England V Uruguay World Cup 2014

England V Uruguay Fifa World Cup 2014

After match synopsis in red!!

Need a winner!

Pregame bets:

Draw 5/2

Ah England! Should have closed the game out for the draw! And go hell for leather in the last game! Tut tut

Full betting review here>http://thisdrinkinglife.com/top-bets-world-cup/

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 ? Unfortunately I couldn’t source any beer from the Uruguay so this will be a one sided affair. Click on picture for a preview of the beer.

Win for London Pride as I couldn’t source a beer from Uruguay. Click on link below for full beer information and reviews

PreGame:

England: Have to say England played well in their first game, better than I expected anyway. Maybe a dip in the second half but enough to give them confidence ahead of this big game tonight. If they have the ability to score against Italy then surely they can sneak a goal against the very aging defence that Uruguay have.

The youngsters that Hodgson picked played well, but I do have to ask about some of the more senior players. Gerrard was missing in action a good few times, and Rooney should have really done better with his chance in the second half. I would drop at least one of them but I dont think Hodgson will do that unfortunately. Both players were very ineffective in the last game.True Rooney got a cross in, but in a whole game was that good enough?

Uruguay: An excellent performance from Costa Rica, in their first game, has set this group alive. Uruguay could be heading home sooner than a lot of people imagined.They looked very laboured, and made awful hard work of moving the ball forward. Forlan was rubbish, and hadn’t a sniff of a goal. Suarez should at least make up for the lack of goal mouth action and it will be interesting to see how he gets on against a few players he is sued to sparring with in the EPL

And as for the captain, Lugano, he was a terrible liability in the centre of defence. He could not defend anything, and I would be surprised if Tabarez sticks with him for this game, even if he is captain and has a big reputation. Surely someone on the bench couldn’t play as bad? But he will stick with him probably citing loyalty or some other rubbish. If he does and you are an English fan, sit back on the sofa, have a beer and just enjoy all the mistake Lugano will make and count on Sturridge scoring a goal or two.

This will be a real humdinger of a match, loser goes out of the world cup, Might be tight for the first half, but I think a goal will change the whole game and fairly liven things up in the second half.

A more detailed review on England here and on Uruguay here

So the dust has settled now a few days after the game, lets have a frank review of the England game.

Wonder if John Terry and Ashley Cole would have made a difference to the team? I think so. You simply don’t leave world class players at home even if they can be seen as disruptive to the team or the wrong side of thirty. If they are still playing then bring them. One of the problems with England was in defence, it wasn’t solid enough and prone to mistakes. Cole with his running on the wing, speed and agility offers opportunities to relive pressure at key moment in a game, while Terry can command a strong defence and boss the back line. Of course the argument against is that both players were around in Africa and England still let in silly goals, but you have to look at the season both players had this year with their respective clubs, their form wasn’t too bad. England lost the game in defence, that’s the key point here.

England needed 100 per cent concentration at all times to keep Uruguay at bay. They didn’t, a few lapses and Suarez was in. But it was coming, at the start of the second half England fell asleep giving three good chances in 5 minutes to Uruguay. England were an accident waiting to happen. To be fair to Cahill, he did play relatively well in the game but in the end, mistakes result in goals.

Rooney did play well, in a much more central position this time around, he played better, and was unlucky in just scoring the one goal, very unlucky. His leap for his close chance in the first half was magnificent, as high as the crossbar. Saying that, though, he did lose the ball in midfield to which Suarez scored the first goal. Small percentages and all that.

Gerrard the undroppable, his missed header lead to the last goal. But his general play was just as worse, but we could have guessed this. He hasn’t done anything for England in a few years now. He just sits back and lets the game pass him by, the odd thundering shot that fly’s over the bar and the even rarer cross field wonder pass, but that’s it. You do wonder how much influence he has in the dressing room. Could this be another reason that Terry and Cole were not in the squad, as there were reports before of how disharmonious that English dressing room can get. If the manic disciplinarian Capello couldn’t sort it out, it must be pretty bad.

Overall, 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. 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.

For Uruguay, Lugano, team captain, was not playing at the start which was a blow for England. He was injured making the decision to drop him very easy for the coach. I don’t believe that for one second. Coward.

Suarez scored two brilliant goals and was a massive difference to his team. I have a feeling he will leave Liverpool in the summer, he would be right to. He got a lot of unwarranted abuse from the press and general sporting public, and not much support from his club. You could see after the final whistle how much this result was important for him. He was very emotional, and relived to have made his point in the best way possible. Bravo Suarez you got your revenge in some style.

Overall it was a much better team performance from Uruguay. Tighter in defence and really England didn’t trouble them too much, the usual short spells of pressure but not sustained, and easy to contain.

England now go on to play a dead rubber of a game, they are out, Costa Rica are through, a game just to play for pride. Looking at CR’s performance against the Italians, England might not even manage to win that last game.

Uruguay, on the other hand, have the extremely difficult game against the Italians to play next. A winner takes all tie. It will be difficult to call as one can never really tell what Italian team will turn up, the stroppy uneventful one or the Pirlo inspired steam engine. One thing for sure is that they have to stop Suarez from scoring. Something England could not do, twice.

England!! Why always so laboured?

Music to get you in the mood

Oasis V La Trampa