Post thoughts/opinions on the game here.

Personally i'm very pissed off. The first half was good yes, but we failed to capitalize on an extremely shoddy Paraguay defence. Our only goal came off an own goal (although the free kick was good). At World Cup level this isn't good enough. If we can't take our chances against Paraguay we'll be slaughtered later on.

Then second half... um wtf? Possibly some of the lamest negative football i've seen in a long while. I'm sick and tired of the England team consistently not being fit enough to go the full 90mins. Yes it was hot but every team in the world is playing in the same conditions. Historically we always seem to be horribly unfit and tire after the first half. Clearly we won't win the World Cup in this style.

4-4-1-1 doesn't work, we already knew that yet Sven tried something tactical when we were only 1-0 up. Why take off Owen? Crazy substitution imo.

On the positive side Crouch, Gerrard and Joe Cole all played amazing. Crouch has really impressed me with the effort he puts in, definately a star story . It'll be a shame when Rooney replaces him again for sure. Put simply we just didn't do the job when we were dominating. Things have to improve.

Oh and the ref was a complete joke, to both teams.

Ok got to agree with you there lol England do not look like a world cup winning team at the moment. They're lucky to even get the 3 points from that cause imo they sure as hell didn't deserve em.
Referee cracked me up when he stood on Joe Cole's hand and he went out of his way to prevent the players from getting a drink .
England are so damn lucky with this group and even with a shite performance they'll advance. Doubt they'll win it, imo the furthest they'll get is the quarter finals.
Brazil - Argentina final with Brazil winning 2-1
Gonna see how Sweden does, because if SWE comes top of the group, England will have to face Germany and could possibly lose that.
We'll see what happens eh All in all they're not living upto their expectations.

England dont stand a hope in hell of winning the world cup but then again i am half scottish

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Ok got to agree with you there lol England do not look like a world cup winning team at the moment. They're lucky to even get the 3 points from that cause imo they sure as hell didn't deserve em.

Pfft rubbish, yes we didnt play great but why didnt we deserve the points? What did Paraguay do that meant they deserved the points as opposed to us? They got about one shot on target and only had one half a chance of a goal, yes we werent great but neither were they. And those expecting England to walk all over Paraguay are deluded, there isnt a bad team in these finals and no game will be easy, Paraguay have beaten some big teams recently including the likes of Brazil, so it was never going to be easy particularly in the opening game

Historically we always tend to have shakey starts, 66 we drew our opening game vs Tunisia, (I think)England were distinctly unimpressive in that game and yet went on to win the World Cup. So dont draw any conclusions yet, way way to early for that, a lot more to come from this team. Main thing is we won and didnt concede any goals, shakey start but a good one I believe.

I'm gonna use this one post to call the ref a complete spack in that game.

Thank god we won, i just hope sven doesnt pull out more "Ker-aaaazy" tactics on some of out bigger games. I felt sorry for peter crouch. 4-4-1-1 he was just having a torrid time. couldnt do anything. 4-4-2 all the way!

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Gonna see how Sweden does, because if SWE comes top of the group, England will have to face Germany and could possibly lose that.

If I'm not mistaken... I was speaking with afew swedish guys afew days ago and they said (not sure if its true) that england havent beaten sweden in 24 years or something?

I'm sure I can remember them winning in either of the past euro/world cups...

The booing of Hargreaves made me feel sick.

"Oh no, here's Hargreaves, I hope he doesn't play shit again... I know lets boo him and strip him of any confidence he had!"

Thick ****s.

I didn't see any other country booing their own players, shit or not.

We did not play as well as we could have, and for the record I thought gerrard did not perform well in that game - he had about 3/4 shots from outside the box that all went waaaaaaay too high (this might have been down to the new, super light ball they are using now, though). So, yeah, a poor second half performance and a lack of good deliveries to Crouch (who the ref was very tough on during headers) and bad management...but look at the Brazilians, they only beat croatia 1-0. I think its jsut first game syndrome and we will improve in forthcoming matches, as will most other teams p.s. I want the Czechs to go far in this one

tbh England did what they needed to do a lot of big teams have struggled in the heat agaisnt less of opponants than paraguay. Go easy it was our first game and we came through it with no injuries. 1st half was promising but 2nd half i just cant seem to get my head round the crazy swedes tactics, he brings hargreaves i mean wtf why he is he even there? has he ever had a good game for england theres lot better midfeilders to choose from than that wanna be german twat imo. Also downing failed to to impress with a another mediocre performance which basicly made for a poor second half
Trying to keep the faith with sven hope he dont **** up in the later stages,imo all the blaim must fall with him for not motivating the players enough.

Other than that i thought it was a overall good perfomance joe cole impressed for the 1st time in while, crouch imo should not be droped he's the form striker and he is a very easy target to hit with the quality of midfeild we posses, rooney and crouch ftw, owens has needs to earn a place tbh we have to go with form.

ITS COMING HOME!!
KEEP THE FAITH **** THE SCOTS

I agree Crouch is in form and has earnt his place, but i'd keep owen and crouch starting. Then bring Rooney on as a sub until it's clear he's in form. Rooney isn't so god-like that he can waltz into the team and take a striker's place after being injured 7 weeks or so.