retired_venomm

29th August, 2009 – England v Kazakhstan

If I had thought my previous game against Azerbaijan was a walk in the park, then I needed a whole new phrase to describe this match.

The side was confident, knowing that if we managed a win here then we would definitely qualify in first place in the group. I wasn’t going to give Kazakhstan a chance by fielding a weakened line up either, I wanted this game over and to be reassured that we would definitely find ourselves in the World Cup without having to worry about the approaching fixtures. In truth I wasn’t really worried about the upcoming fixtures anyway, we were proving that our squad was leaps and bounds above all the other teams in our group, so yes... we were confident.

The starting line up today would be: Scott Carson (who I now favoured in goal to Paul Robinson), Gary Neville (c), Ashley Cole, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Owen Hargreaves, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney. A 4-4-2 with Gerrard playing as a make-shift right winger, on paper we looked extremely strong.

It took us only 2 minutes to settle whatever nerves we may have had. Ashley Cole came characteristically down the left hand side, supporting the attack as he usually does, he played a ball inside to Owen Hargreaves who knocked it back allowing Wayne Rooney to run onto the ball and hit it from around 25 yards, oh my word did he hit it. It flew into the top left corner, leaving the goalkeeper standing on the spot, not totally sure what had happened. A cheer went around Wembley, a dull cheer as usual, the sort we always seem to get from these matches that we were heavily expected to win, and we were well on our way.

Our second came only 3 minutes later, the clock showing barely 5 minutes. We had won a freekick on the edge of the area which Joe Cole was lining up. He stepped up confidently and fired his freekick into the wall (into one of their players faces I think actually), it fell fortunately to the feet of Owen Hargreaves who was standing to the left of the penalty spot and he took a swipe at the ball with the outside of his boot, more out of instinct than anything else and watched on joyfully to see it arc away from the keepers reach and into the far corner. He was smiling in that way where you are trying to convince people that you intended to do what you had just done, but I think everyone knew better. 2-0, what a great start to the match.

I thought we had started to take out foot off the gas by the half hour mark, we were just happy to play the ball around, not really creating anything, then suddenly there was a chance totally out of the blue. Owen Hargreaves picked up the ball in the centre circle and looked to the world like he was just going to play the ball back to one of our defenders to keep the ball, like we had been doing for the last 25 minutes, but instead he turned and hit a high ball over the top of the defence. I’m not sure how he spotted what he had, let alone play the pass so perfectly, he had landed the ball right on the toes of Rooney on the edge of the area, just the other side of the backline. Rooney took one touch to control it and a second to steer it beyond the out rushing goalkeeper to put us 3-0 up, killing the game off well before half time. It was just a question of how many goals we were actually going to score here today now.

Owen Hargreaves was having a brilliant day, everything he did seemed to either turn out to be the perfect pass or a goal. His next touch of the ball would be no exception either. Gary Neville casually played the ball to him just inside the Kazakhstan half and he hit a first time delicate chip around the side of the centre backs and between the full back leaving Michael Owen clean through. He took the ball in his stride, bared down on goal and slid it under the keeper as he dived. Our fans couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing I don’t think, it was only 3 minutes since our last goal and they still seemed to be talking giddily about the last goal when this one went in. We were a dominant force if ever there was one!

If you had thought things couldn’t get any worse for Kazakhstan in this half, you had thought wrong. Right on the stroke of half time we were given a penalty after their goalkeeper brought down Gary Neville in the box, no card was shown to him, which was a bit of a surprise, but we had a chance to extend our lead to 5. Steven Gerrard would have the responsibility of the penalty, and he didn’t waste it. He calmly stepped up to the ball and placed it into the bottom left corner, the goalkeeper hadn’t even made the effort to dive, he just stood still pathetically. I’m pretty sure their players were totally fed up already. 5-0 at half time, we were cruising.

By the time Kazakhstan created their first chance of the match, 25 minutes into the second half, we were 8-0 up. Owen Hargreaves had got himself another goal, curling a well placed shot to the goalkeepers right from just outside the area and Michael Owen had also scored twice more, completing his hat-trick. Kazakhstan’s first goal scoring opportunity of the game was a glorious one, they won themselves a penalty – apparently because John Terry had hand-balled in the area, I don’t know what match the referee had been watching but it certainly didn’t seem to be this one, it was never a hand-ball in a million years. Anyway, they had their first chance, Maxim Kukeev stepped up to take it, I actually wanted him to score just so they had something to take away from the game other than humiliation. He hit his shot perfectly to the right corner, plenty of power and perfect placement, but to everybody’s astonishment Scott Carson had managed to reach it and turn it over the bar. What a save from the young lad, his first action of the match and he had saved an un-saveable shot from the penalty spot. Cheers went up around Wembley as we kept our clean sheet unexpectedly. Eugeny Kim found himself heading off the field almost right after, being shown a red card after losing his temper in the aftermath of penalty miss.

