I'm sick at heart.
England lost, 6-5 on penalties this afternoon. But that's only part of the story (as Paul Harvey would say). The referee, Urs Meier, was criminally biased from my point of view. He handed out yellow cards to the English team for offences that went unpunished when the offender was Portguese. Indeed, it wasn't until very late in the match until the first Portugese player got a yellow card. And, of course, he disallowed what TV later showed to be a perfectly valid winning English goal (in the 91st minute of play). The match went to overtime and finally penalties.
All this said, the English team was, in my mind, clearly superior to the Portugese team even after the departure of their teenage star Wayne Rooney through injury. Yet Eriksson persisted in having them play negatively (ten men defending) after their goal in the 5th minute. Portugal played the better game, attacking through most of the match and deserved to win.
Had we gotten a better ref (say Collina or Nielsen) I have little doubt we would have won the match. Though I might have my doubts on whether we should have won it.
I think it may be time for Eriksson to sail off into the sunset. The team is a better team for his influence but these defensive tactics drive me up the wall and almost make me ashamed of the team's play. It's one thing to have to defend for 10-15 minutes. But for nearly 85? Absurd. Why? The Portugese have a totally suspect defence (as England showed when they had to go on the offensive a second time near the end of the match and scored rather rapidly) and the next decent team that they play that plays attacking football will beat them easily.
I don't think I can watch any more of these matches.
Posted by artandscience at June 24, 2004 05:00 PM