Rachel and I roped in a couple of friends, Rosie (Liverpool fan supporting Spain) and Martin (Man City fan supporting Holland) to head into central London bedecked in orange t-shirts to watch the match. We were initially heading for De Hems in Soho but despite arriving two hours before kick off, it was full with a massive queue outside.

The streets of Soho were largely orange with a huge contingent of Dutch fans out to support their team but the Spanish were well represented too. We ended up in a bar which was oranje all over downstairs but, where we found seats upstairs, had been hired by a group of Spain fans so there was a good rivalry going on. All friendly though, there was a large police presence but throughout the night, and especially afterwards I saw no hint of trouble other than one or two people who had clearly had too much to drink.

The match itself wasn’t that great but had enough excitement and plenty of near misses before the goal finally came. I think the Spanish deserved it overall and the Dutch tactics were disappointing, basically kicking the Spanish up in the air as much as possible and hope to keep 11 men on the field.

For all the criticism, I think Howard Webb did a pretty good job in the circumstances with only a few decisions which were a bit dubious but not, despite what the Dutch said afterwards, clearly favouring one team or another. In fact I think he was quite lenient on the Holland who could have gone down to 10 men a lot earlier and, with a really strict ref, might have gone down to 9.

So, no more world cup for four years, but fret not, the qualifiers for the next European Championships start for England on September 3rd against Bulgaria.

Strangely I’m already thinking about a trip to Montenegro (never been there) in September 2011 for our final qualifying match and maybe to Poland and Ukraine for the actual tournament in June 2012.

And the domestic season starts in a few weeks, lots of new signings for Coventry from our new manager and, yet again, I am really hopeful for this season. These hopes will almost surely be crushed sometime in January or February when we will have a run of bad results and fall out of play-off contention.

Can’t wait though

In the meantime though, lovely dinner tonight, tuna steaks on a bed of stir fried vegetables and noodles, followed by really nice cake which Rachel brought home from work. And there’s loads left so I’m looking forward to days and days of lovely chocolate cake!

For the final we will be going to De Hems in Soho, a great Dutch pub, at least for pre-match festivities and if we can get a seat, for the match itself.

The crowd at De Hems for a world cup match

I will be supporting Holland and hoping that they win, not sure about an actual prediction though, the Spanish could do it. Maybe I’ll wait for the octopus to make his choice before I pick.

Tosh. Complete and utter rubbish.

Of course we now know, as I predicted, that all the South American teams have gone out, and the three teams left, Holland, Germany and Spain all won their European qualifying groups. Holland played 8, won them all. Spain played 10, won them all. Germany played 10, won 8 drew 2. England’s group only looks like a walkover in hindsight, we had the difficult Ukranians, and Croatia who had put us out of Euro 2008 to contend with.

Compare this with the record of the four teams who got into the world cup as group runners up and through the playoffs. Greece, Slovenia and France failed to make it out of the group stage and Portugal, aside from thrashing North Korea 7-0 had a rubbish tournament and went out at the same stage as England.

Some pundits should have a quick look at the facts before putting forward such nonsense suggestions.

1. Use Beckham to replace Beckham. The first time we noticed we were missing Beckham was when Steve McLaren dropped him in the qualifiers for Euro 2008, and we failed to qualify. What we missed then, and did in the world cup, is someone who can deliver a good ball consistently. Beckham’s corners, free kicks and crossing from wide positions were consistently excellent and even though he wasn’t that fast, getting older and probably couldn’t last a full 90 minutes, he made a big difference. In the world cup, Gerrard delivered some good corners and crosses, and a lot of pretty bad ones. On free kicks, we all remember Beckham’s great free kicks, the one against Greece for instance, but even when he missed he might clip the top of the wall, or send the ball just over or wide of the goal. I don’t ever remember Beckham banging it into the middle of the wall at knee height. Lampard take note, or don’t, just retire from international football please. Shaun Wright Phillips and Aaron Lennon might be all pace and dribbling and tricksy, but for all that, they didn’t deliver any quality final balls.

