*Group hug*

If you want your team to do well in the face of adversity, football snobs will inevitably label you an imbecile – an unreasonable and unpleasant supposition. Unfortunately, they are loud and assertive, and generally armed with facts, statistics and logic to back up their conceited taunting. But that still doesn’t mean you have to listen.

Cynical football fans paint hope as a negative; an evil that distorts reality. They readily accuse fans who were hoping for better as delusional. It’s a wholly unsavoury way of attacking people they see as inferior to themselves. Yes, delusional behaviour is largely ignorant, and yes, hope isn’t necessarily aligned with truth, but in the context of football – an entertainment business, as it now exists – does it really do any actual harm to enjoy getting lost in the moment? Does the Universe irrevocably collapse if you allow yourself to be swept along by the euphoria of exultant shared joy?

When you’re feeling great, hope is the catalyst to better things. When you’re feeling terrible, it offers you a crumb of comfort. It’s emotions like Hope and Love that stimulate and inspires us to act. Reason and rationale have their place in the grander scheme of things, but in relation to football they will have us seated, contemplating defeat and expecting very little, if not nothing: an altogether unhealthy way to approach things.

Whether anyone genuinely believed England had a chance of competing in these Euros (or in any major tournament), is irrelevant in many ways. It still doesn’t make it clear why it becomes necessary, or fair, to piss on anyone else’s chips. As individuals we are all free to create our own realities, as long as we are sincerely considerate of the effects it may have on others. I haven’t been on Wikipedia to check this out, but I’m quite confident that very few people (if any) have suffered unbearable hardship from an over-exposure to misguided enthusiasm.

Some people’s enjoyment of football is based largely around the ridiculing of others, which I think is really sad (in both senses of the word). There’s also a lot of people who want to “own” football, well listen up,  you can’t have it. Not my bit anyway.

If you’re not enjoying football, hoping beyond hope and all expectation, that your veteran striker might still have that one big performance left in his creaking knees; or that your questionable second keeper might actually be able to keep out the league’s top scorers; or your team can reverse the four goal deficit on the last day of the season and avoid relegation; or that your national team can forget all that’s gone before and finally win a damned penalty shoot out, then in my eyes you’re the ones doing it all wrong – not those that have the audacity to dream.

*Insert England player of your choice here*

The day after the night before and I started clearing the inbox on my phone. The friends who were sending text messages with 4-0 and 6-0 predictions at kick off, by the end were almost threatening to “top themselves”. I wasn’t really prepared to be witnessing a loss, so was saved from wallowing in defeat, drowning sorrows, by my lack of adequate preparation (I struggle to drink a gallon of tepid lager, without an excess of cheap cigarettes, I gave it a good go though).

How we got to extra time is proof, if it were needed, that Hodgson certainly has something about him. As I’ve said before,  whether we can really, honestly say that it’s all part of the master plan and not just beginners luck (“The Honeymoon period”) after so little time with the squad, only time will tell. The signs are good enough and I personally feel it’s the former. We’ll see. (If you’re new to this site, please feel free to substitute any cliches for those of your choosing.)

The key was always going to be if we could super-impose Rooney onto the tight(ish), organised(ish) unit we had seen in the first game and for parts of the second, and we couldn’t. Rooney hasn’t been the player we know is in there for a while, but it would take a manager with a death wish to leave him out. In terms of England, let’s hope United get in some proper players and SAF finds a way to provide him with whatever it is he’s missing.

It was all going so well in the first half (to a degree), and it appeared for a brief moment at the start of the second half, that everything was falling into place. The fall from that point on was dramatic. It was shocking to see Gerrard cramping up in the 70th  minute. That was a moment of clarity for me, a reality check, or a kick in the bollocks, you might say. We had the chances, but weren’t sharp enough in front of goal and we probably played better than we had in the previous games overall, but it was nowhere near good enough, against an Italian side who are nowhere near good enough to win the tournament. You do the math.

The third penalty is always the one that shifts the momentum, BUT what a penalty. I’m surprised Ashley Young could even walk up and place the ball after witnessing that. A-MAZ-ING!

