DRuM wrote:England have done pretty well in recent games haven't they? I thought sven was doing ok and had respect from most people. They lost this game, does that mean he should be replaced?
Sorry for the late reply.
I just find that England plays a very "negative" style of game under Sven. 70% of the reason I say he should be fired is from a fan's perspective--that its not very interesting to watch and that a more explosive, more offensive style would be more exciting. 30% of the reason I say he should be fired is because his style really isn't that good IMO.
Just look at World Cup 2002. Yeah they got a lot of the results but in every game, what was their strategy? To defend, defend, defend and then if the other team makes a slight mistake, score a goal and then defend like crazy.
Its just barely getting by. Look at the game against Argentina. They played a defensive game. Then, a phantom foul was called favouring Owen and England went up 1-0. And then back to defending.
So sure, it works from time to time but sometimes it really just doesnt. Thats not to say that other game styles dont break down but I think sometimes it just comes out really badly and leaves an awful feeling that you lost not necessarily because of the quality of the players but because you were playing in a dumb way.
For example, they were doing fine (in a defensive manner, waiting for Brazil to make a mistake) in WC2002. Lucio made a mistake and England went up 1-0. But when they all of a sudden saw they were tied 1-1, they were completely lost in what they needed to do. It got even worse when Brazil went up 2-1. They had very little direction there IMO.
They didnt go on a crazy offensive juggernaut or anything, they seemed struck, as if: "hey, our defensive style wont get us any goals, what to do now?"
Anyway, I guess the problem when you cut down to it is essentially two fold:
(1) winning barely or always trying to scrape out a win will win you a few games but just went you need it, it might bite you very hard from time to time regardless of the quality of your players. "Negative" soccer :icon13:
(2) no matter how you look at it, with the quality of players England has, they should be doing a lot better job.
Random note: why is there this mutual ass kissing between Owen and Sven? Owen backs Sven and Sven backs Owen. Owen has not played a single full game all season. He should not start on the national squad IMO.
