Resilient, brave, occasionally brilliant - but beaten

Euro 2012 quarter-final: England 0 - 0 Italy (Italy won 4-2 on penalties after extra-time)

In terms of the quality of football played over 120 minutes, England had lost. Long before the actual penalty defeat. It was as if the players felt they were competing a long-distance desert race, desperately attempting to drag their dead, cramping bodies over the extra-time finish line.

Andrea Pirlo, the puppet master, had England at his mercy and the viewing public in horrified awe. His ability to exert a wizard-like influence on the game from such a deep-sitting position proved to be a tactical nightmare and a spectacle scarcely seen. There is no denying his passing was on top form, both in terms of range and accuracy. But he has been performing at that ultimate level all year for Juventus, where he was in many critics’ eyes player of the season. Pirlo was just doing his thing. And we had no plan - or so it seemed - to nullify him.

The problem lay in the position Pirlo operates in; he plays in-between the defence and midfield where he aims to orchestrate the team's tempo and play passes in all directions. Our orthodox 4-4-2 did not naturally lend a player to picking him up, and the result was Pirlo had both plenty of space and time on the ball throughout the match. Free reign to the one player we could not afford to allow free reign. He also roamed to the sides, where his crossing was equally threatening.

Going into the quarter-final there was genuine reason for optimism. England breezed through their group, and with two exciting performances. We showed against Sweden an ability to raise our game, find goals when needed. Against Ukraine, we withstood a barrage from an inspired host nation and there was a genuine feeling of togetherness that has been a missing ingredient of past campaigns. The first half performance was all that was missing, and against Italy we got it. But then we lost it.

In the second half we reverted to the negative mindset we displayed against France. Like someone who had been sat in an uncomfortable chair for too long, we slumped from sitting high with attacking posture to sagging around our box as our goal-threat evaporated.

'Same old England' describes the style of our exit as once again we departed on penalties. But if that is how our tournament is remembered, it will do England an injustice. There were numerous, if disjointed, examples of the talents and capacity needed to form a winning side. We just never managed to display them all together at once.

England: like a box of chocolates

You never know what you're gonna get

Off-field dispute, injury and unwillingness to be a standby gave Hodgson a rather large headache to select an appropriate back five for Euro 2012. But whilst missing Ferdinand, Cahill and Richards, England's defence comprising two players from Chelsea and two from Man City looked on paper one of the strongest of all nations, and would have been expected by many fans to be the one point they could rely on for consistency. In reality, the ability of Liverpool's Glen Johnson to rapidly recover position was needed on three occasions against Sweden.

The defence gave a stubborn performance in our opening fixture against France, establishing a forcefield around our box and restricting les Bleus to shooting from range. Because of the strength at the back, there was no legitimate claim that 1-1 was an unfair result despite France's domination in other areas. But for 15 minutes of madness at the start of the second half of the second game, England conceded twice to the aerial threat of Olof Mellberg. Their Euro aspirations looked in tatters, and it took a true super-sub performance from Theo Walcott to get England back on track.

Despite boasting a well-rounded set of skills - work-rate, stamina, strength, positioning, crossing - James Milner has disappointed. Extremely un-eye-catching against France, once he picked up a yellow against Sweden his worth as defensive cover on the right flank was severely devalued. Milner was quickly substituted for Walcott to make his first appearance at the tournament, and score a goal from the trequartista position that no one had seen him do before!

Hodgson was credited for the switch as a 'genius tactical move', but even the manager would not have forseen Walcott's impact to be that equalising goal. The Arsenal forward went on to excel himself and ensure the rescue mission that he started was completed. Minutes later, Walcott darted between Sweden's crowded defence and teed up Welbeck to apply a stunning winner. 

Most prominent bearer of the unpredictability factor is the returning Wayne Rooney. It has almost been a case of one step forward and two steps back ever since his introduction to the international scene in 2003. As a teenager Rooney made his mark on major tournament football the following year with two group stage goals against Switzerland. At the following World Cup, however, he was red carded for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho in the crunch, grudge quarter-final affair with Portugal.

Fast forward six years to the present day, and at 26 Rooney is no longer one of the young guns; he is England's talisman up top. Today is the day of redemption for Rooney, England's caged lion is ready to be unleashed on the tournament having waited out a reduced two game ban received at the end of qualification.