Lots of positives, not least Roy’s calming influence on the squad and media. Lots of younger players are in the mix now, and there are  still a few who will feel aggrieved not to have gone to the tournament at all. Roy trusts players, so I don’t think the changes will be far reaching, but I think it’s exciting. I’m excited to be an England fan again and for me that’s enough for now.

Even though I’ve predicted 3 – 1, I expect, as we all do, this to be a very tight game. The goals that win England the game, I’m predicting to come towards the very end of the match, possibly in extra time.

Gerrard, from a position of just quietly getting on with it, suddenly has a lot of extra pressure to cope with, as the “England expects” hype machine shifts up through the gears.  It’s the same for Rooney, as always. They’re both very capable of dealing with it. They’re both very capable of not. Fingers crossed.

The defence hasn’t looked “amazing” to me, as some seem to suggest, but it’s certainly looked okay for the most part. I suppose when you’re effectively playing with four central defenders (when Gerrard and Parker tuck back) it provides quite a barrier. I haven’t seen much evidence that Italy have the  fire power to trouble us too much. That’s not to say they can’t trouble us from other areas.

I think the slower pace of this game, compared with the out-and-out mania of the Ukrainians and the style of Sweden will suit our defence and midfield and should allow us to build better, getting the likes of Ashley Young and James Milner on the ball more in dangerous areas, something neither of them have had too much success with thus far. Having said that I’d be tempted to change Ashley Young (again).

Rooney needs more time on the ball to create and probe and build up his sharpness. If we are to progress we need at least 30-40% more from him than we saw in the Ukraine game. Danny Welbeck I’m sure will get the nod up front and deservedly so. A goal for him would be nice, obviously.

As for the Italians, as I said before, Balotelli is one of their stars and that isn’t anywhere near good enough. He would want so hard to play well against us and the pressure he will put on himself, as a result, will be all it takes for him to self-destruct. Balotelli aside, Pirlo et al, will without doubt be our biggest test under Hodgson.

Goals: Rooney (pen), Welbeck, Terry.

I was the penalty taker for my team, when I used to play. Before you start, yes, there is a huge difference between the lowest rung of the F.A league ladder and international football (some of the time), but I’m not sure there’s much of a difference between the relative psychologies; everything within its own context and all that.

I could score a penalty in training no problem. My natural kicking technique with the instep of my right foot allowed me to find the inside of the left hand post every time, low and hard. Even if the keeper stood as close as he’d allow himself to, I could still do it. If he went too close, I’d just pass it into the empty net towards the right. I could score penalties with the Ronaldo-style back-flick where you bring your striking foot around the back of your standing foot, but my absolute favourite was a disguised chip that clipped in off the post in the top left corner. Enough about me though. How are you doing?

When it came to a real match, however, the psychological conditions altered dramatically. The tension, even in games where we were winning comfortably, was right there, slapping me in the face as I placed the ball down on the spot. The tension was not just typified by the weight of expectation amongst my team-mates, although there was invariably enough of that, there was also the tension created by the tangible will of the opposition, collectively sucking the ball out of the onion bag, and then there was the tension created by the anticipation of the crowd (not as if we ever really had more than a handful of spectators, until you got a penalty of course, then everyone wanted to watch). These external tensions served as unhelpful additions to the intensely stronger tensions created by the inner turmoil of my own id, ego and super-ego.

The application of super glue can also be a factor

There are four penalties I remember above all others, from a particular period of time, for differing reasons: two I scored, just;  two I had saved, comfortably (I’d like to add that I was by no means an arrogant player, contrary to my tone – this is me attempting to be matter-of-fact about it all). Here they are:

Penalty 1: The first was during a game against the top team in the league (*TENSION*), a not particularly nice bunch (although we had played worse), a team who we had never beaten (*TENSION*), with the biggest (*TENSION*) and best goalkeeper in the league by a country mile (*TENSION*). We were 1-0 up, when one of our players went down in the box. It wasn’t really a penalty (*TENSION*), but the referee gave it. They were very unhappy about that (*TENSION*) and some of them suggested that if I were a sporting type, I’d miss intentionally (*TENSION*). We had our tiny army of travelling fans (*TENSION*) with us who began chanting my name (*TENSION*). I placed the ball and then wrestled with my conscience (*TENSION*). Part of me wanted to make sure I scored to extend our lead. Part of me wanted to do my favourite disguised chip for a “Big Waaaah” in their face, so they’d wish they were me. Part of me was considering missing it (*TENSION*). I decided to go with the first option, so I gave the keeper the eyes and put it low and hard to my favourite corner, bottom left, trusting my technique, the safe option. It went in, but nowhere near the corner, more central. Luckily the keeper had dived to his left. I’d been so physically affected by the mental tension that I’d involuntarily mis-hit the ball entirely. I’d had no control over my physical reaction to the surrounding tensions; the fear of that stuck with me.