We scored our final goal in the 79th minute, the 4th of the game for Michael Owen, his tally of goals was surely the only reason that he had taken the Man of the Match award away from Owen Hargreaves' brilliant performance.

We had won the match by 9 goals to nil. What a performance from the side, it's true that we were playing far inferior opposition, but we had totally battered them. The fans walked away happy, I’m pretty sure they will be talking about this one for quite a long time. We didn’t put a foot wrong in the entire match, even the penalty awarded against us was a poor decision. We had qualified and we could relax, I have to feel sorry for our opponents if we play like this in any of the remaining fixtures in the group, especially now there was no pressure on us what so ever. It was a great day to be England fan, and a brilliant day to be manager!

retired_acivin

In the words of Borat:
Kazakhstan greatest country in the world, All other countries are run by little girls

Shame the greatest country got beaten though. Very convincing win, I must admit. Keep the updates coming...

retired_venomm

Thanks for the support prince_capri!

Yeah we played pretty well against Kazakhstan - I don't believe they're the greatest country in the world for a moment, but then again that might just be because every player but one (Sergey Ivashkin) is grey in my game

retired_venomm

8th October, 2009

After beating Kazakhstan 9-0 and guaranteeing our place in the World Cup next year, the only target left for us was to try and get maximum points from our group to send out a message to whoever we may find ourselves playing when the actual tournament finally arrives.

Our 8th match of the group was against Switzerland, who had caused us the most trouble so far. They proved to be tricky opposition once again and we were fortunate to beat them. Michael Owen gave us the lead in the 11th minute after a clever mazy run in between a couple of defenders and a confident finish. They had pegged us back after half time, a thunder bolt of a shot from Johan Vonlathen which would have been a contender for goal of the tournament if it had been scored in the actual competition rather than the qualification stages. We scored an unbelievable fluke 7 minutes from the end which had won us the match: Joe Cole picked up the ball on the right side of the field from a short throw in and attempted a cross that went horribly wrong, well everyone thought it had gone wrong until the net bulged, it curled and looped wickedly over the unfortunate Manuel Docourt in the Switzerland goal. We didn’t deserve the win but it gave our supporters what they wanted, yet another victory at Wembley.

Our 9th game of the group would be the last played at home, against Israel. We had beat Israel 4-0 at their place and were about to produce a repeat performance today. Frank Lampard put us in front after 7 minutes with a fantastic lob over their keeper from the edge of the area. Wayne Rooney added the second in the 25th minute with a typical powerful shot from just inside the area. Michael Owen also scored, twice, either side of half time. Although I wasn’t too confident about including him in the starting 11 in our first few games, he was showing the sort of form that introduced him to the world stage in 1998 and was now impossible to leave out. We had rolled Israel over for the second match running by 4 goals to 0, it was all too easy.

Our final match of the qualification phase was away in Latvia. I was determined for the side to win the match and leave the group with a 100% record and I’m not really too sure if Latvia cared what the score would be, they already couldn’t qualify from the group and had nothing left to play for. Their lack of enthusiasm was very apparent and we totally crushed them by 6 goals to 1. Michael Owen scored yet another hat-trick, inside the first 18 minutes of the game to set us well on our way to another easy victory - his final goal today took his international tally to 50 – a fantastic record that he should be extremely proud of. Wayne Rooney scored twice in his 62nd cap for his country, taking his tally of goals to 36, I have a feeling he could destroy all previous international appearance records as well as goal records at the rate he was going, he really was in top form. Our sixth goal came from their unfortunate centre back Sergejs Tolkacs - he couldn’t keep the ball out when Wayne Rooney took it around the goalkeeper and attempted to slot it home. The defender had got in the way of the ball but stumbled right at the crucial moment when he was trying to clear it and had blasted it into his own net from close range. I was pleased to say they got a consolation goal though, Aleksandrs Andrejevs scored from long range – long range efforts seemed to be all that Latvia were capable of today, but hey - they got a goal from one so fair play to them. It was another fantastic display from the English team.

