Group Stages
The draw for the group stages actually put me in a pretty good group. I didn't have any real opposition as I had Colombia, Montenegro and DR Congo.
woohoo?
As you can see, I managed to win all 3 group matches and didn't concede any goals. Good start right?
Well, not as such. Despite managing to win all 3 group matches, the reality was that my England team were consistently outplayed. The only reason that I didn't concede any goals was because the opposition didn't have any strikers worth talking about. Even one on one, they somehow contrived to miss.
By the time the group stage ended, my only hope was that my team would play better as the tournament progressed.
Knockout stages
Our first opponent in the knockout rounds was Egypt. And for once, my team completely outplayed the opposition. To be honest, I don't really know what caused my team to start playing - all I know is that we kicked ass!
Of course, this result also meant that we managed to make it to the Quarter Finals which is what the FA expectations were.
Finally! A performance worth writing home about!
The bad news is that our performance against Egypt was going to be the highlight of the competition as it was the only match where we would actually outplay our opponents.
Our next match was against Brazil and, with a couple of rare exceptions, we basically played the match in our half. Despite being completely outplayed, an outstanding performance by our GK allowed us to hang on until Walcott managed to pop out of nowhere and score a goal on the counter!
Brazil must have been furious!
With Brazil out of the way, we moved onto the Semi Finals and France - who were the No.1 ranked international team in the World (oh well, I guess the FM scouts don't always get it right...). Just as with Brazil, France completely dominated play. Alas, we weren't able to repeat our heroics and were duly knocked out.
Bugger
Although we were knocked out by France, we did manage to get to the Semi Finals so we had one more match to go. We would be facing Italy for the 3rd place play-off.
The match against Italy was an interesting one. Basically, we were completely outplayed at the start of the match. Then, one of the Italian players got sent off in the 54th minute and at that point, I ordered my England team to attack. Most of our shots on goal actually came post the 54th minute. Alas, my players couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and we ended up going to penalties.
England's luck in penalty shoot-outs remains true to form
Still, having managed to get into the Semi's can be considered a good result for a team who were ranked 7th in the World at the start of the World Cup.
Closing comments
Overall, despite making it to the Semi Final's, I have to concede that it wasn't a great world cup campaign. The fact that we were so completely outplayed by so many teams was unacceptable and we could just as easily have gone out at the group stage.
Still, there were some highlights:
Ben Foster, after only conceding 1 goal, picks up the World Cup Best GK award!
Also, despite my own thoughts, the FA seem to be happy.
Woohoo! That should keep my job safe for a bit longer!
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