England is synonymous with football. England may win the Cricket World Cup or the Rugby World Cup, yes the whole nation celebrates & gloats. But come football season cricket & rugby are forgotten, the streets & homes are littered with “football widows”.

With England’s disastrous exit from the Football World Cup last year, David Beckham, a globally-recognised brand sorry name, resigned as captain. But then with Ericsson‘s exit as manager, the new coach Steve Maclaren dropped Beckham altogether. In general, most of the fans welcomed it but half of the pundits didn’t agree. Suffice to say after one good game, the new England squad’s performance was consistently poor. Is it because they’re missing Beckham? Is it because Maclaren is no better than the Swede? Personally, I think it’s down to lack of teamplay. There are too many good players but there’s no cooperation. They lack the hunger and therefore the aggresiveness needed to win.

Anyway, Beckham has been recalled and poor Maclaren is putting all his eggs in David’s basket. This piece of news has been speculated on for the last two weeks. Now that it’s confirmed, the papers have been carrying the same story but with different twists, I think since Monday!

With the rest of England’s footie mad population watching I can’t help but feel sorry for both player & manager. You’re hailed as a hero as long as you keep crossing that ball into the goal. But one mistake, or in David’s case before one red card, you’re vilified as the most hated figure in the country. Tough game huh?

In the meantime I need to find out whether the England vs Brazil friendly will be shown free-to-air or not, because it may also mean I’m single for a day.

photo source: soccersquared.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 8:03 am and is filed under british nga, news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.