than Torres and Defoe, 2 of the best forwards in the league. All managers want a 20-goal a year forward. So to have that from a midfielder is extremely beneficial to Chelsea. He consistently scores goals as he has scored 20 goals or more every season since the 04/05 season. He can score all types of goals too which makes him so dangerous. As well as his goalscoring he creates chances. Last season he created more than double the amount of chances than any other player in the league.

He has often been recognized for his performances with awards and rightly so. These include coming 2nd in the world player of the year and European player of the year award, England player of the year twice, Chelsea player of the year 3 times, UEFA club midfielder of the year, FIFpro World XI, and was player of the decade according to official statistics to name a few.

He has been capped by England 77 times and scored 20 goals. If England are to be successful this summer we need goals to come from everywhere, we can't just rely on Rooney and the other forwards. Lampard has not always performed well for England like he does for Chelsea, but, that can be said of a lot of players and he has received some harsh criticism. He is always dangerous though, and is as cool as they come from the penalty spot. He had scored more than 20 straight and not missed in 3 years till he missed on this season.

I think Lampard will have a big World Cup and will be one of the players of the tournament.
Here's a video highlighting his qualities. My 3 favorite moments from this video in no order:
-Seeing his range of passing and how he creates so many chances by having great awareness.
-His goal against Bayern Munich where he turns 360 degrees and finishes with his weaker left foot was a great goal.
-His goal against Barcelona which was incredibly cheeky to be shooting from basically on the touchline and took an unbelievable amount of skill to chip the keeper from there.

Rooney Player of the Year

Wayne Rooney was last night named PFA player of the year. He has had a great season and thoroughly deserved the award. He is injured at the moment but has promised that he will be fully fit for the World Cup and believes he may even be fit for Man United's last game against Stoke. It is good to see for English football, as often a foreigner has won the award over the last few years.

James Milner won the PFA young player of the year and again it is thoroughly deserved. He will surely be going to the World Cup after the season he has had and there hasn't been too many times this season when you can say he had a bad game. He picked up the award after scoring the winning penalty for Villa against Birmingham.

Frank Lampard may be hitting form at just the right time for England. As captain against Stoke Chelsea won 7-0. Lampard scored a brace and one of them was a sublime finish controlling the ball into the net with the outside of his boot from a cross. He also scored another penalty. It can only be good for England that at the moment we have players scoring penalties as our record in major tournaments when it comes to penalties is shocking at best In the same game Ashley Cole made his return and played a full 90. He was a little rusty as to be expected but has another 3 Chelsea games before Capello names his squad and I'm sure Capello would have been relieved to see him come through the game unscathed.

Harry Redknapp has been saying Capello should take Ledley King to South Africa. There's no arguing that King is a very good defender. But, with his injury history it makes it difficult to take someone like him to a tournament that is so intense and there is always game just around the corner. King can only play one game a week and only trains the day before a game, in that case how could he possibly be in the squad. It is too much of a risk. You would be better off taking his team mate Michael Dawson who has been in good form all year.

When it comes to that centre half position though I would really consider taking Sol Campbell. He has great experience, can always step in and do a good job and forwards rarely get the better of him. He is getting on but you need that calming influence and someone who has experience at this level during these tournaments. Plus, at all the major tournaments he has played for England in, he has always been one of our best players.

Seeing as Rooney and Milner both won awards last night it seems only right that I post videos of them.
Here's a good video of a Rooney compilation.



I couldn't find a Milner compilation so instead I just chose to post one of the many screamers he has scored this season. Enjoy.

Days flying By

So my prediction for Liverpool against West Ham couldn't have been further from the truth. West Ham were absolutely shocking and made it easy for Liverpool. Gerrard looked decent, Green had no help from the defense in front of him and Upson was playing by himself in the back four.

James Milner's performances have certainly caught the eye this year. Rumors today speculate that Man City are going to be making a big bid for him in the summer. He has had a great year but I dont think moving will help him or his international credentials. He plays every week at Villa in his new natural centre midfield position. If he moves to one of the bigger clubs I could see him being shoved out wide and not starting every game.

Although there is no English interest in the Champions League anymore, the Inter Milan and Barcelona tie today was interestign viewing with many players from that game to go to the World Cup. Barcelona went ahead and you would have expected them to go on from there. Milan though, under Mourinho, came back to win 3-1 and well deserved. Barcelona have a lot to do in the second leg and will have no Puyol as he will be suspended. He has been poor lately and will be playing for Spain in the summer. We saw that Messi is human as he was never really involved in the game. Xavi though continues to find passes that seem impossible and it is a scary thought that Torres and David Villa will be running on to them passes for Spain.

If England do meet Spain, then they are going to have to be on top of their game. It's a scary thought how much quality they have and then to top it off they have cover in every position. It is going to take either a special performance to beat Spain or a lot of luck.

It would be nice if this man didn't recover in time for the World Cup, his meant to be back in less than a month now, but I'm sure there would be a lot of non-Spainards very happy if he didn't make it.