We was robbed!

[tas]

forget flaming you...

Flamethrower you

[Pex `Mahoney` Tufvesson]

After seeing the game (and knowing almost nothing about football, so feel free to disagree!) - I felt that it was a fair result of the game. The Portugese were playing great football, intense and technically great. Imho, England were just defending themselves, and that's not enough.

Also, the Portugese deserve to have their own team in their home tounament in the finals

[tas]

Pex, i think you'll find that 99% of the English would agree with you that portugal was the better team.

Tho, they deserve to be there on merrit, they certainly do not have the right to be their because of it's their tornament.

No sour grapes from me really, i wish portugal the best of luck from now on. We were beat by a good side.

[Waz]

Pex, i think you'll find that 99% of the English would agree with you that portugal was the better team.

Me included. I was more upset with the general performance of the referee over the game - the Portugese were the better side (and I freely admitted that in my original post, too) and they made England sit back and defend far too deep.

To clear things up for those of you not based in England, "we was robbed" is a phrase heard often in football when either one of the following occurs:

1 - You play really well but the referee gives you no decisions your way, then the other team gets a controversial 90th minute penalty and either draws the game or beats you. You're totally gutted.

2 - You're not playing well but manage to be drawing with the other team and you either score a goal that's disallowed by the ref, or you have a valid penalty claim denied.

As David Baddiel said the other night, "I've never seen Sven make an attacking substitution in his Swedish f****g life!" ;) and that's the consensus of a fair number of people that tactically, Sven got it wrong. He should admit it rather than blatantly say otherwise.

Four things England need to do before World Cup qualifying:

1 - Give Sol Campbell or Steven Gerrard the captaincy and drop it from Beckham. His form has been awful and sometimes the added pressure of the captaincy doesn't help matters.

2 - Pick Shaun Wright-Phillips. Please! Most of us here agree that he'd be excellent in the England set up and would scare the hell out of defenders who couldn't cope with his pace and ability. Oh, and he scores goals from midfield too.

3 - Drop David James. Even as a Man City fan (so I have to watch him every week, think how I feel!) he doesn't inspire that much confidence in the England defence. We need someone with a bit more command, maybe Chris Kirkland would be up to the job?

4 - Play more attacking football. You get nothing for defending.