While most of England's media is enjoying the humilation, World Cup Ranter is not happy that the England side is out of this year's tournament. But I think that just as I did on June 11, the night before our first game, we all needed to calm down a bit.
The World Cup Squad we took would have been much more effective with an inform David Beckham and Theo Walcott - we were rarely effective on either flank (or anywhere else) with penetration that Walcott may have given us, or crosses which is one of the few parts of Beckham's game to justify his inclusion.
A fit and in form Rio Ferdinand would probably have stopped two of Germany's goals, though not have scored at the other end. I think we, like Manchester United, have missed the workrate that Owen Hargreaves gave us.
There are probably one or two other players who Capello might have picked ahead of those he took, if injuries weren't an issue (though I can't think of many more that would have made the games played). But World Cup Ranter put this tournament's disastrous performances down to no one but Fabio Capello, the manager that finessed us to the World Cup finals and then pissed our chances down the drain from the moment we qualified.
Here's WCR's guide to where the man who has managed more successful sides than I have blog posts, fucked well and truly up. Many are on the original assessment I made of the squad on the eve of the first game (unlike most of the English media), and a few were only able to be determined from the reports of our time in South Africa.
1) Gareth Barry - looked out of game practice and unfit. While our midfield was pretty terrible across the board, I still don't understand why Capello took Barry, and if he was going to take him, why he didn't he know who would already be his understudy. Carrick? Well, if it has to be him, play him in that position for the four games Barry was injured for rather than prat about during the tournament.
2) Not sticking to his self declared rules. "No one unfit and no one out of form" was bullshit. It might have got him respect during the qualifiers because the decisions were easy ones. But just like Steve McClaren before him, Capello sucked up to the players' egos and they repaid him with immaturity and lack of focus. While I agree for the captain you can bend the rules, so Rio is forgiven, and out of form Lampard and Gerrard are still pretty hard to set aside, but Barry (who was both unfit and out of form), Sean Wright Phillps (unpicked by Mancini), Carrick (out of form), Ledley King (permanently crippled who got the sympathy vote from commentators who should have known better for a tournament of 7 games in a month), Defoe (out of form), Joe Cole (out of form and unpicked) are those I can think of, and I bet there were one or two more.
3) The prisoner of war camp atmosphere at the Croydon-style accommodation was encouraged by Capello and the FA. Here is a man who was told it was the players' egos that had been at fault for the previous two managers' lack of success. Sven is a star fucker while Stevie was easily ignored by players who knew they deserved better and could have had better if the FA hadn't messed up signing that Brazillian who made a mess at Chelsea. Capello was the third way, a better record than Sven and no desire to mix it with the pretty wives and girlfriends of his youthful players. Obviously he was just better than Stevie Mac, in every possible way and we shouldn't forget that. But he was a miserable bastard that didn't stick to his own ever so stricked rules, let the players stew in their own lack of success, and thoroghly misjudged the difference of a five-day stay and a European qualifier and a trip a quarter of the way around the world in deserted luxury hide outs in Austria and South Africa for the best part of five weeks (including the warm ups and longer if we had gone further).
4) The reason we kept on losing is because once you see someone fail so badly at these fucking basics, and then watch him fiddle while Rome burned during seven halfs of football, the players knew that once again the FA had picked the wrong manager for England.
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