England vs Argentina

What on earth can you say except "We stuffed 'em off the park!". You may notice that objectivity is not going to be part of this op. Just in case you don't know: Argentinia 0 England 1 The true shame is that, for all our possession and shots on goal, we actually won the game from a somewhat dubious penalty. Ok, Michael Owen drew the foul, there was contact on him in the box but I don't like English players going down like the proverbial 'sack of spuds'. We have a record for integrity in sport that some nations just don't seem to have. The Argentians comments in the week's hype before the game all ...  Read the complete review

An estimated 25 million people are said to have watched England v Argentina on the television, which seems like a silly idea considering the fact that a sofa or chair would not only be more comfortable, but also allowed you to get a better view. I am only being this puerile because I have not had a very conventional start to following England in the 2002 World Cup. I was staying at a friends house at the time of England's game against Sweden, which would have been fine had they not been living in an unbelievably extroudinary household (in that there was no tv). While I was having an enjoyable breakfast we heard a huge roar from next door and assumed England ...  Read the complete review

What a match! We knew it would be hard for England and a draw with Argentina was the most that I’d expected from them. Don’t forget that Argentina were joint favourites for winning the World Cup and England haven’t managed to beat them since 1966. Also in France ’98 Beckham was sent off against Argentina for a tackle which didn’t warrant a red card (biased? moi?). Anyway without further waffle – about the actual match! The match began nervously with both teams just getting into the game. Hargreaves was injured very early on and was replaced by Sinclair who played very well. Batistuta was extremely lucky to escape a second ...  Read the complete review

I personally thought that the England players could have played better...(as a team) we saw it in the sweden match, the players tend to crowd the ball area instead of running on and stuff, micheal owen spent a whole minute on the touchline in support for Beckham (i think) or scholes, this shouldn't happen as we need that fast man forward to collect the up and over lobs inot the 16 yd box. Now I know that we won and that most players on the pitch gave 110% and more, but the problem was not with their effort, which was fantastic, It was with the formation changes before and during the match which probably destabalised the team structure. I believe ...  Read the complete review

This is the criticism levelled at Michael Owen by non other than Jurgen Klinnsmann. Any reasonable footie supporter could see the defender leave his leg out to try an up-end Owen. This is symptomatic of Argentinian cynical defending. Owen is of good enough character to resist such a cheating option. True predators are looking for an opening but Owen was fouled in the penalty area. The Argentinian defender clearly made an attempt to impede Owen, then seemed to "withdraw" from the tackle - another attempt to sway the decision against the striker. I fear that the criticism levelled at Owen could adversely affect the way he plays against Nigeria. What ...  Read the complete review