After taking four points from two tricky opening fixtures, with experimential lineups, England can really kick on with the team Hodgson envisaged when he took up the reigns. That team will feature Rooney at the heart of all attacks, whether starting a move from dropping deep into midfield or meeting a cross with a precision header. When they take to the field to face Ukraine, England will hope Rooney can be their leader by example, achieving the untarnished progress his country has been waiting for.

One last hurrah for the Chelsea old guard

Slogged would be the word to describe how Chelsea have made their way to the final of the FA Cup and semi-final of an even more prestigious competition, the Champions League. Despite their shaky league form, could this be the year they claim an unlikely double?

The Londoners will head into the former as favourites having blown away rivals Tottenham 5-1 over the weekend. However, the latter is a different kettle of fish entirely.

Tonight Chelsea go head-to-head once again with Barcelona, the world's greatest team, on the biggest stage in club football. The last time the teams met, Barca scored in the last-minute to progress on away goals rule. This was the infamous match where referee Tom Henning Ovrebo retired after receiving death threats for dismissing multiple Chelsea penalty appeals.

It is three years since that day and Chelsea have only made minor changes to their team; the spine of Cech-Terry-Lampard-Drogba remains the same. With the exception of Juan Mata, who has at times carried Chelsea through rough patches of form, the latest recruits have failed to produce the major impact needed to replace the ageing core four.

Fernando Torres is a shadow of the player he was before his injury and in all honesty it has often been only the £50 million transfer fee that has demanded he be played. Another signing from Liverpool, Raul Meireles, has been criticised for ignoring his defensive duties.

The progress of Salomon Kalou will have greatly disappointed Chelsea fans, as after showing promise he has been confined to only 14 appearances this campaign. Conversely, it has been a breakthrough season for Daniel Sturridge but whether he can be viewed as a world-beater yet is questionable, and is more likely to be reserved for super-sub impact.

In defence, a lot has been said on centre-back not looking like David Luiz's natural position. It led to the signing of Gary Cahill, who has impressed, though not enough to hold down a definite starting position.

The failings of these new signings to integrate themselves as Stamford Bridge favourites could mean it is down to the old guard to once again to fly the flag for Chelsea in Europe.

They did it against Napoli in the quarter-final when firstly Drogba, then Terry, then a Lampard penalty hauled Chelsea back from an adverse 0-2 first-leg scoreline. Such iconic performances will be difficult to repeat against Barca who are now playing their attacking football so confidently that they regularly leave just one player, Carles Puyol, to sit in defence.

It will take an immense effort for a 33-year-old Didier Drogba to be the tormenting menace he was in his prime. However, his well-timed thunderous opener against Spurs on the weekend showed he can still be the big game player when needed. It may have been just what was needed to reinvigorate him.

Chelsea will be hoping Frank Lampard can orchestrate the midfield so Ramires and Mata are free to take the game to Barcelona. They also need their captain to show the kind of commitment as he did in the 2010 World Cup, when in the purest act of devotion he threw his body desperately to block a Slovenian shot.

What’s more, they need to do it not once but twice. Interim manager Roberto Di Matteo will tell his veteran players to seize this chance because the opportunity to realise the Abramovic dream may not come around again.

The novelty of Messi will soon wear off

This is a blog about the feared consequences of success. The 2011/12 season has seen Lionel Messi continue his progress to football’s elite and beyond, and in doing so smash almost every goalscoring record in sight. At 24 he is Barcelona’s most prolific marksman and has left journalists scampering to think of a season in which one player has scored more goals. His success, however, has come at a loss to the other Catalan megastars.

As identified in the previous blog Messi has taken on three new roles: that of centre-forward, penalties and free kicks. These I see as mere additions to his arsenal at the expense of others in the Barcelona team. It’s not as if taking these roles has relieved pressure on others so they can perform greater. It’s Messi stealing their thunder.

Such has been his success after six years of first-team club football is that there are now very few records left to break. One more Ballon D’or and a handful more Champions League goals would see him take the outright record in two very good judges of footballing talent. And he is still in his footballer youth.

For these reasons I cannot hide my concern as to how long fans will continue to be blown away by his headline-grabbing performances. Barcelona are at risk of becoming less known for their tiki taka and more for their one source of unbelievable footballing ferocity.

