England vs USA

[coop]

I have a confession to make. My hatred of the England team has been on the wane for quite a while and I actually want them to win.

 

Obviously I have a real affinity for the likes of Gerrard, Carra and Johnson but there are several other players that I really like and Capello is fucking boss. I still cringe with all of the stupid fanfare 1966, three lions, trumpet blowing bullshit, but that's just the modern game.

 

Maybe us being so shit this season has contributed to it as well, I don't know but I want them to win.

 

I think Capello is a superb manager and would love to be in a situation where he took over Liverpool.

 

Had a chuckle when he fucked off them camera guys who had been told not to be in that area.

[Antynwa]

Heskey starts

 

FUCKING GET IN

[Carradona]

Adrian Chiles doesn't suit this serious kind of show. He's trying to liven it up a bit and make it a bit more laid back and informal, but that's almost impossible with that mountain goat Southgate sitting next to him offering fuck all.

[fowler9]

ahh Heskey, nice to see Fabs taking the piss out of them a bit

[theghost]

Howard; Cherundolo, DeMerit, Onyewu, Bocanegra ©; Donovan, Bradley, Clark, Dempsey; Altidore, Findley

 

On second thought, we're going to get fucking bummed.

[theghost]

CONFIRMED: England XI v USA: Green, Johnson, Terry, King, A. Cole, Lennon, Gerrard, Lampard, Milner, Heskey, Rooney

[Charles Penrose]

You're the only one celebrating. Why the fuck don't they concentrate on getting the best out of their top players? I'd rather have seen Gerrard playing behind Rooney as he does for Liverpool, someone else to partner Lampard in the middle (perhaps Carrick to sit in the absence of Barry), only the left midfield spot should have then been up for debate.

 

I actually don't give two fucks to be honest, as I don't want to see England progress past the groups stages, but now all signs point to turgid football along the way.

[Hermes]

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[Josef Svejk]

"Rob Green to Emile Heskey... and... is it? Yes, somehow he's bundled it in. Goal!"

[Delmar]

Capello is Benitez without the extra 20 kg and the goatee.

[Red Phoenix]

On a final note, to add to my recent uplifting posts, the pub will be packed, including several boneheaded England fans, and if we lose it'll probably be wise to leave the place shortly incase there's bonehead scuffles.

 

Gerrard going on one of his superhero charges through the defence and smashing it in might be the only thing that cheers me up once this starts.

[RedKnight]

England 2-0 with King scoring the first, now that's a bet. Although at 6/1 I quite fancy a nibble at the US.

[Stu Monty]

 

Germans singing about being ready for war and about raising their hands?

 

Have this lot learnt nothing?

[Carradona]

England 2-1 USA

[gaz181]

England 2-1 USA

 

Hopefully, as long as it's 1-0 to USA at half time!

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Capello is Benitez without the extra 20 kg and the goatee.

By which you mean one of Europe's most successful and respected managers?

[Josef Svejk]

 

As U.S. soccer players prepare for this summer's World Cup, they may spare a thought for a little-known Haitian who scored a goal nearly 50 years ago that gave them what is still their greatest victory ever.

 

Soccer has soared in popularity in the United States since those days, but

its hero, Joe Gaetjens, was destined for a tragic end in a dictator's dungeon in his homeland. On June 29, 1950, 39 minutes into what was supposed to have been England's World Cup blowout of the United States, Gaetjens dove an estimated 12 feet (4 metres) to strike a shot from teammate Walter Bahr with his head, changing its direction enough to catch English goalkeeper Bert Williams wrongfooted.

 

Gaetjens did not see the result of his header -- his headlong leap left him

lying face down in the turf at Brazil's Belo Horizonte stadium -- but it got

past Williams and gave the Americans a 1-0 lead over the team that had been the world leader of the sport. The slim lead held up, to the raucous delight of 30,000 Brazilians packing the stadium. At the end, the English team congratulated the Americans as spectators carried Gaetjens and his teammates shoulder-high. "It was a big upset. We knew it was an upset. Of course we were excited about it," Bahr told Reuters in a telephone interview, recalling that day nearly 48 years ago. "Things went our way, and in the run of play they (the English) should have won the game, (but) they didn't score. As the game went on, we got a little bit better and they got a little bit more panicky. Nine times out of 10 they would have beaten us. But that game was our game."