The final results and group table looked like this:

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">GROUP TABLE: RESULTS: 29th August, 2009Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts ENGLAND 9 v 0 Kazakhstan Latvia 4 v 0 Azerbaijan1st ENGLAND 10 10 0 0 39 4 +35 30 Switzerland 1 v 0 Israel2nd Switzerland 10 5 1 4 17 8 +9 163rd Israel 10 5 1 4 15 14 +1 16 2nd September, 20094th Latvia 10 3 2 5 11 18 -7 11 Azerbaijan 0 v 2 Israel5th Azerbaijan 10 2 1 7 4 23 -19 7 ENGLAND 2 v 1 Switzerland6th Kazakhstan 10 1 3 6 7 26 -19 6 Kazakhstan 0 v 2 Latvia 3rd October, 2009 ENGLAND 4 v 0 Israel Kazakhstan 3 v 0 Azerbaijan Switzerland 4 v 0 Latvia 7th October, 2009 Israel 4 v 0 Kazakhstan Latvia 1 v 6 ENGLAND Switzerland 4 v 0 Azerbaijan</pre>

I was pleased to say that every team had managed to win a match, that must be a nice feeling for the supporters of the lower ability sides in the group. Switzerland would have a chance of getting through to the World Cup through the play-offs, I quite fancy their chances too. They’re a difficult team to break down, they don’t play a particularly attractive game, but they are very efficient. Good luck to them.

We have 2 friendly matches before the World Cup starts and I plan to use them to give some players outside of the usual starting line-up a chance. The end of the Premier League last season seemed to have taken its toll on the players condition last time and I wanted them to be playing as few games as possible before the tournament to ensure that everyone was in tip top shape.

All in all, the qualification phase had been a pretty comfortable one, with only Switzerland ever really causing us problems. We couldn’t take anything but confidence from the way we have played throughout this stage and I’m sure a lot of the major favourites for the World Cup will have taken notice. England were on fire and I genuinely believe we could go all the way with this team. There’s a lot of domestic matches to go until the World Cup and I will no doubt be watching a fair amount of them, dreading a horrific injury to one of my regular starters. I can’t help but feel excited though, if we can play like this next summer, England really could be contenders.

retired_venomm

10th December, 2009 – World Cup Group Draw

Today seemed to have arrived pretty quickly, time seemed to be flying by this season and everyone was waiting around in anticipation to see who we would be put up against. I fancied our chances against anybody, though naturally I was hoping that we didn’t find ourselves in a tricky group. I watched the TV rather nervously as the draw was announced. We eventually came out of the hat in Group G, the 7th team to appear. It seemed to take ages to find out who the next team in our group were. After what seemed like a lifetime of waiting we found ourselves in with Japan, Turkey and Chile.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">WORLD CUP 2010 - GROUP STAGE DRAWHosts - South AfricaHolders - ItalyGROUP A GROUP B GROUP C GROUP DItaly Mali Sweden Mexico Ukraine Portugal Czech Republic Colombia Cameroon Croatia Nigeria South Africa Brazil Costa Rica South Korea GermanyGROUP E GROUP F GROUP G GROUP HU.S.A Iran ENGLAND FranceSpain Serbia Japan Ivory CoastArgentina Holland Turkey RussiaChina Paraguay Chile Australia</pre>

I’m not really sure how I feel about our group to be honest, they’re all sides that can play. It wasn’t as difficult as Group A, which included both Italy and Brazil, but it was along way from the easy run Holland would be getting in Group F, having to face Iran, Serbia and Paraguay. It wasn’t going to be as easy as I had hoped after all. I think I’m going to have to put out a stronger side in our 2 friendly matches before the start of the tournament, just to make sure the players are confident playing with each other and know the system inside-out. I feel far more apprehensive I did been yesterday, I could almost imagine the horror of the nation if we were to go out before it even progressed into the knockout phases - I'm starting to write us off already, before we have even kicked a ball, and that isn't good!

retired_venomm

11th June, 2010 World Cup Opening Ceremony

A lot has happened since our last competitive game, most of it good, but some bad too. I have been worrying quite a lot about our 3 group matches and fielded my strongest line ups again South Korea and Portugal in the friendly matches we had a few months ago, mainly to hopefully give myself a bit more confidence. We struggled against South Korea, but managed to steal a late goal to take a 2-1 win from a game that looked destined to be a draw, Wayne Rooney and Peter Crouch scoring the goals for us. Our second friendly against Portugal was always going to be a tough one, or so I thought. Portugal fielded a side that looked pretty much full strength to me, I thought the game was going to be a good test of character, but we absolutely hammered them! They looked severely short of form. 3 goals in the first half, scored by Owen, Gerrard and Terry, were followed after the break by an own goal from Miguel and a goal for substitute Daniel Sturridge, making only his second appearance in an England shirt at the age of 20. 5-0 was an unbelievable result, friendly or not. Portugal are a side I always fancied to do well and beating them so convincingly has done wonders for our pre-tournament confidence.

