EN World World Cup blog

[OakwoodDM]

What might make things interesting is the Rugby rule - a yellow card equals a 10 minute sin binning. It might make people more reticent about things like diving (not that it's ever punished) and time wasting, and open things up.

The problem with TV evidence is FIFA. Despite the fact that pretty much every other sport in the world uses TV replays for key decisions (I know for a fact that Rugby, Cricket, American Football and, as of recently, Field Hockey do...), FIFA are determined to think that they aren't accurate enough, or would slow the game down unnecessarily. Of course, the players who go down and insist they're injured and need the game to be stopped only to stand up and run around fine once it is don't slow it down at all...

As for Scotland, good luck, I hope you qualify, and I hope you get a fourth game this time round. Hey, Australia qualified for the second round, why can't Scotland? Especially since you got rid of Vogts...

 

[Sidekick]

I don't think there needs to be a major rules change. They seem to fit fine at the moment. It's simply the current incarantion of what is seen as 'better tactics'. The 4-5-1 system is lame, but at the very least it can be easily changed to a 4-3-3 system.

Maybe they shoudl up the sustitutions allowed, but over all rolling subs would be a very bad idea IMHO.

Hmm the comparison to Rugby brings up something that my flatties & I always talk about.

-> The lack of respect and deference to the Referee in Football.

If FIFA would grow some Cohones and get the refs to stamp down in foul langauge, professional fouling, diving etc and actually start handing out cards, after the first few abandonments due to red-carding the respective FA's would get the idea, as woudl the players.

In rugby if you tell the ref he's a d'head. You're in the sinbin. Talk back to them and they march your team back 10 meter's, giving the opposition the equivalent of a free-kick even further into your territory - now that is something to be feared.

In general, something needs to be done to clean up football, especially the diving and the pantomining. It really is quite silly.

Personally I hope that Sir Alex forces C. Ronaldo to stay at Man U and then he'll realise that being a poro sport earns you no friends and no true allies.

 

[johnsemlak]

I think they should do the following:

1) Put offside back the way it was - a player is offside if, at the moment the ball is played, there are fewer than two opposing players between him and the goal. You cannot be offside in your own half of the pitch, and cannot be offside if the ball is played backwards.

Anything else just makes the rule far to complex - it's the Attack of Opportunity rule of football.

How is the offside rule different now?

I agree it's the AoO of football. Changing it should be done carefully. In particular, you've got to think how defeneces will adapt to it. That goes with any rules tinkering.

2) Allow five substitutions in the game.

Agreed. Perhaps one more plus a keeper specific substitution, so that teams don't have to save a sub in case their keeper gets injured.

3) Adopt the use of TV evidence, probably in the hands of the 4th, 5th and 6th officials, who should be in direct communication with the referee.

Agreed. If they have direct communication with the main ref, it doesn't ahve to interrupt play that much.

4) Go back to using a proper ball. This new lightweight thing did not prove to be the wonder-ball it was touted as.

Yeah. THey only rational for that ball seems to be an advert for Adidas (sp?)

5) Don't try to institute lots of disciplinary rulings for the World Cup only - all applicable leagues need to use the same disciplinary rules as the World Cup for the full year before the cup, so players can get used to them, and we don't have so many cards handed out.

right on

6) Diving should see the player involved banned for the remainer of the tournament.

I agree with the sentiment but if that was taken to its logical conclusion practically all players in this tournament would have been banned.

7) I'm wondering whether a Red Card should see a player removed from the game for 10 minutes or so, rather than for the rest of the game, or perhaps requires that that player immediately be substituted. As it is, a red card can destroy a game as the team affected switches to a 9-0-0 formation and plays for penalties.

Something to be considered.

 

[delericho]

Personally I hope that Sir Alex forces C. Ronaldo to stay at Man U and then he'll realise that being a poro sport earns you no friends and no true allies.

Alex Ferguson will do as he always does - he'll do whatever is in the best interest in Manchester United. If that means Ronaldo stays, he'll stay; if it means he goes, he'll go.

I do find this reaction to Ronaldo interesting, though. Wayne Rooney stamped on the crotch of an opponent, and shortly thereafter pushed Ronaldo, both in very close proximity to the referee. The first is probably a red card by itself; the second would be a soft red, but could be a red. Together? He had to go.

However, it wasn't that that put you out. Ironically, after Rooney went, England proceeded to put in their best performance of the tournament, and were somewhat unlucky not to grab the goal that would have put them through.