Penalty 2: I’d had a cracking game having already lobbed the keeper with virtually my first kick of the game; a sweet first time half volley with the outside of my right foot if you’re interested. We were 3-0 up and cruising when we were awarded a fairly straightforward penalty for a deliberate handball and I was on a hat-trick. There was no tension from the external sources, as described above during Penalty 1: there was no crowd, the other team had already given up and the keeper was awful at best. The memory of Penalty 1 was still haunting me (*TENSION*). The fact I’d never scored a hat-trick for this team, and as a Midfielder may not get a better chance, was in the back of my mind (*TENSION*). I thought there would never be a better opportunity, so I gave the keeper the eyes and went for the disguised chip. The keeper just kind of awkwardly stumbled forward off his line and grabbed the floating wet fart of a shot out the air, and glared at me with the most degrading of looks on his face. We only just won the game in the end, 3-2. I didn’t complete the hat-trick, and never did.

Penalty 3: We were playing our biggest rivals (*TENSION*) and so had our rent-a-crowd down to watch (*TENSION*). The rain was hammering down and the pitch was barely playable (*TENSION*), especially in the areas around the goal (*TENSION*). We were short of defenders so I’d been earmarked to fill in, and of course obliged, although I absolutely hated playing defence (*TENSION*).  Our opposition weren’t playing very well and we got ourselves 1-0 up and were controlling the game by the time we were awarded an obvious penalty. I stepped forward with the memories of my two previous efforts now not just haunting my match day thoughts, but my daily ones too (*TENSION*). The other team, who we were very familiar with, started spouting (*TENSION*). I had all sorts going on in my head and the wind had picked up, so the ball wouldn’t stay on the spot. I could barely keep my footing as I tried to replace it. (*TENSION* *TENSION* *TENSION*). I had to go low and hard, trust my technique. As I started my run up, the keeper drifted to the right and before I’d even processed the information, I’d instinctively gone for the disguised chip again. The result was the same as Penalty 2, apart from this time the keeper let out an involuntary laugh as he plucked the ball out the air. Fortunately, we went on to win.

Penalty 4: We were playing a cup game against some shifty looking knuckle-headed morons (*TENSION*) and I’d been picked up-front, my preferred position, where I rarely got to play (*TENSION*). We were on fire and by half time were 4-1 up. I’d only scored a fairly standard header, but was playing out my skin. At 6-2 up we got a penalty, I offered it to my strike partner who was on a hat-trick but he didn’t fancy it (*TENSION*). Their keeper was okayish and had made some good stops (*TENSION*) and they were mouthing all kinds of ridiculous things as I went to place the ball down (*TENSION*). The penalty spot was painted on the edge of a sharp angled dip in the ground and the ball rolled off the spot as I turned to start my run up (*TENSION*). The opposition started up again (*TENSION*). After replacing it a few times, the referee settled it half in and half out the dip (*TENSION*). I was never going to try the disguised chip in a match again, so gave the keeper the eyes and went low and hard, trusting my technique. The contact with the ball, if you could call it that, would best be described as “a waft”. The ball was more in the dip than I’d anticipated. The keeper, who had originally been going the other way, was now readjusting and squirming towards the barely goal bound ball. It somehow managed to piffle beneath his grasp and in *PHEW!*

My intention in going through those scenarios was, of course, to show off, but secondary to that I wanted to iterate and illustrate from my own experience the psychology of general penalty taking. If I hadn’t already broken my rule over keeping posts below 2000 words, I could have highlighted further areas of tension. For every other team I’d played for I had usually been the penalty taker and had always scored. But things, often out your control, can conspire to make you miss. Trusting your technique is always by far the best policy and usually yields the best result, but not always.

