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WC 2010: Group C Chat (England etc)


bickster

Who will top the group?  

135 members have voted

  1. 1. Who will top the group?

    • England
      103
    • USA
      19
    • Algeria
      4
    • Slovenia
      9


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Well, Rio Ferdinand is out of the Cup, so that's a critical loss for England.

Nonetheless, they should win the group.

Slovenia can easily take 2nd, because who knows what the US will look like.

Sometimes they look like world beaters, sometimes like complete amateurs.

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Terry and King is a disaster waiting to happen.

Well I suppose some have got what they wanted with King starting, but didn't he already have his 1 good game this year against Citeh? We're in trouble.

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Terry and King is a disaster waiting to happen.

Well I suppose some have got what they wanted with King starting, but didn't he already have his 1 good game this year against Citeh? We're in trouble.

Or maybe his good game was against Arsenal

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Well, Rio Ferdinand is out of the Cup, so that's a critical loss for England.

I'm not convinced by that at all, he's not exactly been on form all season even when he has been fit, he became captain by default, just like Gerrard has now. England my even be better off without him tbh as captain he was sure to play. Dawson has been the better player form wise most of the season

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Well, Rio Ferdinand is out of the Cup, so that's a critical loss for England.

I'm not convinced by that at all, he's not exactly been on form all season even when he has been fit, he became captain by default, just like Gerrard has now.

He didn't seem to play muh in qualifiers, Terry and Upson have been the partnership for the most part. Hopefully that continues because King isn't good enough despite the wankfest lately. He wouldn't have even got into the squad if it weren't for a few decent games. Before the Arsenal game there was no talk of him at all!

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Rio missing the World Cup is a blessing in disguise. He is a liability these days and not the player he was. He is injury prone and error prone.

If we can keep King fit, which is a big if, then we have a player better than Rio ready to come straight into the team anyway.

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BBC said Heskey was closest player to Ferdinand but Rio did himself turning badly and nowt to do with Heskey as there was no contact whatsoever

I'm glad for Heskey if that's the case. I think he gets enough stick as it is, including from me, for his lack of goals. Had Heskey been the tackler, I could see another great scapegoat thread on this and many other forums!!

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BBC said Heskey was closest player to Ferdinand but Rio did himself turning badly and nowt to do with Heskey as there was no contact whatsoever

The thing is, Rio is so fragile these days it might have been a gentle gust of wind or an insect landing on him which caused the injury. Some people on the internet seem to think Heskey has hit Rio with a crowbar or something!

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BBC said Heskey was closest player to Ferdinand but Rio did himself turning badly and nowt to do with Heskey as there was no contact whatsoever

The thing is, Rio is so fragile these days it might have been a gentle gust of wind or an insect landing on him which caused the injury. Some people on the internet seem to think Heskey has hit Rio with a crowbar or something!

I agree, Rio is so injury prone it is crazy, this isn't a big a loss as it is being made out to be imho.

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Im starting to like Heskey more and more these days, one day i might actually say 'i suppose he was alright at football'.

It's a blessing in disguise.

England should win the group without too much difficulty, not saying it will be a walk in the park either.

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we just defeated kiwis 3:1 but we did not play too well. no injuries, birsa and novakovic are on fire, koren is one very motivated free agent. can't wait for the games to start!

fair enough but the Kiwi's have no right to be at the world cup IMHO, they are easily the worst team at the finals for some time and will be lucky to score a goal let alone get a point and they certainly have no chance of winning a game, Slovenia on the other hand could be one of the surprise packages of the tournament and England would do well not to underestimate them.

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Picked up Sports Illustrated's World Cup preview issue today... they go into deeper detail on Group C than the other groups for some reason.

On England:

During the 2006 World Cup, comedian Ricky Gervais appeared in a skit for British TV that lampooned England's strike partnership of Peter Crouch and Wayne Rooney. The 6'7" Crouch was played by Stephen Merchant, Gervais's lanky writing partner. Taking the role of Rooney was actor Warwick Davis, the 3'6" dwarf who played an Ewok in Return of the Jedi and the titular killer in the Leprechaun movies. The sketch ends with a demonstration of Rooney's aerial prowess: "Crouch" lifting "Rooney" into the air to head home a Gervais cross. They cannot celebrate the goal properly because their size difference makes a high five impossible.

The farcical bit had a measure of truth: at that time you could count on one hand the number of chances the 5'10" Rooney had finished with his head. Flash forward to 2009-10, a remarkable season in which Rooney scored 34 in all competitions for Manchester United, including a stretch of seven of eight with his noggin. The increase in aerial productivity was a function of Rooney's spending more time in the box for United -- with England he tends to play as a deep-lying striker -- as well as hours working on the one skill he lacked. Now Rooney, 24, has joined Lionel Messi as one of the most rounded scorers on the planet, and contending with him is job one for England's Group C opponents.

