While I was never a critic of Fabio Capello I don't think there are that many people who would feel comfortable vouching for him at present. It was a quite disappointing display by England on so many levels that I would rather forget about it. There was something very clinical about the observations that the commentators and pundits made that made it all so clear that a reasonably good England side managed to play well below their potential and didn't do much in the way of performing anything like the team that they can be. The notion that the Germans had decided to allow Upson as part of the back four to hold onto the ball, which was sensible because any long pass he played seemed to go straight out for a goal kick; the idea of playing two players on Rooney, who looked below strength or fitness anyway, to ensure that he didn't get much in the way of a chance of shooting at goal; the lack of ability of the England team to get to grips with the German attacks and to act as the defensive whole that they can do. It was uncharacteristically weak and when I find myself quoting John Motson I can only imagine that there is something wrong - he said it was the worst England performance since a game he had commentated on in the early 1970s. When England had almost faultlessly qualified without appearing to break into anything more than a mild sweat, there seems to be very good reason for asking why they underperformed so significantly at a tournament that the country relishes watching their national team perform at.
The Germans were good - though the goals they scored looked very much like the type of attempts that a Premiership side would put in against an average Championship side. What made it all so frustrating was that the England team were out of sorts, looking totally naive so many times and did not have a readily identifiable problem that could be solved through action of the captain or a substitution. Rooney-dependency rather than drug dependency of Maradona has been Fabio's vice and this has cost him heavily. I don't like Milner and Barry possibly because they're Villa players but also, perhaps because they haven't quite got the pedigree that the other first choice players have. They're adequate fillers that have not really shown why they're in the team, they haven't performed. When we look at the German side - it was good but it wasn't that good.
The Lampard goal that wasn't maybe represented what the game was - badly judged, unfair and saddening. England can play so well but didn't come close to hitting form for more than a few minutes in this World Cup - perhaps other sides had plans of how to stop England playing - and England should have been prepared for this, but weren't in the least - apparently the preparation went well - I saw no evidence of this having happened. It's amazing how one goalkeeping error virtually ended the World Cup for England. If Rob Green hadn't made that error against the USA then we would have qualified as group winners, then played Ghana and undoubtedly done better against them than we did against Germany. We would still have a World Cup dream. Instead, we have questions, reports and decision-making to deal with.
In the recent past, we've lost out because of Steve McLaren's occasional indecision, we've now lost out because of a lack of invention, flexibility and confidence under Fabio but largely I don't think he really did much wrong. Maybe I'll be the only of the conspiracy theorists who think there was something unusual about England's inability to perform at this level - was there anything going on that would lead to the only UK side to exit very early? I'm afraid I doubt that there is an idea in my mind that this could have taken place. I don't think it was Capello match fixing - it was perhaps some anti-Capello reaction. Versatile England and total football ahead - are we good enough for this? Perhaps we need to think about it.
