The Beautiful Game

Imagine Cristiano Ronaldo playing for Brighton & Hove Albion. He'd just get in the way. 
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Stuart Pearce

 
June 30, 2009

Different tournament, different squad, same story. England fail again.

England Under-21 goalkeeper Scott Loach
Loach's mistake left England facing an uphill struggle
via news.bbc.co.uk

A picture says a thousand words.

Stuart Pearce said that England needed better in-tournament tactics, they needed to be smarter "like the Germans" was his quote earlier in the week. Smart we were not.

Silly bookings meant the suspension of Hart, Agbonglahor and Campbell. It left England toothless up-front and inexperienced in net (I don't think Scott Loach will be troubling Fabio Capello's squad selection).

Hopefully lessons have been learned, and the Senior England team will be smarter this time next year and we will have to be beaten by somebody, and not by ourselves

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Filed under  //   England   Fabio Capello   Football   Frazier Campbell   Gabriel Agbonglahor   Germany   Joe Hart   Scot Loach   Stuart Pearce   U-21   UEFA  

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June 24, 2009

Resting Players? Good, bad or ugly..


Each season, more and more players are involved in more and more fixtures. There has been a big debate around Theo Walcott and his involvement in the seniors prior to the UEFA U-21 European Championships , and that he will end up without any rest before getting stuck back in to pre-season training.

However, that has now gone away (although bound to resurface if he gets any injuries next season), and the fact that Gerrard plays 65 games in a season does not surprise anyone anymore. It is always going to happen as the game continues to grow and be the global power that it is. What is interesting to me in these days of huge squads (and teams with a number of star players) is whether resting players actually helps the team.



You hope by resting players they will be fresh, focused and up for it when the big matches come along. There is a crucial game for England's U-21 team on Friday where hopefully this will be the case.

It is the semi-finals of the UEFA U-21 European Championships and England go into their match against Sweden having rested players fully (England rested 10 players in their last Group Match). Now Stuart Pearce believes this will give his team an edge as he has a rested squad to pick from. Their opponents are co-hosts Sweden, and they had to play a  tough and intense last Group Match to get to this stage. If they lost they were out. They had to win to qualify, and win they did. Sweden now have momentum, England do not.

I wonder if Sir Alex Ferguson looks back on the end of last season's campaign with regret at resting his stars against Hull in the last game of the Barclays Premier League season. In the UEFA Champions League Final his side looked leggy and tired, and struggled to chase down and win the ball back from FC Barcelona. Perhaps United would of been better to of play the Hull game with the same intensity to carry into the final against FC Barcelona. We will never know.

Maybe Managers should be avoiding rotation and resting players as it interrupts the rhythm of the team and could even cause players to lose their focus. Look at Liverpool - last season was Benetiz's first where he played regular line ups and formation, and were it not for the injury to Torres I believe they would of ended up walking off with the title in May.

I think over the course of a season it makes sense to rest players when they are tired, but in big tournaments and just before big matches I would always rather my team approached the game with the same mentality and the same line up to maintain that momentum and energy into the final matches.

I just hope that Stuart Pearce does not look back and rue the decision to rest his players after they had already qualified. We will find out on Friday.

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Filed under  //   David Beckham   England   FC Barcelona   Football   Gerrard   Hull   Manchester United   Semi-Finals   Sir Alex Ferguson   Stuart Pearce   Sweden   Theo Walcott   UEFA  

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June 19, 2009

So far, so good...


So Spain have finally lost a match, there 36 match unbeaten run that looked set to carry them to glory has come to an end, oh wait, no. This is the U-21 Spanish.

England's young lions who turned them over in the UEFA European U-21 Championships 2-1 . A powerful performance masterminded by Stuart Pearce that saw England play intelligently with the ball, create chances and be solid at the back to cement their place in the Semi-finals.

Although nowhere near the same level as the FIFA World Cup, it does start to give hope that the next crop of England players and I am sure that a number of these lads will be starting to think this could springboard them on to the plane to South Africa if they return with the trophy. Muamba and Gibbs were excellent and Milner, despite missing a penalty, again looked a solid player. Walcott perhaps had a point to prove and hopefully his impact in the 2nd half with make him believe in the tournament again and not keep dreaming of the Seniors.

I will be intrigues to see what happens after the tournament, as there are bound to be numerous scouts attending these championships over the FIFA Confederations Cup - if you recall it was this tournament that launched  Massimo Maccarone, Mark Hately and Bobby Zamora, so watch this space...

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Filed under  //   England   FIFA World Cup   Football   Stuart Pearce   UEFA  

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