"He's not always looking for balls that lead him straight to goal," says USA assistant Jesse Marsch. "He just wants to receive the ball in the attacking third. [Then] he has opportunities to set a guy up or get a ball wide and run late into the box for headers. He can beat you in too many ways for it to be easy to talk about." Rooney likes to drift to the left side, which had been a problem area for England but is now manned by Steven Gerrard, a central midfielder who moved out wide when it became clear that playing him in the middle with the similarly skilled Frank Lampard wasn't working. Though he's out of position, Gerrard is crafty, and he and Rooney make a dangerous pair.

If England has a significant weakness, it's at goalkeeper, where none of the trio of David (Calamity) James, Joe Hart, and Robert Green inspire complete confidence. Otherwise, Fabio Capello's squad is loaded with players who'd walk into the starting XI of any other team in the group. The Three Lions should cruise through the first round and deep into the tournament, with Rooney at the head of the charge.

On the USA:

You can lose your first game and still advance from a four-team group. In fact, you can lose your first two games and survive, as the USA learned last year at the Confederations Cup. It's something to keep in mind if the Americans drop their Group C opener against powerful England in Rustenburg on June 12: the next two matches, against Slovenia on June 18 in Johannesburg and Algeria June 23 in Pretoria, will do more to determine the Yanks' fate. Their primary goal is to enter that third game in position to go through without needing help from other results.

What will the USA approach be? Since the squad has no true gamebreakers, it relies on teamwork, an organized bend-but-don't-break defense, and a counterattack that seeks the right opportunities to pounce. The creative spark comes from the midfield flanks, where Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey have the freedom to cut inside and attack with the ball at their feet. The two central midfielders (Michael Bradley and one of the trio of Ricardo Clark, Maurice Edu, and Jose Torres) and the four-man back line are primarily defensive-minded, keeping tight lines and often absorbing possession when playing against top teams. Positioning is crucial for a defensive unit that lacks blazing speed.

When USA coach Bob Bradley talks about "the modern game," one hallmark is "making it hard for the other team," as he puts it. "What happens when the ball turns over? What are the reactions like, both in attack and defense?" he says. "Can you take advantage of the moments where the other team isn't in perfect position? When you lose the ball, how quickly can you react to stop them from doing what they want to do?"

The USA can't overwhelm foes with raw talent, and it rarely wins the possession battle against tougher opponents. Playing the majority of their games on defense will test the Americans' stamina, all the more so if they go down a man, which is why they must avoid the red cards that have plagued them in recent international tournaments. But possession is not everything in soccer, as the Yanks proved in beating Spain 2-0 to reach last year's Confederations Cup final. If the USA is really one of the world's top 15 teams, it needs to advance from this not-so-fearsome foursome. Anything less must be considered a failure.

On Algeria:

The Desert Foxes have proved maddeningly mercurial. To reach the World Cup, Rabah Saadane's team beat Egypt in a do-or-die qualifying playoff. The next meeting with Egypt? The Desert Foxes were drubbed 4-0 in the semifinals of the African Cup of Nations, a game in which three Algerians were sent off. Those red cards mean Saadane will be without goalkeeper Faouzi Chaouchi for the first two group games and Nadir Belhadj for the opener against Slovenia. Belhadj's absence in particular could loom large. The pacy Portsmouth left back is the Desert Foxes' most formidable weapon. One who could challenge him for that title, Lazio midfielder Mourad Meghni, will miss the tournament with a knee injury. The rest of the lineup is largely workmanlike.

Saadane, 64, pronounced that qualification was Algeria's proudest moment since independence in 1962, but he has been trying to temper expectations. "To make it to the second round would be startling," he warned. He's right. The Desert Foxes won't get out of the group stage -- but they will keep things interesting.

On Slovenia:

Matjaz Kek's squad isn't necessarily boring, it just lacks the propensity for scandal of groupmates England and Algeria and the curiosity factor of the USA. The Slovenes got to South Africa by eschewing flair -- Kek stuck to a starting XI, letting the players gel, and adopted a defense-first philosophy. The team allowed just four goals in ten qualifiers and beat Russia on away goals in a two-game playoff, after which Prime Minister Borut Pahor dropped to his knees in the locker room and cleaned the coach's shoes.

Kek recently told Reuters, "We have no outstanding players, which suggest sandbagging is alive and well in Slovenia. The defense is anchored by Udinese keeper Samir Handanovic, and the midfield has dynamic playmakers in Robert Koren and Valter Birsa. If Kek is feeling frisky, he can call on Inter Milan's Rene Krhin, the only Group C player with a 2010 Champions League winners medal. And 6'3" striker Milivoje Novakovic is a handful in the box: in 2008-09 he was seventh in the Bundesliga with 16 goals. He's not the most gifted forward in the tournament, but he's emblematic of what makes Slovenia an upset threat: he has a way of just getting things done.

There's also a four or five page article on Capello and England headlined "Bangers and Bolognese" that if I feel like getting carpal tunnel I might post... it features such nuggets as "Every England player in '66 was white. They all came from a league that had only a handful of players from outside Britain (including Scotland and Wales) and not a single foreign coach."

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