The High Price of England's Failure!

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England 2 - 3 Croatia


England threw the lifeline they received from Israel back in their face, with a disgraceful show by the team picked to play by their inept manager, Steve McClaren. The bosses at the FA have sacked him today, with a compensation package rumoured to be around £2.5 million. If this is the price of failure, surely those who appointed the manager should also be sacked, after what amounts to a national sporting scandal.


Back to the game. How could a manager play a rookie international goalkeeper with so much at stake? Carson simply didn't have the experience to play at this level, and it showed when, after only 8 minutes, Croatia went ahead. Kranjcar let fly from about 30 yards out, and it looked like as easy stop, until Carson somehow fumbled the ball into the net. The noisy England supporters were momentarily silenced, but they might have just thought that accidents can happen, on an atrociously wet night, in a first class stadium, on a third class pitch!


Astonishingly, but deservedly, Croatia went further ahead 6 minutes later, Eduardo strode confidently forward, and passed the ball to Olic, who coolly dribbled it round Carson, and tapped it home. England had seemingly collapsed at Wembley, after only 14 minutes.


After the interval Beckham and Defoe came on as substitutes for Barry and Wright-Phillips. England had a stroke of luck, in the 56th minute, when an assistant referee spotted Simunic tugging on Defoe's shirt. It wasn't a particularly serious foul, but after consulting with his assistant, the ref had no option but to award the penalty, which Frank Lampard coolly slammed home.


Ten minutes later Beckham despatched an inch perfect pass to Peter Crouch who expertly put it away. So the scores were level after 65 minutes, and if they had stayed that way England would have been safe. But with only about 20 minutes left, Croatia substituted the able Eduardo, with Petric. In the 77th minute Petric rewarded his manager's confidence, by scoring from about 25 yards out.


It was a great night for Croatia, who fully deserved to win, possibly by a wider margin. England are out of Euro 2008, which is one hell of a let down, not just for their fans as there is an estimated £2 billion loss to various businesses.


While sporting authorities seem content in following big business in rewarding failure, what real incentive is there to succeed? McClaren has trousered the sort of pay, that most of the 88,000 fans packed into Wembley, will not earn in their lifetimes. Sure he may have had a contract, but there are many who will think that whoever was responsible for awarding that ought to go too - but please no more big pay offs!


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England Vs Croatia
soccer and football
England Vs Croatia