The saddest of news came in the shape of my captain, Gary Neville, being carried of with a broken leg only 4 games away from the end of league season. It was a shattering blow to him and the team. I have no doubt that John Terry will step in to be a fantastic captain but the injury is just heartbreaking, specially being a long term Manchester United fan.

Not long ago, the time had come to declare my team and squad numbers for the tournament. I picked what I believed was the strongest possible line up of players that were fit or fit enough to play at some stage and presented the list to the appropriate officials, they were released to the media not long after. My squad for the tournament looks like this:

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">NO. NAME NO. NAME1 Paul Robinson 13 Owen Hargreaves2 Micah Richards 14 Ledley King3 Ashley Cole 15 Leighton Baines4 John Terry (c) 16 Darren Bent5 Rio Ferdinand 17 Peter Crouch6 Steven Gerrard 18 Jermain Defoe7 Aaron Lennon 19 Jonathan Woodgate8 Frank Lampard 20 Ashley Young9 Michael Owen 21 Scott Carson10 Wayne Rooney 22 Glen Johnson11 Stuart Downing 23 Preston Edwards12 Joe Cole</pre>

The only major surprises in there were Leighton Baines, Ashley Young and Preston Edwards (a young goalkeeper playing for Wigan), everyone else was a high profile name and I felt extremely confident with them. The only position I am concerned about is right back, although Micah Richards has been brilliant in the league for Manchester City, he is extremely inexperienced at this level, having only 3 caps to his name. He was going to need to mature very quickly indeed.


I went to the World Cup opening ceremony earlier, but left before the first match between Italy and Ukraine. I wanted to get a taste of the atmosphere, mainly because it is the first time I have ever been to a World Cup – not just as a manager either, I have never seen a World Cup game ever before. I refused the offer of staying to watch the match, I didn’t want to see any other teams play as I felt I could become more interested in analysing their style than focussing on our own.

A lot of crazy things were happening on the pitch. There were people running around dressed in flags from what I assume is all of the countries taking part in the event, there was huge – and I mean literally huge – footballs on the field, so big that people were doing gymnasticy stuff inside them on long ropes, there was a singer who is apparently world famous (I’ve never heard of her though) singing some random Latin sounding song while jumping about like a freak, even people jumping through hoops of fire from a trampoline starting point, all sorts of crazy stuff! As exciting as they were trying to make it, I always find this sort of thing to be pretty bland and highly over rated. A yawnfest.

We don’t play until the 15th, a lot of the players are spending time with the wives and girlfriends at the moment, some are going to watch the matches on TV, some aren’t. The heat is pretty intense, I think I am only going to ask the players to train for a few hours each morning and then leave them to do what ever they want the rest of the time, I want them to spend as much time as possible outside though during mid-day, just so they feel comfortable with the conditions.

I caught something on TV as I was strolling past the games room earlier, Rio Ferdinand was playing Wayne Rooney at snooker in there – it sounds to me like Wayne Rooney was losing and doing his fair share of cheating to try and correct his problems and Rio wasn’t too impressed. Seriously, I can’t believe they are actually like this off camera – I thought it was all show, but no – they really are like that, ruddy clowns. Anyway, yes, what I was talking about before I remembered about those 2 goons was that I heard the odds on an English TV station for who was going to win the tournament. We were currently 5th in the official rankings, but it appears that we have been priced 8-1 to win the World Cup, in fact the words used were ‘a generous 8-1’, charming! The teams priced lower than us were Brazil (naturally they were favourites), Argentina, Italy, Holland, France and Spain. I don’t agree with this at all, I believe we could easily hold our own against the likes of Holland, France and Spain, I agree with Brazil and Argentina, but still, we should have lower odds than that!

