England V Costa Rica World Cup 2014

England V Croatia Fifa World Cup 2014

After match synopsis in red!!

Beers: Group D of Beer World Cup: http://thisdrinkinglife.com/world-cup-beer-group-d/

Who is set to win the battle of the beers? London Pride V Imperial. Who will quench the thirst, set the mood, get me in the right spirit? Click on picture for a preview of the beers.

Get the beer result after, much after!

Imperial Beer V London Pride: 0-1 to London Pride. Imperial is a very pleasant refreshing light lager that has a nice aroma of lightly toasted malt with some corn. The pour produced a lovely clear straw colour with a decent looking frothy head. Looks the part, smells the part. On taste there is an interesting creamy aftertaste. Overall, Imperial Beer is a standard, good tasting lager. So how would all that fare against London Pride and its famous amber reddish ale. London Pride also had a taste of light caramel in it, with some earthy hops and a mild bitter aftertaste. I really liked the complexity of its flavours that buzz around your taste buds . Both beers were very easy to drink and had some interesting flavouring going on with them, but I will give the win to London Pride, for having that little more bite in it, albeit it should as its a proper ale, but it went down well, and is a great brew for watching the football. Click on links below for full beer information and reviews.

PreGame:

England have made nine changes to the side that lost to Uruguay for their final World Cup Group D match against Costa Rica. Wayne Rooney and Steve Gerrard are out in favour of a team that is looking towards the future. Lampard is the only one left of the old guard, is captain and is hoping to sign off his World Cup career on a winning team this evening.

England played in fits and starts in this World Cup, a lot of ifs and buts. If they had only got the draw against Uruguay then today’s game would be so much different in outlook.

Overall though, England are a team with very little skill, look disjointed and have no leaders on the pitch, but mostly they don’t have that one player who can change a game for them. With all the money pumped into the EPL they cant make a team. Yet little Costa Rica, with half their squad from their amature national league, can take on the worlds best, playing wonderful football and getting results. Yes we are talking abut coaching again, or the lack of it in England (take note Rednapp). Watch as England spends the next few weeks debating the direction of proper coaching within the country before that general topic fizzles out in September, and wont be raised again until the next tournament England sheepishly exits. Or, as it seems, start moaning about foreigners again. Boring!

England do have a chance of winning this tie, only because Costa Rica are willing to rest a few of their key team players. They are through, and can relax and enjoy the game, while England will not want to go down as the worst English team ever in a World Cup. But as always with England expect a very laboured performance.

Costa Rica, who need only a point to guarantee winning the group, will rest several first-team regulars. Joel Campbell and Bryan Ruiz are expected to miss out, and it will be very interesting to see how they perform without their star players.

Costa Rica produced their second stunning upset in a week to beat a very poor Italian side, proving that their win against Uruguay was no fluke. Costa Rica made the Italian defence look really ordinary. They played well and thoroughly deserved to win the game and head into the next round with a game to spare. Who would have predicted that at the start of the competition! The Central Americans are arguably the story of the World Cup, having qualified with ease and a game to spare. Brilliant.

Looking forward to seeing Diaz Campbell again. The defender was always ready to turn defence into attack as quick as possible, and didn’t panic at the back. Solid defending and it will be fun to see how he gets on against Sturridge.

The Central Americans are arguably the story of the World Cup, having qualified with a game to spare, andI am sure they wont hold to much fear for who they might play in the last 16. Colombia, Greece or Ivory Coast? Wouldn’t bet against Coast Rica beating any of those trio, easy.

A more detailed review on England here and on Costa Rica here

The English fans sang their songs, while their team played out another laboured performance, a dull nil nil with Costa Rica. “Always look on the bright side of life”, the witty number from The Life of Brian, was sang with gusto. Well it looks like you would need a sense of humour following England. The fans also shouted out in vast numbers “Who are you?” to some of the Costa Rican team. Well they are the team that beat Italy and Uruguay and are still in the competition. What exactly are the England team, the best English talent in the EPL?

To be fair to England they did play slightly better than in the last game, with Lampard getting forward more than Gerrard ever did. If Daniel Sturridge had only scored one of the half dozen chances he had they could have even won this game. He really should have at least put away one of them, pretty poor performance from him overall.

I thought that Costa Rica might have rested some of their key players like Diaz and Campbell, but they started. Could argue a game like this is as good as a training session perhaps. But apart from a few early chances Costa Rica never looked like scoring themselves, more than likely they were saving their energy for their next game against Greece.

England did have a shout for a penalty, when Sturridge fell in a tangle with Duarte, but quite rightly, the referee wasn’t interested.

Ben Foster played well in goals, didn’t have a lot to do overall but he was alert enough to pull of a great save from a Celso Borges’ free-kick which he pushed onto the bar in the first half.

England go home, much earlier than expected, and now can rest until the hectic EPL starts in August, while Costa Rica are in the last 16 and have a game with Greece, a very winnable tie, and a chance to get into the last eight of the World Cup. Now who would have guessed that at he start of this great competition!

Music to get you in the mood

Madness V Peregrino Gris.