Footballs coming home?It's coming some day hopefully! (England National Football Team)

Member Name: ajbluestar

Product:	England National Football Team
Date:	15/06/09 (43 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: playing well /getting good results

Disadvantages: goalkeeper position, lack a bit of creativity in midfield

The England team are now well on course to qualify for the world cup in 2010 which is going to be held in South Africa. After winning all the games in qualifying up to this point (June 2009) including a very impressive 4-1 win against Croatia away, the team top their qualifying group.

The current manager Fabio Capello has instilled alot more discipline in the squad and has got them performing on the pitch and has been getting good results on the most part. He may not be English which would have been the preferred option but he is a world class manager who has managed some of the top teams in Europe including AC Milan, Juventus , Roma and Real Madrid. He has won serie A titles, la liga as well as the Champions League. Is the next trophy going to be the world cup?

I think that believing England will win the world cup next year is a bit optimisitic but the team are playing well and have got some good results in qualifying. Playing Spain and other better teams such as Italy, Brazil though is a slightly different prospect. England played Spain in Seville earlier this year and were completely outplayed as they lost 2-0. England were missing some key players like Rooney and Gerrard . Lampard was also on the bench for the game. The problem though was the way Spain were able to knock the ball around the pitch at will and keep possesion of the ball for most of the game. Xavi and Iniesta are great players for Barcelona and Spain and they are the main source of creativity in the Spanish team. One major problem England managers had before was accommodating Gerrard and Lampard. I think Capello has done well on this one issue with Barry coming in a defensive midfield role with Gerrard having a slightly free role on the left with Lampard in the centre. This has worked well and England have got the results. It will be interesting to see how the team will change when Joe Cole comes back from injury who has been a pretty consistent player for England over the past few years.

One slight problem area for England is the goalkeeper position. The current number one is David James who will be almost 40 by the time the world cup comes around next year and there doesn't seem to be anyone really pushing him to fill his boots. Robert Green was an option in recent games but wasn't really tested. Scott Carson, Ben Foster, Joe Hart, Paul Robinson and Chris Kirkland are other options but no one is really clearly staking their claim to replace James as of yet.

I am hopeful England will make it to South Africa and do well. Would be great if they could actually do it next year and win the whole thing but even getting to the semi finals will probably be considered a great tournament after not even qualifying for the last major tournament( Euro 2008).

Summary: good chance for world cup 2010 but going to be difficult