All this talk of betting odds has quite frustrated me, I can’t wait to get the team on the field and get started, hopefully to prove all of the bookmakers wrong! Bring on the 15th!

retired_venomm

15th June, 2010 Chile V England

A capacity crowd of just under 65,000 had turned up to watch the first match that we were involved with at Ellis Park, Johannesburg. I had heard that the ticket distribution had been pretty equally split between the Chilean supporters, the English and the South Africans who were hosting the tournament, but just looking around the stadium it is very clear that there are way more England fans in here than there should have been. I wouldn’t actually be surprised if a few people started jumping up and down in the Chilean end if England scored at this rate – probably wearing our red change shirts so they could blend in a little better. The national anthem of Chile was pretty dull and quiet, but when the English one started, my word, it was deafening – totally muffled of course, I’m not to sure how many of the fans actually know all of the words. The ones around me just seemed to be joining in with random noises in the appropriate tone and volume to suit the melody, then all joining in wildly for the ‘God save the Queen’ parts. Gotta love the English! The match got underway and everyone looked happy that the long wait had finally arrived. This is it, World Cup football!

I decided to play Paul Robinson in goal, opting more for experience than risking the young lad Carson, who I really liked, but wasn’t confident if he was ready for this yet. The rest of the line up was as predicted by most sources. Richards, Ashley Cole, Terry and Ferdinand across the back line, Joe Cole, Gerrard, Lampard and Hargreaves in midfield, Rooney and Owen up front. On paper we were by far the stronger side.

Nerves were getting the better of both sides, leading to a lot of easy chances being wasted in the opening 20 minutes. It looked more like League One football than international standard. We wouldn’t have to wait much longer for the first goal though.

We were keeping possession well, passing the ball quickly, making little triangles to keep the opposition out of the game, being extremely patient with our build up. Our back four had pushed up and were just helping the midfielders keep the ball and wait for their opportunity to arrive. Cole, to Terry, to Ferdinand, to Richards, up to Hargreaves, back to Cole, to Terry etc etc. Chile couldn’t do anything about this, we were controlling, just waiting for our moment to strike. Hargreaves received the ball and looked around to see what was on in front of him, not that much, most of the Chileans were sitting behind the ball allowing us to press forward, Hargreaves turned a played the ball back and waved instructions for the full backs to push up. The pass was met by an extremely strange sounding roar from the fans, his casual aimlessness had played the ball between Terry and Ferdinand and Humberto Suazo was away, totally free, one on one with Paul Robinson. Robinson came out to meet him on the edge of the area, only to be rounded and watch the ball be put in the empty net whilst on his knees. Where had this come from? Chile hadn’t even been in the game and they were 1-0 up, most of the crowd were stunned, but around a quarter of it sounded truly ecstatic. Owen Hargreaves was already back in position, wanting to get back on with the match, trying so hard to ignore the constant yelling he was getting from John Terry, it was a disastrous moment for probably our best midfielder in the qualification stages.

By the second half, I was beginning to think I had made a horrible mistake putting Paul Robinson in goal, he was flapping at shots, punching crosses, coming for balls that he had no chance of reaching, rushing out constantly. He was a liability and there is no way he would be playing in our next match! I had turned away from Scott Carson in favour of experience, totally ignoring what my instinct was telling me and focusing on logic, and now I was paying the price.

Despite Robinson’s constant blunders throughout the match, we created our fair share of chances, but we just couldn’t convert them. Time ticked away, 70 minutes, 80 minutes, 85, we were still 1-0 down. I was off my seat yelling instructions at the players, trying to get everyone to push up, when I heard the whistle blow and the crowd roar deeply, something, I’m not sure what, had happened off the ball and Micah Richards was in the thick of it, shoving players around. I yelled at Stevie Gerrard to get a hold of the kid and drag him away, which a lot of my players had already starting trying to do, but he just wouldn’t stop. He broke free of a couple of players grasps and swung a kick at Alexis Sanchez. He was off, even before the card was shown everybody knew it. His game was over, the red card was confirmed and injury permitting, I had absolutely no plans to include the boy in any of the fixtures in the rest of the tournament, his behaviour was an absolutely disgrace to himself and his country and I didn’t want him as part of my team. Well played lad, enjoy the flight home.

