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Wednesday, 19 November 2008

England B Team V Germany

by Alex J Allen
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What is the point of international friendly matches? For tonight's 'big' game with Germany, England will be without Gerrard, Beckham, Gerrard, Rooney, Ferdinand, Walcott and Lampard through injury. Are you fucking serious? These players aren't injured! What's happened, is that these friendly matches have become the GCSE R.E lesson of the football calendar, nobody takes them seriously anymore. It's hard to imagine those players all missing a World Cup group game with the assortment of reported ailments they're suffering from, I mean, what have they all come down with? SARS? Scurvy? Bird flu? Chronic laziness? I think that Fabio Capello should deal with these absentees the same way my old P.E teacher used to deal with kids that didn't want to play sport at school, make them turn up anyway and write essays about sports science in a side room somewhere while everyone else is outside. It's unbelievable that these players, who already have the mother of all non jobs as it is, can't even be bothered to do the one small thing they're paid X million pounds a year to do. I understand that clubs don't want to send the players whose contracts they're paying off to play for their national teams and get injured and tired in the process, but the current solution is a complete nonsense. If nobody can be bothered to turn up, then just don't bother playing them in the first place. Frankly, I could do without Stewart Downing meandering down the left hand side and knocking in thirty over hit crosses, or Jermain Dofoe missing chance after chance from three yards out. And now, thanks to money bags ITV, it'll be accompanied by Clive Tyldsley's inane brand of hyperbolic commentary, each line trying to be more dramatic and climatic than the last, constantly looking for his 'they think it's all over moment'. And I know what you're thinking, if you don't like it, why watch it? Well, it's England, so you're always going to end up watching it, no matter how dire it is, even when Jermain Jenas comes on. It's like supporting Newcastle United, without having a choice. Destined to shit for eternity yet still maintaining a perennial hope of better things to come. Here's hoping it'll be better than we expect.

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