Being a loyal England fan I watched the Euro 2012 quarter final between England and Italy on Sunday evening. It was inevitable, of course, that we would get beaten on penalties. To their credit England defended well and were well organised but that’s about the only good thing I can say about the England performance. The BBC football experts headed up by Gary Lineker were honest in their assessment of the England performance but I don’t think they were critical enough. The TV experts, flown out on a private plane to be at the match, failed to ask the question why the England players had tired legs and could not match the skills and passing game of the Italians.
The England team is full of the best most well paid English players in the Premier League. Why is it that they have tired legs and why is it that they can’t pass a ball or keep possession. I would have thought that the best players would know how to pass a ball, would have excellent skills on the ball and be fit enough to run for 90 minutes of a football game !
For far too long we have had the same type of England players who do not have the skills to compete at the highest level. Also, why was it that the Italians best player, Pirlo, was allowed so much space so that he could pass the ball with as much time as he needed on the ball? I would have thought that he needed to be taken out of the game by man marking by one or maybe two England players.
In my opinion it seems that despite high wages our national football team still does not have the skills and passing abilities that it should have. Why is this? Well, maybe it’s because we have too many foreign players gracing our Premier League teams. Is this not giving our own home grown players the chance to play at the highest level?
Some radical thinking needs to take place to work out why our players can’t keep and pass the ball like the Spanish and Italians can. Maybe they need to spend more time practicing !
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