England fixtures the deciding factor
The international England fixtures return today with Bulgaria travelling to Wembley to take on England in their first competitive game since our woeful and forgettable World Cup campaign. The national side didn’t quite know what to expect from the crowd at Wembley in their first game in a friendly against Hungary which they narrowly won 2:1, with Hungary taking a shock lead with an own goal from Jagielka/Dawson in the 62 minute. A Steven Gerrard performance that we usually only experience for Liverpool turned the game in our favour as he produced some sublime skill to score the winner after he had netted the equaliser from 35 yards out, all in the space of four second half minutes.
England came from behind to beat Hungary with a Gerrard brace and all is well in the world again and England will almost certainly win the Euro 2012! Hold on, England are not a dominant force in world football and haven’t been for a long time and shouldn’t be rated so highly anymore until they do actually perform well at one of the big tournaments. Hungary are 62nd in the world and we didn’t sweep them aside like Spain, Germany or Brazil would have done without getting out of first gear. The realisation has taken its time to embed in the minds of our patriotic of all fans, that England simply do not belong in the same league as Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina and even Uruguay and Ghana.
Whether this is due to the amount of foreigners that play in the Premier League that make our players look better than they actually are or that none of our England players ply their trade abroad or that we have no winter break, excuses can no longer be made for our nation, we have to accept that we are simply not a force in world football and with this being our supposedly ‘golden generation’ I fear it will be far off in the future before we are considered as a dominant force once again on the world stage of the beautiful game.
The England fixture list:
England v Bulgaria Wembley Kick-off: 8pm
Switzerland v England St Jakob Park Kick-off: 7:45pm
England v Montenegro Wembley Kick-off: 8pm
England v France Wembley Kick-off: 8pm (friendly)
Wales v England Millennium Stadium Kick-off: tbc
England v Argentina neutral Europe Kick-off: tbc (friendly)
England v Switzerland Wembley Kick-off: 8pm
Thailand v England Rajamangala National Stadium Kick-off: tbc (friendly)
England v Holland Wembley Kick-off: 8pm (friendly)
Bulagria v England Vasil Levski National Stadium Kick-off: tbc
England v Wales Wembley Kick-off: tbc
Montenegro v England Stadion Pod Goricom Kick-off: tbc
September 9th, 2010 at 11:08 am
[...] have made up for some of the heartache we endured during our abysmal world cup campaign during our england fixtures and will have gone a long way to reinstating some much needed confidence that was clearly shattered [...]
September 9th, 2010 at 11:20 am
[...] will reinstate pride and confidence in our national side after their perfomance in the lasteast of England fixtures. After brushing Bulgaria aside at Wembley with Defoe hitting a hat-trick they travelled to [...]
September 10th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
[...] the England fixtures now out of the way we can return our attention back towards the Premiership fixtures. This weekend [...]