We continued to press deep into injury time, but we never found the goal we so desperately needed. It was a horrific start to the World Cup campaign, we had lost 1-0. The press were having a field day, saying we had unrealistic expectations, we aren’t as good as we think we are, the manager isn’t fit to be the manager of a kids team, all sorts of stories that you come to expect living in the modern world. It was a terrible start, yes, but we were still very much in the tournament. We had it all to do now though I admit, we have to win our next 2 matches to stand any chance what so ever of qualifying. I was furious, disappointed and to be honest, a little worried. It was only the first hurdle, and we could already be out of the tournament.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">GROUP TABLE: RESULTS: Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts 15th June, 2010 Chile 1 v 0 ENGLAND1st Turkey 1 1 0 0 2 0 +2 3 Japan 0 v 2 Turkey2nd Chile 1 1 0 0 1 0 +1 33rd ENGLAND 1 0 0 1 0 1 -1 04th Japan 1 0 0 1 0 2 -2 0</pre>

retired_venomm

20th June, 2010 – England v Japan

Coming into this match, I would usually be expecting us to take the 3 points without too much of a struggle. Everything was different now though, after losing our opening group game all the pressure was on us.

My two changes to the team came in the shape of Scott Carson going in goal, replacing the disastrous Paul Robinson - and Glen Johnson, who would be my first choice right back for the rest of the tournament after the disgraceful behaviour of Micah Richards leading up to his sending off in our previous game. He’s still young, but he needs to learn to control his temper, especially in games of such importance with so many people watching.

The game began and I’m convinced that even though we were out-numbering the Japanese supporters quite considerably, the sound around the stadium was more of apprehension than confidence, the tension was being felt by everybody.

Thankfully, we had a tremendous start to the game, creating chances right from the off. It took only 13 minutes for us to get in front. Joe Cole whipped a decent looking corner into the box, but it was headed out by one of their centre backs, I’m not totally sure which one. John Terry chased the ball to the corner of the penalty area, looked up and curled the ball back into the middle where there was still a lot of bodies. Fortunately, it floated right in front of Michael Owen who had the easiest of tasks to head the ball into the net from only 6 yards out, it was a dream start to a worrying match – and there was more to come.

Only 2 minutes after taking the lead, we found ourselves in the clear. We created a fantastic chance with some clever build up play, Frank Lampard playing it short to Michael Owen, who spun the ball over his marker's head with the outside of his boot, right into the path of Wayne Rooney. Coming into the area with nobody but the goalkeeper to beat, I would have put my house on Rooney scoring, and he did, characteristically dinking the ball over the shoulder of the goalkeeper as he came out to narrow the angle. I couldn’t have hoped for a better start to the match, only 15 minutes in and I felt comfortable, we could sit back and just control the game now and not have to worry.

It took us until the 83rd minute to score again, but we had always been in control, never letting Japan have any space or time on the ball. Rooney was once again the scorer, he sprung the offside trap brilliantly, timing his run to perfection after a nice ball over the top from Steven Gerrard put him in the clear – and he totally blasted it into the back of the net before reaching the edge of the area, taking the goalkeeper by surprise by hitting it so early. Rooney had missed a penalty early in the second half and I’m sure his finish here was one of pure aggression, wanting to make up for his mistake earlier on. There was no way back for Japan, the match was won and we were back in with a chance of qualifying.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">GROUP TABLE: RESULTS: Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts 20th June, 2010 ENGLAND 3 v 0 Japan1st Turkey 2 2 0 0 5 2 +3 6 2nd ENGLAND 2 1 0 1 3 1 +2 3 21st June, 20103rd Chile 2 1 0 1 3 3 0 3 Turkey 3 v 2 Chile4th Japan 2 0 0 2 0 5 -5 0</pre>

I was relieved to find that we were now sat in a qualification place, however the match against Turkey was now going to be huge. Chile were playing Japan, and I expected them to win. This means that even if we beat Turkey, the group could end up with all of the top 3 sides finishing on 6 points, making goal difference extremely important now – all this is assuming we beat Turkey though, who are certainly no pushovers. There was a lot of work to still be done here, but at least we had given ourselves a chance and the fans something to smile about.

retired_lovecody

AMAZING story.

retired_venomm

Thanks Terry_M! Very kind words indeed, many thanks for the support.

The reason I've been a bit slower than usual updating this is because my virus scanner seems to have done something to my save game and I've been trying to sort it out to make it play past a certain date which it keeps hanging up on (July 19th, 2010) - Hopefully it won't bring this to a premature end and I will be able to solve it, but even if not - I have the outcome of the world cup to write up, so at least it could get finished at a sensible point rather than abruptly which seems may be the case with my save game