The worlds biggest tournament is due this year, The World Cup happens every 4 years once and this year marks the 4th year since the last and for the first time its happening in South Africa. Even if you are not the biggest football fan, World Cup will draw the numbers who would be glued on their tv sets even if its the wee hours to watch the games.
Ask anyone which team they support, 4 out of 10 will say Brazil, another 2 will say Argentina or Germany, 2 others will say France or Italy and that last 1 are the others(thats where i fall). Im a England supporter from the time i started watching football. This was about 21 years ago when i was 10 and watched the likes of John Barnes and Ian Rush running around in their very short shorts and the fighting spirit and the flair in the Liverpool team drew me to support them and there was no looking back since.
Being a football fan, i followed the English League closely as well. It didn’t matter if it was Manchester United or the rowdy Arsenal team which had trouble finishing games with 11 players. When you follow the English league as close as i did, its a little hard not to support the national football team. At one point i started getting disappointed that the foreign influx of players was hurting the national team (like i was English 
)
The English never had a god enough manager in my opinion to drive them thru to win a World Cup. Its amazing that a country that host the best league in the world has only won the world cup once in 1968!
In my memory i remember Terry Venables being the manager and since then England have been changing managers every 4-5 years and in my view there was nobody special that had the ability to take the team to the finals. England needed a Guus Hiddink, Sven Goran Eriksson came in with a huge reputation but he was rubbish!
Who are we kidding, England has truck load of talents but there wasn’t a manager who came on and picked a team based on form. It was managers picking players based on their inflated reputation which often dont mix in a team. Yes they were good players but there was just no chemistry.
In my view, this world cup England have a good chance to go far and even win it! They finally have a manager in Fabio Capello looks very promising so far. He was appointed manager in 2008 and so far won 16 drew 2 and lost 4 out of the 22 games that he has led the team out to the field.
He is a no nonsense and based on the players that have taken field since he came into the equation, it looks like he will be taking the players who are on form to the World Cup(i hope) and not based on their reputation.
For me in a knock out tournament like the world cup, the manager is very important..as important as the players. So I’m quietly optimistic that England will do well. So to the Brazil fans who are United supporters or the German Arsenal fans. Its not going to be as easy as usual when you make your last 8 minimum.
I think that this World Cup is going to be superb and since i support a team that rarely does well in the World Cup, i hope they do well to give us England fans something to cheer about. And i bet you can understand my predicament considering I’m a Liverpool supporter too!
Here’s to a Superb World Cup 2010!
This blog post is submitted as part of Sony Ericsson’s Extra Time campaign. You can read the other local football stories here.
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