Monday, May 24, 2010

England vs Mexico: What we learned

Today at Wembley skating-rink, our June 12th opponents England defeated our over-the-border "friends" Mexico 3-1. I say "friends" the way Jaap Stam and Patrick Viera are "friends."
While this was only a WC warm-up and neither team featured what will be their opening day squad, we can take a few things from the game:

ENGLAND
  • Theo Walcott is extremely fast and can run around defenders but has the composure of a newborn giraffe in front of goal. (Wait, we already knew that.)
  • Glen Johnson is fantastic going forward but terrible playing defense, which is sort of his position. In fact, that is his position: defender. (Okay we knew that one too)
  • England is very susceptible to quick counter attacks up the middle (granted King started over Terry today for experimental purposes, but neither them nor Ferdinand or Carragher are the fastest players on the pitch), which bodes well for our boys Jozy, Deuce, and Landy D.
  • Fabio Capello will never, ever smile.
  • Crouchie is an ever-present nuisance on crosses and set pieces-- he assisted King for the first goal and used his height to blunder in the second. However, a match-fit Onyewu is only three inches shorter but three times blacker and therefore can jump three times higher. Gooch can easily nullify England's robot with a little bit of Beastmode.
MEXICO
  • I used to think that Mexico just went in late to headers and challenges against the USA cause they hated us, but now I see its just cause they're dirty.
  • Dos Santos is actually really, really good but far from the finished product.
  • Mexico will continue to play Cuauhtemoc Blanco, no matter how fat and old he gets.
  • They have virtually no aerial threat and will struggle against a compressed, composed defense once it has settled down (France).
  • Their fans are annoying (Yet another one we already knew) and were shouting Ole's when El Tricolor was passing around after the opening kickoff
  • They don't really care about defending in a friendly (see Johnson goal video above) and would rather get yellow cards for fouling Walcott and Lennon as they speed by than try and defend.
I hope you took good notes cause there is going to be a test on this information later. Come back tomorrow after the USMNT face off against the Czechs at Rentschler Field for more ground-breaking analysis.

No comments:

Post a Comment