England fans in the FanZone, Malmo

As you probably know by now, I was out in Sweden for the semifinal and final of the U21 European Championships.

Obviously the final was a big disappointment, but we had a quality time whilst we were out there and it was great to see our boys in action (although we didn’t actually see Tomkins apart from during a half time kickabout!).

Something came to my attention yesterday though that I thought was worth raising today – just to see what other experiences people have had whilst travelling with England (at any level it would seem).

Yesterday it was revealed that Michel Platini was thought to be unimpressed with Stuart Pearce’s behaviour on the touchline during the final. Pearce states that maybe he was “overzealous”, but he was just “passionate about winning”.

The interpretation from Platini was that his rants were aggressive…

Make sure you behave

So, during the final there were a few guys on our row who throughout the whole game continued to leave their seats for food, phone calls, etc etc – up and down the whole 90 mins. Obviously when you’re trying to watch your team in a final, it’s not what you want. They never said excuse me or thank you at any point – kind of irrelevant but I wanted to paint a picture and all that.

I was sitting with another England fan, both in our England shirts, watching the football intently. At bad decisions, bad tackles or close efforts, we would both jump up and shout – kind of what you do at a football game. At least I thought.

At one point one of these suits who kept interupting our football stopped right in front of us and gestured towards us and said, “make sure you two behave”.

I couldn’t believe it. I don’t swear, so that wasn’t the problem. I wasn’t being violent, so no problem there either.

It just makes me think that us English are gravely misunderstood on the continent. Our passion for the game is clearly often misconstrued and our anger towards a decision or a bad tackle is interpreted as violent.

And after what Stuart Pearce was saying, it doesn’t seem to matter whether you are a fan or a manager, there is no place for passion or zealous ambition when England are involved….

Anyone else had any other experiences like this, or is it just me and my big loud mouth?

Sam

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Noble is in there somewhere!

This has to go down as one of my favourtie blogs to write…obviously not because of it’s quality as I’ve not started yet, but because I’m writing it on a train from Gothenburg to Malmo; following the path of the England U21 team to the final of the European Championships.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been sent by my new employers, Football United, to cover the semi-final and final, which is where I’m heading now. Gothenburg is a fantastic city and as I said in a twitter update from there, God really knew what he was doing when he created Sweden! I just hope Malmo can match it – on both visual and footballing appeal (I could do with it being a little cheaper though, beer budget has rapidly diminished!)

So I thought that as I had a few hours to spare, I could update you all on our boys’ performances in the Semi Final, and my take on whether Noble can lead the U21 to victory on Monday.

Turning Points

Personally I felt that there were three factors that affected the quite incredible turnaround by the Swedish team in the second half. Firstly and most importantly, the substitutions made by both managers had a massive effect on the way the game was flowing. Perhaps I’m a little bias, but I felt that Noble was a hugely dominant character in the middle of the park during the first half. He was pulling strings and getting things done in his usual tenacious way. His link up play with Cattermole was brilliant…yet Pearce took him off. Probably, as per usual, due to exhaustion, but we lost a lot of bite when he went off and particularly looked a whole lot more disjointed. It was however a Swedish substitution that influenced their fortunes…the introduction of the number 15, Labinot Harbuzi. He looked like a real star in the making and revitalised their attacking prowess.

I felt Pearce made a mistake in taking Noble off – perhaps it was to save him for the final? All I know is he did us proud in Gothenburg and I hope to see another top draw performance from him on Monday.

Secondly, the referee was hugely in favour of the homeside…it was laughable I felt at times. He sent one of our players off and booked one for ’sledging’. He made a point of making sure we took all our freekicks from the exact spot, yet turned a blind eye to the Swedes moving the ball to what seemed anywhere they fancied within a 20yard circle. He also failed to make sure the Swedes were actually ten yards at free kicks…petulant, inconsistent and bias. Had it been a full international I feel people would have raised a few eyebrows, but there you go!

Finally, the fans were a huge factor in the Swedish comeback. Funny lot they were to be honest and they outnumbered us to about 200:1 (plus the England fans were sort of mingled in and scattered about). They would boo at pretty much everything, but the environment they created for their side was impressive – it must have been a daunting atmosphere for our side. They were in all fairness though, particularly tolerable of us England fans jumping about like madmen (on our own) at each of our goals, plus the penalties. How silly we felt when they pegged it back to 3-3!

All things considered it was a privilage to have been at the game, Sweden have been great hosts and I look forward to seeing Noble lift the trophy tomorrow evening!

Will post some more photos of my trip after the final

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For the readers of my blog who don’t use NewsNow, Iain Dale and KUMB.com have been running some insightful interviews with Scott Duxburry over the last couple of days…be sure to have a read of the HERE and HERE respectively.

IRONS!

Sam

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Freddy Ljungberg has announced his retirement from international football. After returning from Euro 2008 as captain of the Swedish national team, having failed to qualify for the knockout stages, he has decided that he just can’t keep up the pace of playing for two teams. Wishing instead to focus all his attention on the forthcoming (and future) season(s) with us.

He had this to say to Swedish newspaper, Helsingborg Dagbladet:

The simple fact is that the physical strain of doubling on the national team and in club football for such a long time has finally taken its toll

And that is why I have decided to concentrate on playing for West Ham United and that is where my focus will be

I suppose from our point of view this is kind of encouraging. In some respects.

In other respects, it suggests that he won’t be able to hack it for much longer. Leaving me therefore to believe that the likelihood is that we will be paying £75k a week for a player whose primary role will be backup for Dyer…and Faubert.

Why didn’t we just keep Solano and try and offload Freddy?

Sam

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Speaking to Setanta Sports, Ljungberg’s agent has said:

I met with [chief executive] Scott Duxbury and the new general manager Gianluca Nani and they explained Fredrik is very important for the future

He is one of their most important players so they don’t want to lose him

Well Mr. Elefalk, I hate to break it to you, but from a fans perspective I would argue that he is not one of our most important players. An important player in my opinion are players like George McCartney or Rob Green who play every single game in a season. An important player in my opinion is someone like Mark Noble who has Claret and Blue pulsing through his veins.

If Freddy can stay fit for a season and fight for our club the way we have seen him do on occasions, then he definitely has the ability to be an important player for us.

He also definitely has the ability to ruin our pay structure and potentially cripple our clubs finances.

Swings and roundabouts really.

Sam

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So, Freddy Ljungberg is on his way back from Sweden after they got knocked out of Euro 2008 last night. Admittedly to a very good Russian side. Well, better than Sweden anyway.

The fact we have released Solano but not Ljungberg has made me wonder whether BG and the Gang were hoping that Freddy would have himself a right proper good championships before they put him in the shop window. Trouble is although I thought initially that he should go, I am now sightly persuaded by some of his performances during the Championships that actually he is worth keeping around.

I digress

Having seen all but three games of this year’s Chamionships I am inclined to say that some players have stood out as potentially being valuable additions to our squad. One in particular being the Russian left-back, Zhirkov.

But then knowing what we know about the potential of our current team when fully fit, do we even need to be breaking the bank to bring in anybody? I’m not so sure

Sam

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