The legendary status that he holds in the game is so immense that ITV recently broadcast a programme called ‘Lionel Messi: World’s Greatest Player’. He has been analysed as if his contribution to football is already so significant that it deserves to be looked back upon a mere third of the way through his professional career.

Will we start to see Messi run off to celebrate but find his teammates can’t match him for speed and have to celebrate alone? Should Messi do what Ronnie O’Sullivan did at snooker and play with his other limb because the sport was too easy for him?

One possible solution to this boredom of goals is a move to the Premier League where Messi, without his reliable henchmen Andres Iniesta and Xavi, will have to prove his worth on a wet Monday evening against Stoke. Unfortunately for Blackburn, due to Messi’s boyhood club loyalty and the obstacle of raising enough money to create civilisation on the moon, this happening is highly improbable.

Instead, the situation where Barca and Spanish fans in general grow distaste for their countrymen being outshone weekly may develop. It is nigh on impossible for Xavi or Iniesta to win Ballon D’or when their teammate is consistently grabbing backpage headlines and outscoring them by a country mile.

The whole Barcelona team, which comprises a minimum six Spanish national team players every game, is tailored to assist Messi in his pursuit of goals. There may come a time when acknowledgement of their wonderful abilities is not enough and they want recognition in the individual form that Messi absorbs as part and parcel of life.

A radical option for Barcelona to take (which I can hardly contemplate enough to write) is they decide to sell their cosmostar. This would happen come the time when opponents have truly run out of ideas to stop him, his teammates are missing out on fulfilling their goalscoring potential and the media have run out of fresh words to use to describe how brilliant he is. Barca would be compelled to get rid of Messi because of his overperformance.

It could even be argued that Barcelona would be more interesting without Messi. It would certainly give a wide range of players a greater responsibility in attack. But imagining Barcelona without Messi is almost unthinkable as he is becoming at the speed of light what Totti is to Roma and Ferguson to Manchester United: bigger than the club.

One about the future is consistent: Messi will continue to improve and the gap between the importance of him and other players to Barcelona is similarly likely to increase, which leads me to the conclusion that the novelty of Messi will begin to wear off. Soon.

Imperious; photo by boldorak2208 (flickr)

Barcelona in 2012: more team Messi than ever before

Barcelona have a maximum of 10 games left to play in the 2011/12 season. Messi has 61 goals from 51 games.

December’s World Club Cup match against Al-Sadd represented a pivotal moment in the future of Barcelona and the career of Lionel Messi. In that match David Villa broke his leg, an injury that would keep him out for the entire season. And an injury that turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Barcelona as will be argued in this post.

Messi assumed Villa’s position as centre-forward and took complete control of the role of team penalty taker. After a few games, coach Pep Guardiola saw Messi’s potential for goals as central attacker and adapted the team so that Messi was supported by his teammates more than ever before.

Lio leads the Barcelona scorer charts with a frankly ludicrous 61; below him is Cesc Fabregas, Xavi and Alexis Sanchez who together have scored 42. In previous seasons pundits would point to the Barcelona front three who together would accumulate over a hundred goals, but in 2012 there is now just one focal point to Barcelona: Lionel Messi, who puts the ball in the back of the net every time.

Barcelona’s enormously successful footballing philosophy that has brought them three of the last six Champions Leagues had always featured a razor sharp three-pronged attack. It is hard to pinpoint exactly why their source of goals is now narrowing to just one man. There appears to be a number of contributory factors instead.

The current squad’s players who would otherwise fulfil the wide positions, Pedro and Sanchez, have been limited to just 26 starting appearances. Taking their place has been Fabregas and recently elevated to the first team Isaac Cuenca.

The rationale for the decreased need for individualistic attacking players appears to be that Messi has now reached the level of excellence to be able to perform all three roles. Having two players either side who assist, rather than score themselves, has been preferred by Guardiola, and the result is Messi’s goal tally has soared.

As the season progressed, Messi has upped his involvement in free-kick taking duty. The responsibility now rests three-way alongside Dani Alves and Xavi. In future seasons, judging by his impeccable improvement curve it would be no surprise to see Messi wrestle the duty away from two of Barca’s most established players. It would further assist the change from FC Barcelona to FC Messi.

Portsmouth FC 0 - 1 West Ham

Having turned Fratton Park into somewhat of a fortress after taking 17 points from a possible 21, and their opponents West Ham without an away win in four matches, Portsmouth would have felt this was the perfect time to challenge the league’s second placed team.

