QF3 - England v Portugal, Saturday 4.0pm BST

[Jeremy Busby]

The sending-off was for the tamest handbags I've ever seen. Never in 1000000 years was that a red card. Ref also missed that Lennon tackle in the box, which looked like a penalty to me. Bloody Argie ref.

Sorry, Exile, but Rooney stamped on the guy's goolies (just a pity it wasn't that snivelling little sh*t, Ronaldo) and that most definitely IS a sending-off offence. Didn't the Scouse thicko realise that Ronaldo would have told his Portugese team-mates about his (Rooney's) suspect temperament?

The tackle on Lennon was a good one and was NOT a penalty.

Two plus points:-
1) Ferguson will be even angrier now he will HAVE to sell Ronaldo who surely will not be able to show his smarmy little face in this country again. If he did actually return, I'd love to be at the ManUre training ground when he "bumps" into Rooney again! :D
2) It's goodbye and good riddance to the Swedish serial shagger!

I agree that the foot stuff could constitute a red card but beleive that at worst there was no intent. More to the point Leamore, when you get a chance to see it again watch the ref's body language. Prior to the push he is only giving a free kick. When the push comes (and I agree with exile here as to the severity) he then reaches for his back pocket to find the red card. Why was no action taken by the ref against Ronaldo. He was not the one stood on. it had nothing to do with him. He just came running in waving his arms around with a situaton that had nothing to do with him. Thats why Rooney pushed him IMO

[admin]

what a contrast - again - between the two managers. Scholari on the bench - barking the orders through 120 minutes - sven, every single camera shot, opening another bottle of mineral water. He must have signed another ad deal with Evian or whoever pre-kick-off.

And to think if the FA hadn't cocked up another England appointment - see comments on Sven before - and just waited until July 10th before offering Scholari £5m - we'd have him at the helm for the next 2 years, instead of everybody's 2nd choice.

[TheSaddlers]

Everything has been said that should be said about C.Ronaldo, so I won't contribute any more than what has already been expressed. I think that everyone is being too harsh on England though. We had to play an hour, missing a player, which is difficult against a world class team such as Portugal. Losing Rooney is a big blow, as he is one of our better players. So to hold of any threat from Portugal, you have to give England credit. Not only that, but we also looked the better side in some parts of the match with 10 men. There have been many surprises in this world cup, Owen Hargreaves being one of them and he deserves some credit, which he has indeed been given and rightly so. I also think everyone finds it too easy to criticise Sven. With Owen out injured and Walcott untested, that leaves Sven with Rooney and Crouch. Yes you may blame Sven for taking too little striking options, however he did and that's history. Anyway back to the point... He is left with Rooney and Crouch. Sven has tried to use these 2 strikers together before and it simply was not working. Rooney needs to play off a striker to be at the top of his game and Crouch, primarily because of his height, tends to flick long-balls on to strikers. This shows that they can't work together, so 4-4-2 can't be the best option. Sven tries 4-5-1... Rooney plays upfront on his own and gets sent off... This leaves Sven with 1 striker that he can rely on. The Quarter-finals are not a time to risk players such as Walcott, so therefore Sven needs to bring on Crouch. Lennon has been one of our better players, Sven recognised that, so he puts him on for the injured Beckham. Sven, in my opinion, did all he could. Just face it, our 'top' players did not perform, we are out. But DO NOT criticise the manager, because afterall what happens on the pitch contributes to us winning or losing and because we played badly we ended up losing.

[cyclothymic]

The sending-off was for the tamest handbags I've ever seen. Never in 1000000 years was that a red card. Ref also missed that Lennon tackle in the box, which looked like a penalty to me. Bloody Argie ref.

Sorry, Exile, but Rooney stamped on the guy's goolies (just a pity it wasn't that snivelling little sh*t, Ronaldo) and that most definitely IS a sending-off offence. Didn't the Scouse thicko realise that Ronaldo would have told his Portugese team-mates about his (Rooney's) suspect temperament?

The tackle on Lennon was a good one and was NOT a penalty.