So, seeing as Fabio has already given Beckham a role within the England set up (I wonder, whatever the official title, whether Capello just wanted someone on the bench for cameras to focus on to take the heat off him), he should give Becks another job. Finding and training the next generation of England attacking midfielders, and wing backs for that matter. He should scour the Premiership, Championship and other leagues to find, not necessarily the players doing well for the top clubs, but anyone English who has the basic talent and the determination to achieve. Then, on international weekends and with Stuart Pearce and the U21 squad he should do skills coaching and give advice and support and bring through some players who can cross a ball and strike a dead ball well.

2. Get some younger players, and one’s who aren’t comfortable and very pleased with themselves at big clubs. Anyone who will be over 32 by Euro 2012 should retire now. Anyone who will be over 32 by the next world cup might, just might get to help us qualify for the next Euros but should seriously consider retiring now. If they don’t, Fab should just drop them. Anyone  (Gerrard, Lampard) who have had mediocre seasons in the Premiership albeit with big clubs and never showed that they could play together for England, should be dropped unless they produce for England. No player’s place in the squad, never mind the starting XI shuld be automatic, all should fear being dropped however much of a ‘big name’ they are and how much money they earn. I wouldn’t even make an exception for Rooney. If he plays badly for England for a while, he should be dropped no matter how many goals he is scoring for United. Doing this would mean that every young player in the country would bellieve that if they play well they could get a shot at playing for England, and if they play well for England, they will keep their place. That’s mostly how it works in club football. Team England should be like that too.

3. Change the ‘English’ style of play. Just about every squad in the world cup had players who do or have played in the Premiership. It’s the most watched league in the world and everyone knows everything about it, and the style of play. International opponents know exactly what to expect from England and have got pretty good at dealing with it. Lots of English players have plently of experience of playing with team mates from all over the world and should be able to use some of that experience to learn some new tactics and playing styles. One good start would be to get Arsene and Sir Alex etc. to send young English players out on loan to the continent. Rather than a season slogging it out in the Championship at Ipswich how about a year in Seria A at Bologna? A lot of players would benefit in their play, experience and outlook; from a season loan to a team in the Bundesliga, Serie A or B, La Liga or the Dutch league. The established players too, if they fancy a move, would do well to think about the big continental teams rather than staying in England.

That will do for a start.

Uruguay surely aren’t good enough to beat Holland and in a close match tomorrow night, I expect the Germans to win.

So I’m predicting a repeat of the 1974 final, hopefully with a different outcome though.

UPDATE

Holland 3-2 Uruguay, one down, one to go.

It was looking OK for 20 minutes until Klose scored their first and, even then I was thinking they had gone 1-0 up in Munich when we beat them 5-1. The goal itself was dreadful though, just a long punt from the goalkeeper, no defenders in sight and Klose was free to poke it home. Championship defences can deal with those. On the second goal I thought it would be tough but if we get at least one back before half time and don’t concede again we could be ok.

We did get one back, a good headed goal and then there was the goal that wasn’t from Lampard. It’s a terrible refereeing error and should have stood but I think, any England fan who thinks, had that gone in, we would have won is kidding themselves. It certainly didn’t help though. Players react differently to things like that and I feared that the anger, sense of injustice and to a certain extent, a ready made excuse for losing with a referee rather than a player to blame, might lead the team to throw it away.

It was a bit like the Henry handball goal in the playoff agains the Irish. People forget that, if that goal hadn’t been given, the match was heading for penalties unless the Irish could score. After the goal there were 26 minutes of football left for them to get a goal which would have put them in the finals but they didn’t score. Yes Henry cheated but even so, the Irish hadn’t done enough to win the match and would probably still have lost.

England reacted well at the start of the second half, pushing for a deserved equaliser which would have sent the game into extra time. When after 20 minutes of so, even though we had a few chances, the goal hadn’t come, rather than stay patient and concentrating on keeping it at just 2-1, we piled forward leaving all kinds of holes at the back which Upson and Terry just couldn’t fill. We basically held the door wide open and invited the Germans to score another. And then another. It was dreadful. We sat out the final 20 minutes hoping but really not believeing that an amazing comeback was on the cards, but it wasn’t so we wished the nice German family luck in the later rounds and went back to the tent for a lie down.

There’s no point going on about the reasons we failed in this tournament, there are many from the tactical, to injuries to complete loss off form from supposed world class players, and some bad luck. It would be better to concentrate on the things we could do differently.

More about what England needs to do to challenge in Euro 2012 and the next world cup in a later post.