No, what put England out was Sven's truly lousy management. First, he took only four strikers, which was always a bad idea. Then, he took four strikers where Wayne Rooney was injured, Michael Owen was just back from injury and Theo Walcott had never played for his club, never mind his country. That's just madness.

His next mistake was failing to put on Theo Walcott against Sweden once Michael Owen was injured. There was no real pressure on that game; England could afford to lose, and Theo Walcott needed the experience. Having not played him then, Sven became unable to play him at any later time in the tournament.

Mistake three was playing Rooney as a lone striker. This obviously didn't work, and the frustration Rooney felt probably contributed to his sending off.

Fourth, he didn't drop Beckham and Lampard when they failed to perform. On paper, they were probably the best players for the roles, it's true, but they weren't doing the job.

Fifth, like so many of the managers at the tournament, he was far too defensive-minded. 4-5-1 is a dull formation to play. Better to go 4-4-2, and put your opponents to the sword.

And sixth was his obvious disinterest in the games as they progressed. Every time I saw Sven, he was just sitting there. There was no attempt to motivate the team, no shouting instructions to the players, and barely any reaction when England did score.

So, you should be glad he's gone.

For what it's worth, for the last match, I think I would have played a 4-4-2 formation with the same players, except I'd have dropped Beckham and Lampard, and played Lennon and Crouch instead.

 

[OakwoodDM]

I still think sending him off for the stamp was harsh, when as far as I can see, he didn't know there was a player there. I think most of the Ronaldo hatred comes not from him rushing up to the referee, but from the bit as Rooney was walking off, when he was clearly shown on the coverage winking to the bench, in a "job done" kind of way.

Plus, not many non-united fans liked him beforehand...

I agree that Sven lost us the chance, though. Goodness only knows what prompted him to take only 4 strikers, in those circumstances, and I can only assume that he saw Walcott in training and wrote him off as a gamble that failed to pay off. I understand why he played 4-5-1. We need someone in the midfield to break up opponent play before they get to our defence. Most teams have someone like this. However, if we want to play Gerrard and Lampard to their full potential, it can't be either of them (as shown in the early games when Gerrard played that role and hardly got forward, except in the Trinidad game after we'd scored the first goal), which means we need a 5th midfielder. However, with Beckham and Joe Cole as wingers, we need wingbacks, so we need 4 at the back. That leaves one up front, with, in theory, Gerrard and Lampard racing forward to support him. Now, in hindsight, we know that didn't work (although Crouch did an impressive job of it when he came on...).

In my opinion, he should have dropped Beckham, because Lennon looked like a far better option on the right (and Wright Phillips would have been even better), and Lampard, because he had an awful tournament. In other words, for the Portugal game, I would have played:

Robinson; Neville, Terry, Carragher, A Cole; Lennon, Gerrard, Hargreaves, J Cole; Rooney, Crouch.

Of course, I would have rather had people like Defoe, Darren Bent or Andy Johnson available to me, but I picked from the squad...

 

[johnsemlak]

The thing that gets me about all the Sven criticism is that if Beckham, Owen, and Rooney had been at or near 100% fitness for the WC, England probably woulld have played better and Sven would be praised. He should be blamed for not having a Plan B, but in the end, I'm not sure he could have had an adequate plan.

 

[OakwoodDM]

The problem, in some part, is that Sven only had six places to pick, because, regardless of form, Rio Ferdinand, David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney were in his team if fit. Which means they had to be in the squad. What most of the criticism is about (other than his complete inability to make the team play better if they had a ropey first half, but that's been the case for a while) is the fact that he took 4 strikers, when conventional wisdom says you need 5, and when one of them still has a broken foot, one has barely reached fitness again after a long time out, and one of them has barely played professional football. When Peter Crouch is your most reliable striker, you start to worry. I suspect people wouldn't be so harsh on him if he'd done one of the following:

1. Take a fifth striker. Darren Bent had a cracking season and deserved a place.
2. Play Walcott. Ok, he's your wild card. Now show us what he can do.

Sadly he did neither, and you ended with a situation where even if we'd made the semi final, we'd have been forced to play Crouch up front on his own. I wouldn't like his chances. Against the Portuguese centre backs he looked solid, and better than he had all tournament. Against Thuram and colleagues, he'd have had a hard time.

As for Walcott, by taking him and not playing him, Sven's done more harm than good to the guy. He's 17. He wouldn't have expected a call up. But by taking him and then not even putting him in for the Sweden game, which was as close to a dead rubber as you're going to get in the world cup, when Owen got injured and Crouch was supposedly dropped to avoid a yellow card ban, you're telling him you've seen him in training and he's not good enough. That's got to hurt.