*Orbit*

As a rough estimate I think  you could probably times the tension factor at the top level by at least a thousand. There are so many extra external and internal factors at play, because there is so much more at stake. In a game, I think generally the penalty is roughly 80-90% in favour of the taker, compared with the goalkeepers chance of saving it. Having not been in a shoot out, I can’t say for sure, but I’d guess that the percentage during one shifts to nearer 50-50.

As a slight aside I’d like to just talk about Becks; a good example of a player with a superb kicking technique, who, with all due respect, put himself forward for England penalties, but was terrible at them. Aside from attempting to take them like free-kicks, an entirely flawed concept, his main problem was that he was taking them for the wrong reasons. He presented a wholly misguided idea of what taking responsibility was all about: making the right decisions for the team and not attempting to decorate yourself in glory is usually a good start. Lampard and Gerrard, regular takers for their respective club sides, were in and around the England team at the same time (however, in Beck’s defence, in their absence he was probably the only viable option). He wasn’t a penalty taker, but took the penalties?! What’s better – someone willing to take one who can’t? Or someone who can, who doesn’t want to? I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong answer. Beckham’s penalty against Argentina at the World Cup 2002 was technically dreadful, it was the equivalent of a hit (it as hard as you can) and hope, but it went in and won England one of their biggest games in recent times. For the most part, his other penalties, that he missed, cost England dearly (p.s I still love you, David).

To say a player “should” score from a penalty, for me, is unfair. People readily forget that goalkeepers are professionals too and it doesn’t take much homework to figure out which side of the goal Player X prefers, which type of disguise they use on their run up, etc. Yes, there are a lot of  great penalties from skilled takers, but their are also a lot of really poor ones that go in and a lot of technically flawless penalties that are saved, and everything in between.

I have, elsewhere on this blog, already vented my general dislike of the inference that a player “should” have done something. To me, the inference of the word ‘should’ is that certain elements of the sport are regarded by some as nothing more than the automated actions of a football-kitted vending machine. In dehumanising certain aspects of football, what those deviants using the word ‘should’ are in fact doing is depriving many of us (or possibly just me) of the much valued relatedness we find implicit in our love of the game. I want the players I support to be susceptible to all facets of the human condition: paralysed by self-doubt, enraged yet empowered by injustice, driven by their own narcissism, corrupted by the temptation to deceive, revelling in exacted revenge, foregoing their professionalism to embrace the inherent propensity in all of us to behave like a child – because it’s those things that make football brilliant.

Some misses are more beautiful than others

When the inevitable shoot-out rears up to deny us our passage to the latter stages, I won’t be the one lambasting players for not being good enough to stick one away despite being paid blah-blah-blah etc, but I might be the annoying one making sure everyone in the pub refers to them as “kicks from the penalty mark”, cus that’s correct, and I can be a real jerk sometimes.

Who’d have thunk it?! By far the most pleasing aspect of last night’s result is topping the group and going on to play Italy in the quarter finals (Balotelli is one of their star players, how good can they really be … seriously).

On the ghost goal … IT WAS OFFSIDE!!!

Rooney’s BIG comeback was more just a comeback. Scoring the winner with that bit of raw opportunism that we’ve been perhaps lacking, is not a bad night’s work (other vacuous cliches are available). We saw glimpses of the possibilities, but I can’t help thinking that in the games ahead when we need a lot more from him, on current form, he may not be capable of it.

Man of the match, and widely considered of the tournament so far for England, was Steven Gerrard. As I wrote in the England players haiku guide he needed to play a more disciplined role to really shine at this tournament, and how. Welbeck was tidy again and Scott Parker was doing an admirable John Terry impression, throwing himself in front of stuff. Terry himself seems to be growing into his ex-captain role. Glen Johnson continues to play baffling-ly well. Carroll looked sharp when he replaced Welbeck too.

I think there’s a strong case now for Ashley Young making way for The Ox or even Downing. He’s becoming a liability defensively and offering very little in attack. James Milner is only marginally better on account of putting in more leg work. We can’t keep carrying them. We probably will. Fingers crossed the week long break shakes them awake.