Two plus points:-
1) Ferguson will be even angrier now he will HAVE to sell Ronaldo who surely will not be able to show his smarmy little face in this country again. If he did actually return, I'd love to be at the ManUre training ground when he "bumps" into Rooney again! :D
2) It's goodbye and good riddance to the Swedish serial shagger!

I agree that the foot stuff could constitute a red card but beleive that at worst there was no intent. More to the point Leamore, when you get a chance to see it again watch the ref's body language. Prior to the push he is only giving a free kick. When the push comes (and I agree with exile here as to the severity) he then reaches for his back pocket to find the red card. Why was no action taken by the ref against Ronaldo. He was not the one stood on. it had nothing to do with him. He just came running in waving his arms around with a situaton that had nothing to do with him. Thats why Rooney pushed him IMO

Also - before kick off Ronaldo came up behind Rooney and pushed his head into Rooney (cant quite describe it - the way one bull does to another to provoke a fight). So clear that he and his team were out to get Rooney in a temper. Shame - not the way I think football should be played

[Jeremy Busby]

I also agree that the tackle on Lennon in the box was not a penalty although I have seen worse given in this world cup. But I am convinced that it would have been given by this ref in the other box

[fez_the_saddler]

dont all go blaming ronaldo it were the ref that sent him off not ronaldo so blame the ref

[TheSaddlers]

When Lennon went down I, like most of the nation, thought that it was a penalty. However looking at the replay it suggest otherwise and the referee got it spot on. Lennon did not protest, so he did not think he was fouled.

[cyclothymic]

dont all go blaming ronaldo it were the ref that sent him off not ronaldo so blame the ref

Ronaldo's actions before the match, before and after the sending off were unsportsman-like. THAT is what is upsetting people

[Tez66]

Everything has been said that should be said about C.Ronaldo, so I won't contribute any more than what has already been expressed. I think that everyone is being too harsh on England though. We had to play an hour, missing a player, which is difficult against a world class team such as Portugal. Losing Rooney is a big blow, as he is one of our better players. So to hold of any threat from Portugal, you have to give England credit. Not only that, but we also looked the better side in some parts of the match with 10 men. There have been many surprises in this world cup, Owen Hargreaves being one of them and he deserves some credit, which he has indeed been given and rightly so. I also think everyone finds it too easy to criticise Sven. With Owen out injured and Walcott untested, that leaves Sven with Rooney and Crouch. Yes you may blame Sven for taking too little striking options, however he did and that's history. Anyway back to the point... He is left with Rooney and Crouch. Sven has tried to use these 2 strikers together before and it simply was not working. Rooney needs to play off a striker to be at the top of his game and Crouch, primarily because of his height, tends to flick long-balls on to strikers. This shows that they can't work together, so 4-4-2 can't be the best option. Sven tries 4-5-1... Rooney plays upfront on his own and gets sent off... This leaves Sven with 1 striker that he can rely on. The Quarter-finals are not a time to risk players such as Walcott, so therefore Sven needs to bring on Crouch. Lennon has been one of our better players, Sven recognised that, so he puts him on for the injured Beckham. Sven, in my opinion, did all he could. Just face it, our 'top' players did not perform, we are out. But DO NOT criticise the manager, because afterall what happens on the pitch contributes to us winning or losing and because we played badly we ended up losing.

I think Sven could have done more by having the bottle to choose BETWEEN Lampard and Gerrard. England should play 4-4-2 with a holding player. If we'd had 4 World class strikers would he have played 4-2-4?

We are very lucky to have a choice a class midfielders but it doesn't mean we have to try and play all of them at the same time. Lampard on the bench as competition for Gerrard or the other way round would of allowed England to see the best of them in this competion.