Both teams made a tentative start to the match. Pompey seemed more content to stop any West Ham threat than create chances of their own. Carlton Cole was most aware of this having been flattened twice by Portsmouth’s intimidating centre-back paring of Aaron Mokoena and Tal Ben Haim.

The crowd were freely voicing their opinions on the game too. Referee Kevin Friend knew it was going to be a fiery game and so was choosing to let play run its course. After ignoring a Pompey penalty appeal, much to the outrage of the crowd, he first chose to intervene when Dave Kitson hacked down Joey O’Brien.

West Ham took the free-kick quickly by knocking the ball into the box and were awarded a penalty for shirt tugging. Mark Noble hit the penalty hard to goalkeeper Stephen Henderson’s right, who couldn’t keep the kick out despite getting a hand to it.

Portsmouth threatened late in the first half. Liam Lawrence put a delightful crossfield ball onto the feet of Dave Kitson who flashed across goal a shot that just needed a poacher to tap in. Portsmouth almost scored from the resulting two corners, the first West Ham needed to clear off the line. The third corner was a waste, however, and represented their last chance of the half.

The booing Portsmouth left the field to must have invigorated the players as they engineered a lovely move involving almost the entire midfield and attack at the start of the second half. Kitson played a stylish backheel into Norwegian striker Erik Huseklepp, but Pompey lacked the one killer pass or piece of incision to score.

Arguably the turning point of the match was a red card given to Portsmouth centre-midfielder David Norris. It appeared very harsh and will be of relevance if the laws regarding two footed challenges are to be reviewed, which appears necessary after a number of controversial decisions by referees in recent weeks.

The sending off put the game firmly in the command of West Ham until the introduction at 83 minutes of former Premier League striker Benjani which gave the home side an edge they had missed all game. He functioned as a dangerous target man almost immediately, his knockdown gave Marko Fuctas the opportunity to blast an excellent chance over Robert Green in West Ham’s goal.

West Ham played a gritty game to take the three points. That their manager Sam Allardyce said in the post-match press conference “We are delighted with the performance and the result” was testament to Portsmouth’s recent hot form.

Portsmouth student makes FA Cup history

The FA Cup is known for producing fairytale stories where individuals and teams excel themselves with performances beyond all realms of expectation.

This is true for Stefan Brown, a third-year University of Portsmouth student, whose non-league side AFC Totton burst into the second round of the competition with an 8-1 demolition of Bradford PA. In this game, Brown scored three goals within 15 minutes, to claim the unique record of being the fastest hat-trick scorer as a substitute in the competition’s 140 year history.

His achievement is quite remarkable – especially for a student who plays at semi-professional level. To put it into perspective, the FA Cup is a competition which has been graced by some of the finest footballers to ever play the game, players such as Gianfranco Zola, Eric Cantona, Thierry Henry and David Beckham. Brown has achieved something none of these could.

Brown, who studies Sports Development, was delighted with his performance: “I was happy to score a hat-trick as anyone would be, but when I found out about the record it was surreal. I didn’t know what to think about it – and still don’t – because it’s unlike anything I’ve achieved before. Not many non-league players can say they’re in the FA Cup history books.”

The mood around the ground was equally euphoric: “Everyone was buzzing for me. They were all just as surprised as I was.” The game also brought about other records: Totton secured the biggest win of the round and in doing so became the first post-war non-league team to score eight goals in the main FA Cup.

It was AFC Totton’s first time in the main cup, an achievement in itself as they had to win four qualification rounds to get there. Having qualified from the Evo-Stik Southern League Division One last season, they are now leading the South and West Premier League.

Totton host League Two side Bristol Rovers in the second round on Sunday 4th December in a game that will be shown live on ITV. Brown explained the team’s mood ahead of the game: “Everyone is so excited to play in that next game that they’re hardly thinking about our league game in between.”

The significance of the match, and the hype surrounding it, is enormous. Brown says, “If we have a really good game on ITV, there’s a chance to turn professional. With the number of people watching and with the exposure created from it, anything can happen.”

The prospect of playing in front of the nation for the Totton players is massive. However, Brown played down his chances of making the starting XI: “We have five very good strikers so there’s no guarantee who will start, and we would all love to start.”

After Brown’s performance on Saturday one would think that there will be pressure on manager Stuart Ritchie to start the first round star.