I’m not entirely sure how much of what is happening is planned and how much is seat of the pants stuff, but it’s ‘citin intit!

The next game can’t come around quick enough for me. FFFOOOTTTBBBALLL!

Oh, bugger.

The 1990 World Cup: a significant tournament in the bookmarking of some of England’s enduring imagery. Penalties, tears and John Barnes rap aside, one incident inparticular, during the semi-final against Germany, has, I think, been the one to have cast the darkest and spindliest of shadows over subsequent national players. But, oh how we larfed, until we cried; and then we were just crying.

Andreas Brehme was tired of being pigeon-holed as a “free-kick specialist”, he was much more than that he thought to himself, and so decided to just petulantly hoof the ball at one of the England players for lols. He didn’t want the ensuing scrap to ruffle his beautiful hair (GHDs weren’t invented back then), so he picked out Paul Parker, the littlest player on the pitch and took aim. Veteran, Peter Shilton (ever the opportunist), chose this moment to trial part of his stand-up routine, and more specifically, his walking down the comedy stairs backwards and drunk, gag. The ball looped in. A nation hung it’s head. A curse was birthed?!

(*huddle-in* Some people trace this “curse” back much further, to a Peter Bonetti error in 1970.  I suppose in some way claiming the “curse” had been laying dormant since then; maybe in a pair of discarded gloves, or in nail clippings down the plug hole at Wembley perhaps, waiting to lay claim to it’s next victim. However, that kind of nonsense can only get you in the loony bin.  If we’re really seriously talking about me talking about “curses” in the mainstream, you have to let me do it my way. I need to place them in a context a bit more plausible … namely, psychology *fall-back*)

Since the Shilton bomb dropped, we have witnessed a succession of England Number Ones apparently paralysed on the bigger stages by this hand-me-down trauma. David Seaman was the only one that almost got away with it. Despite having serial cutlery-molester, Uri Gellar watching his back (he who moved the ball from the penalty spot against Scotland at Euro 96 with his mind), eventually he succumed, against Brazil, during the 2002 World Cup, when he was already well on the way to retirement. His “mistake” almost echoing Shilton’s. The psychosis gathered pace and before long was ruthlessly dispatching Paul Robinson, Rob Green and Scott Carson from the England set up. Whether we can really count David James as one of those apparently mugged of  his international ambitions by this virulent “catatonia” is questionable, he was more than capable of doing that all by himself, he was certainly a host.

What a…

Enter Joe Hart. Who doesn’t love Joe Hart? You? At the back there? *releases the hounds* What is there not to like? Okay, he plays for THEM, I’ll give you that, and yeah he quite obviously waxes his eye-brows, but let’s not let the superficial cloud our appreciation of one of the best players to happen to the England team in yonks. He SHOULD be captain. What Joe Hart’s talent makes patently clear is this: our goalkeeping crises of the recent past haven’t been ones of hex and hoodoo, they’ve been ones of a basic lack of real quality. The better goalkeepers we’ve had relatively recently, Seaman and Shilton, have been maintained in goal for much longer than they should have because there was no one considered good enough to replace them; no-one with the mental strength to match the physical requirements – and we’ve paid a heavy price.

Goalkeepers have it pretty tough. They will make BIG mistakes. If they make a mistake, the ramifications are generally much more severe than those of their team mates. They don’t simply surrender possession, or give away a cheap free kick; they give away a goal or a penalty. The footballs that make fools of goalkeepers are designed by scientists who supply parts for NASA. Their job is literally a constant battle with Rocket Science. Peter Cech has to wear a head brace just to stop his mind boggling every time he is faced with a shot from distance.

Joe Hart may well fumble one into his own net, or misjudge a cross that could cost us in this tournament.  He could do the same in the World Cup qualifiers, or in the next World Cup. It’s something he will have to deal with. The difference is, his mistakes will be exceptions, not rules. You get a strong sense with Joe Hart that he has the strength of character and capacity to move on. Only when Joe Hart is considering hanging up his gloves, and we’re still expecting him to be our Number One, do we need to start worrying about anything like “curses” again.

Check out those brows!

(Before you start, I at no stage promised I was behind any of that curse nonsense.)