Desperate, desperate, desperate.
England's 'performance' last night in Cape Town surely has to rank as one of the most insipid, lifeless and woeful displays that the national side has turned in for a long long time. In 180 minutes of WC2010 now they have only created arguably three goalscoring opportunities, and have been quite possibly the least impressive side in the entire competition so far. At least everyone else, even when defeated, has shown spark, invention and fight. England displayed none of these qualities and left the Green Point stadium to a furious reception.
From a personal point of view, the game was not the only disappointment of the day.
England fans have swamped Cape Town over the last couple of days, and the V&A Waterfront - a major entertainment area with bars , shops and restaurants near to the stadium - was completely mobbed yesterday. Being there for both the Uruguay France and Italy Paraguay games was a great atmosphere, with small pockets of the respective nations' fans.
To their credit, England were represented in numbers at least ten fold compared to every other team to visit CT so far. Seeing St Georges flags everywhere was incredible, it really was a sea of red and white. And yet you could not quite feel proud.
The behaviour of a significant minority of our fans was pathetic, disgusting, rude, ignorant and shameful.
Why we cannot enter into the festive spirit of this event I do not know.
Why every song has to be antagonistic towards someone else I do not know.
Why we have to be aggressive in no particular direction I do not know.
All I do know is that wearing the England shirt makes me feel proud. Always has done, I love it - and I've always imagined what it would be like to actually pull it on as a player. Yesterday, I found myself wishing I had worn a different top.
The element of our support that you would completely avoid at home is far too significant. It's very difficult to feel complete and utter pride, when you basically hate your own fans. Every other team that we have encountered has gone about supporting their team in the right way, I just wish that we could do the same.
It has not been fun writing this but it's truly how it felt - apologies to anyone thinking I'm either hypocritical as a fan myself, or ungrateful for the fact that I was able to be there and have now moaned about it, but I really wish we could be proud of our fans - and our team.
England Team 0 - 0 England Fans.
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Only someone who lacks intelligence would boo their own team/country.
ReplyDeleteIf you want your team to play better, get behind them and give some support, act as the 12th man and maybe the team will play for their fans.
People that say "I've paid for the right to moan" should stop being a waste of a ticket, stay at home and save our country the embarrassment of being associated with the stupidity that they constantly insist on showing.
Having said that, the players did show a lack of heart, created nothing and barely turned up.
Joe Cole must have either bitch-slapped Fabios wife or slept with his mum...
Cole looked completely and uttelry finished when they brought wright-phiilips on. He was warming up near us and looked over, shook his head and then just trudged back. He needs to be given a chance...
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