[sid swifty]

You can blame ronaldo until you are blue in the face...and if it helps you to come to terms with England being knocked out then fine...but the reason we are out is because the Engand manager and his coaching team hadn't got the enough confidence in there own players than to do anything but boring spoiling tactics (i.e just packing the midfield)...and i dare say if you were to look at the tactics board in Englands dressing room they would have underlined PENALTIES

[TheSaddlers]

You can blame ronaldo until you are blue in the face...and if it helps you to come to terms with England being knocked out then fine...but the reason we are out is because the Engand manager and his coaching team hadn't got the enough confidence in there own players than to do anything but boring spoiling tactics (i.e just packing the midfield)...and i dare say if you were to look at the tactics board in Englands dressing room they would have underlined PENALTIES

I agree with you to a certain extent sid, but you can't put the blame solely on the coaching staff. For a team to win a match you need to score goals. Yes performances contribute to victory, yes coaching motivation also contributes to victory. Like I said earlier, it does help to have to coaching staff behind you, but they can do nothing more, and they can't essentially win the game for you. You need to score to win, we didn't score, we didn't win. End of! Let's put this behind us, and set about supporting Walsall in the up and coming season. UpTheSaddlers!

[Jeremy Busby]

You can blame ronaldo until you are blue in the face...and if it helps you to come to terms with England being knocked out then fine...but the reason we are out is because the Engand manager and his coaching team hadn't got the enough confidence in there own players than to do anything but boring spoiling tactics (i.e just packing the midfield)...and i dare say if you were to look at the tactics board in Englands dressing room they would have underlined PENALTIES

I take your point Sid but to be quite frank England created a lot more chances to win the game than Portugal did. Lampard and Terry are just two that come to mind that should have scored in the 2nd half

[sid swifty]

You can blame ronaldo until you are blue in the face...and if it helps you to come to terms with England being knocked out then fine...but the reason we are out is because the Engand manager and his coaching team hadn't got the enough confidence in there own players than to do anything but boring spoiling tactics (i.e just packing the midfield)...and i dare say if you were to look at the tactics board in Englands dressing room they would have underlined PENALTIES

I agree with you to a certain extent sid, but you can't put the blame solely on the coaching staff. For a team to win a match you need to score goals. Yes performances contribute to victory, yes coaching motivation also contributes to victory. Like I said earlier, it does help to have to coaching staff behind you, but they can do nothing more, and they can't essentially win the game for you. You need to score to win, we didn't score, we didn't win. End of! Let's put this behind us, and set about supporting Walsall in the up and coming season. UpTheSaddlers!

the reason we didn't score cocacola is because thanks to sven we have no strikers in the squad...but we could have still played 2 up front if they had wanted to.

[Pedro]

what a contrast - again - between the two managers. Scholari on the bench - barking the orders through 120 minutes - sven, every single camera shot, opening another bottle of mineral water. He must have signed another ad deal with Evian or whoever pre-kick-off.

And to think if the FA hadn't cocked up another England appointment - see comments on Sven before - and just waited until July 10th before offering Scholari £5m - we'd have him at the helm for the next 2 years, instead of everybody's 2nd choice.

Admin could not say it better myself . The word is simple PASSION

[sid swifty]

You can blame ronaldo until you are blue in the face...and if it helps you to come to terms with England being knocked out then fine...but the reason we are out is because the Engand manager and his coaching team hadn't got the enough confidence in there own players than to do anything but boring spoiling tactics (i.e just packing the midfield)...and i dare say if you were to look at the tactics board in Englands dressing room they would have underlined PENALTIES

I take your point Sid but to be quite frank England created a lot more chances to win the game than Portugal did. Lampard and Terry are just two that come to mind that should have scored in the 2nd half

yes jeremy...but you would have thought after just about scraping through the group stages with some treally inept displays they would have gone for it with 2 strikers today and just maybe rooney wouldn't have been sent of because he had to fight so hard for every ball with him being alone up front...or we would have put some of the many balls that were crossed into the area away.

[Duke]

You can blame Sven for his squad selection taking a massive gamble on the fitness of Ronney and Owen. and for his negative tactics .

You can blame Rooney for getting sent off , although i feel that a little harsh and his own club team mate played a part in that decision what Ronaldo said to the ref i dont know but it clearly upset Rooney.

But at the end of the day we are out because to many players under performed from day one.