 

The game would be considered the greatest World Cup soccer upset of all

time. The English side included greats such as Tom Finney and Billy Wright

and was expected to beat the U.S. eleven by at least seven goals. Only one American player, halfback Ed McIlenny, was a full-time professional. The others were semipros -- Gaetjens an accounting student and dishwasher, Bahr a teacher, and goalie Frank Borghi a hearse driver for his uncle's funeral home.

 

The team had lost to Italy 9-0, Northern Ireland 5-0 and Scotland 4-0 before

the World Cup. When the first teleprinter reports on the game's outcome

reached London editors threw them out, assuming it was a misprint for a 10-1 English victory.

 

"Before World War II, England was the unquestioned leader of the sport in

the world. This game might have been said to be the first nail in the coffin

of that superiority," said Roger Allaway, president of the Society for

American Soccer History. But the victory, which coincided with the U.S. entry into the Korea War, went almost unnoticed in the United States. The Americans did not return to play in the World Cup until 1990.

 

Gaetjens, playing as an American under the era's loose eligibility rules,

never became a U.S. citizen and was virtually forgotten in the United

States. In Britain, an erroneous press report called him "Larry" Gaetjens,

and he remains misnamed in many record books.

 

He played in France for the first division Paris Racing Club after the World

Cup, returning to Haiti in 1954 to run a dry cleaning business, play weekend

soccer and coach youth teams, Jean-Pierre Gaetjens, his younger brother,

said. "He was still active and well-known in the sport area in Haiti," Gaetjens told Reuters. "Joe is the kind of person that he arrived in a group of people talking, they've never seen him before, and after 10 minutes it looks like he had been friends with them for the past 20 years."

 

Joe Gaetjens was not political but his family worked for Louis Dejoie, a

rival to Haitian dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier in his 1957 run for

the presidency. Gaetjens' mother and a brother were arrested after

Duvalier's victory and most of the family fled the country. But Joe stayed in Haiti, said his brother, who now lives in Spain. "Joe did not care much about the politics and things like that," Jean-Pierre Gaetjens said.

 

Other members of the family campaigned outside of Haiti against Duvalier,

who made himself president for life in 1964. The last time Joe Gaetjens was seen by any friend or relative was on July 8, 1964, when he was arrested at work by Duvalier's gangster militia, the Tonton Macoute, which his family considered retaliation for their political activism.

 

"When he arrived, they rushed to his car, put a gun on his head, got in his

car and drove to ... the Port-au-Prince police station," Jean-Pierre

Gaetjens said. "His wife, who lives in Florida now, received the

authorization to get the car three or four days after ... and from there we

have no trace from him." Gaetjens' family tried for years to determine his fate but heard nothing from Haiti or from U.S. officials they asked to intercede. But Jean-Pierre Gaetjens returned to Haiti after Duvalier's son, Jean-Claude, fell from power in 1986 and met a man who had been at the notorious Fort Dimanche prison with his brother but was transferred shortly afterward.

 

"Three or four days later one of the prison guards told him ... you were

lucky because last night they had killed everybody at Fort Dimanche,"

Gaetjens said. "That's when, we think, that he must have been killed, around mid-July. But we never knew. They had destroyed any evidence on everybody that was killed at the time under Duvalier, they burned or destroyed everything."

 

Some did not forget Joe Gaetjens. He was honored at a New York Cosmos game in 1972 and enshrined in the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame in 1976, the same year the Organization of American States condemned Haiti's government for his arrest.

 

Last year, Haiti authorized the issue of a stamp in his honor. Jean-Pierre

Gaetjens, who continues to campaign so his brother will be more widely

remembered, described his joy during a visit to Belo Horizonte in April when he was featured in the local newspaper and met people who remembered the game. "I was overwhelmed," he said.

[Red_or_Dead]

Too much Ingurland love in this thread.

 

No love for Americans, but go team yanks!

[Newport]

Isn't this the Freddy Adu breakout World Cup?

 

 

I read somewhere he might join the Saints, Southampton FC that is.

[zigackly]

Much Adu about nothing.

[Pidge]

Bonus point to ITV for use of The Clash.

[RedKnight]

Cringeworthy promo by ITV there.

[derykw]

Not usually into the England thing but I,m really looking forward to this

 

Come on England smash these Yankee Fuckers!

[gkmacca]

ITV started way too early. I'm sick of it already and the damn match hasn't started yet!

[The Dude Abides]

I find it hilarious that after all the time Capello has been in charge, and not once really looked like going with Gerrard and Lampard in the middle, that that's exactly where England have found themselves at again.