[TheSaddlers]

You can blame ronaldo until you are blue in the face...and if it helps you to come to terms with England being knocked out then fine...but the reason we are out is because the Engand manager and his coaching team hadn't got the enough confidence in there own players than to do anything but boring spoiling tactics (i.e just packing the midfield)...and i dare say if you were to look at the tactics board in Englands dressing room they would have underlined PENALTIES

I agree with you to a certain extent sid, but you can't put the blame solely on the coaching staff. For a team to win a match you need to score goals. Yes performances contribute to victory, yes coaching motivation also contributes to victory. Like I said earlier, it does help to have to coaching staff behind you, but they can do nothing more, and they can't essentially win the game for you. You need to score to win, we didn't score, we didn't win. End of! Let's put this behind us, and set about supporting Walsall in the up and coming season. UpTheSaddlers!

the reason we didn't score cocacola is because thanks to sven we have no strikers in the squad...but we could have still played 2 up front if they had wanted to.

The reason we didn't score was because we failed to take our chances. Football is about taking chances to win. We didn't take our chances, we did not win. Bytheway our best chances did not fall to the strikers....

[SaddlerSteve]

Lets hope Ronaldo goes to Madrid becasue United fans wont forgive him!

You're having a laugh!

United fans couldn't give a flying **** about England. They'll all be worshipping the ground the cheating scummer walks on.
Rooney should tell Ferguson to get rid of Ronaldo to Madrid or he's walking.

[Jeremy Busby]

You can blame ronaldo until you are blue in the face...and if it helps you to come to terms with England being knocked out then fine...but the reason we are out is because the Engand manager and his coaching team hadn't got the enough confidence in there own players than to do anything but boring spoiling tactics (i.e just packing the midfield)...and i dare say if you were to look at the tactics board in Englands dressing room they would have underlined PENALTIES

I take your point Sid but to be quite frank England created a lot more chances to win the game than Portugal did. Lampard and Terry are just two that come to mind that should have scored in the 2nd half

yes jeremy...but you would have thought after just about scraping through the group stages with some treally inept displays they would have gone for it with 2 strikers today and just maybe rooney wouldn't have been sent of because he had to fight so hard for every ball with him being alone up front...or we would have put some of the many balls that were crossed into the area away.

Again, I dont disagree with you Sid. But that relates to the formation. I do believe that the England players tried to get forward. Just look at the efforts of Hargreaves who was supposed to be the defensive holding midfielder remember

[Registered Saddler]

Let's clear some things up shall we? We took four strikers to this World Cup - the same as most teams, the same as we normally do. Our main front two - Rooney and Owen - WERE BOTH FIT! Owen had a very serious and freakish injury that could have happened to anyone at any time. That's not Sven's fault. Rooney got sent off, that's nothing to do with any injury. So what are you saying, if we'd have played Defoe and Bent up front in that match we would have won? Give me strength. You're living in cloud cuckoo land.

We didn't play negatively today. We played to win. Just like we did against Ecuador, Paraguay and Trinidad. I have no doubt in my mind that if we had kept 11 men on the pitch, we would have won again today. Portugal created one chance, with the last kick of the game and even with 10 men we were perfectly capable of opening them up. We had to adapt for 10 v 11 and we did that superbly. Sven got it spot on tactically in sweltering conditions. Scolari-lovers - what did he do today? Got it completely wrong tactically, that's what.

Look at it however much you like, Sven's record (win ratio, 'points per game' if you allocate 3 for a win and 1 for a draw) is better than ANY ENGLISH MANAGER EVER! Only Alf Ramsay comes close. And you could say he is managing at a time when it is harder to get results at international level because the lesser nations are so much better these days. Him and Ramsay are the only managers to take England to three successive quarter-finals at major tournaments. So he doesn't shout and scream on the touchline? So what. Keegan did all the shouting and showed all the passion in the world. And where did that get us? A first round exit at the hands of Romania.

If you want to win a major tournament you need things to go your way. You need to avoid injuries - we haven't (Neville, Gerrard, Beckham - 2002; Rooney - 2004; Rooney, Owen - 2006). You need refs decisions to go your way - they didn't. I don't for the life of me believe that was a red for Rooney. The ref had no intention of giving anything more than a free kick till Ronaldo (who should have been sent off for a headbutt before the game) got involved. You also need to win penalty shoot outs.

Since 1990, England have played in eight major tournaments. Five of them we have lost on penalties. Even the one shoot-out we won was to no avail in 1996 because we lost on pens in the next round. That is a worse record than any international team in the world. Germany, in contrast, have a 5-1 winning record. Italy and France have both lost at four major tournaments on pens, but they have also both gone through on penalties one time each. Perhaps we didn't practice enough? I doubt it. Maybe we didn't have the bottle? But this set of players are used to playing at the highest level and winning shoot-outs. Or maybe, just maybe, we have had some rank bad luck.

[kevin]

Anyone wanna buy a flag ?

[SaddlerSteve]

The irony is that the team gave the performance that the fans were asking for.
When Rooney was sent off we looked like we could do it even with 10 men.

This thing about Rooneys stamp is a load of crap. You can see that he's trying to regain his balance and there is no direct attempt to stamp on the player. In the replays you can see that Rooney is quite calm until Ronaldo comes running up trying to influence the ref. Ronaldo was play acting all game and was allowed to get away with it like most of his team mates. Several of them went down holdoing their faces.
The Argie ref was looking to give them the advantage all the time, probably wasn't happy with his fellow sore losers about going out last night.
It seemed to me that he was biding his time for an opportunity to send off one of the England players and then he gives Rooney a straight red for something quite innocuous.

I've just got back from a bar up the city centre so my vision is somewhat alcohol induced but why exactly did the ref make Carragher re-take his penalty??

[sid swifty]

You can blame ronaldo until you are blue in the face...and if it helps you to come to terms with England being knocked out then fine...but the reason we are out is because the Engand manager and his coaching team hadn't got the enough confidence in there own players than to do anything but boring spoiling tactics (i.e just packing the midfield)...and i dare say if you were to look at the tactics board in Englands dressing room they would have underlined PENALTIES

I take your point Sid but to be quite frank England created a lot more chances to win the game than Portugal did. Lampard and Terry are just two that come to mind that should have scored in the 2nd half

yes jeremy...but you would have thought after just about scraping through the group stages with some treally inept displays they would have gone for it with 2 strikers today and just maybe rooney wouldn't have been sent of because he had to fight so hard for every ball with him being alone up front...or we would have put some of the many balls that were crossed into the area away.

Again, I dont disagree with you Sid. But that relates to the formation. I do believe that the England players tried to get forward. Just look at the efforts of Hargreaves who was supposed to be the defensive holding midfielder remember

i think Hargreaves had a point to prove though jeremy...because he was given a lot of stick by all the tabloids and pundits...but boy did he prove em all wrong..and i think he has got a place for the next couple of years now.

[SaddlerSteve]

I'd also like to add that i have been far from Owen Hargreaves biggest fan, and i found myself cursing some of his losing of the ball today.

However on the whole i think he had the best game he's had in an England shirt. :shock:

[Jeremy Busby]

You can blame ronaldo until you are blue in the face...and if it helps you to come to terms with England being knocked out then fine...but the reason we are out is because the Engand manager and his coaching team hadn't got the enough confidence in there own players than to do anything but boring spoiling tactics (i.e just packing the midfield)...and i dare say if you were to look at the tactics board in Englands dressing room they would have underlined PENALTIES

I take your point Sid but to be quite frank England created a lot more chances to win the game than Portugal did. Lampard and Terry are just two that come to mind that should have scored in the 2nd half

yes jeremy...but you would have thought after just about scraping through the group stages with some treally inept displays they would have gone for it with 2 strikers today and just maybe rooney wouldn't have been sent of because he had to fight so hard for every ball with him being alone up front...or we would have put some of the many balls that were crossed into the area away.

Again, I dont disagree with you Sid. But that relates to the formation. I do believe that the England players tried to get forward. Just look at the efforts of Hargreaves who was supposed to be the defensive holding midfielder remember

i think Hargreaves had a point to prove though jeremy...because he was given a lot of stick by all the tabloids and pundits...but boy did he prove em all wrong..and i think he has got a place for the next couple of years now.

We must stop agreeing Sid or rumours will start LOL. The lad has had a difficult time with the press and the fans because IMO a) he does not play in England so is not known and b) he has tended over the last 4 years to get bit parts and no chance to impress. Will be interesting to see if he attracts any interest from the premiership clubs now

[Bernie]

Let's clear some things up shall we? We took four strikers to this World Cup - the same as most teams, the same as we normally do. Our main front two - Rooney and Owen - WERE BOTH FIT! Owen had a very serious and freakish injury that could have happened to anyone at any time. That's not Sven's fault. Rooney got sent off, that's nothing to do with any injury. So what are you saying, if we'd have played Defoe and Bent up front in that match we would have won? Give me strength. You're living in cloud cuckoo land.

That is totally correct except:

Most teams took five strikers - as England always did until Euro 2004 when Sven went against custom and only took 4.

Rooney was not fit at the start of the competition.

Owen had not regained form or full fitness from his previous injury - and had hardly played all year. Accidents happen when you are playing without being fully fit.

Theo Walcott had never been seen by Sven, never played in the Premiership, not a member of the Arsenal first team squad, not all that good in the opinion of the Arsenal players, when he was selected. There is no way that he should be counted as a possible striker in the squad since in no circumstances could he have been used. Therefore we went to the World Cup with Peter Crouch as our fit striker.

Can anyone seriously doubt if we had played our best players in their best positions in a system they understood we would have beaten a very poor Portugal.

[Stu]

I'm half cut, I can't be arsed to read the thread, so I'll make two points

1) Forget Theo Walcott... He isn't the question. Everyone seems to be forgetting two words when we talk about strikers... Those are "Jermaine" and "Jenas". My brother didn't even know he was in the World Cup squad till I told him at 2pm today. Its not a question of "Defoe instead of Walcott", its a case of "5th striker instead of Jenas".

2) I'm not a nasty person, and this may be 8 hours worth of booze, but here goes... Ronaldo, if you die a long, slow and painful death, please let me watch. twerp.

[LancsSaddler]

dont all go blaming ronaldo it were the ref that sent him off not ronaldo so blame the ref

f**k off! are you having a f*****g laugh! u can blame the ref all you like but if ronaldo wasnt such a two faced, cheating, faggot then the ref wouldnt have had to make a decision. hes supposed to be rooneys team ate at manu. if my teammate did that hed know about it. im sorry but theres being competative and taking the piss!!!

[TheSaddlers]

dont all go blaming ronaldo it were the ref that sent him off not ronaldo so blame the ref

f**k off! are you having a f*****g laugh! u can blame the ref all you like but if ronaldo wasnt such a two faced, cheating, faggot then the ref wouldnt have had to make a decision. hes supposed to be rooneys team ate at manu. if my teammate did that hed know about it. im sorry but theres being competative and taking the piss!!!

Do not blame Sven
Do not blame Ronaldo
Do not blame the referee.

The players are to blame. The English did not perform to their ability, they did not take their chances and so they did not win. The players are the ones that get the results. If they put the ball in the net, like they are paid to do, then we'd have won. You can't blame Ronaldo for us losing. Yes the Rooney sending off was a turning point in the game, yes Ronaldo did approach the referee and encourage him to send Rooney off, yes Sven is not the perfect manager, yes the referee did seem to miss some of Portugal's antics. However you can not blame one person entirely. Football is a team game, blame the team, not the individual!

[Stu]

dont all go blaming ronaldo it were the ref that sent him off not ronaldo so blame the ref

f**k off! are you having a f*****g laugh! u can blame the ref all you like but if ronaldo wasnt such a two faced, cheating, faggot then the ref wouldnt have had to make a decision. hes supposed to be rooneys team ate at manu. if my teammate did that hed know about it. im sorry but theres being competative and taking the piss!!!

Agree entirely... And if I were Wayne Rooney, I know whose leg I'd be breaking on the opening day of pre-season training.