While English newspapers differed on the merits of Wayne Rooney's ejection in the World Cup loss to Portugal, they seemed united in their negative assessment of coach Sven-Goran Eriksson.
England exited the tournament on Saturday after a 3-1 penalty shootout loss in the quarter-finals in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in Eriksson's final game at the helm.
Joe Lovejoy, writing in the Sunday Times, argued the tournament was better without England.
PHOTO: AFP
"It will go down as the year they had two World Cups -- one illuminated by disciples of the Beautiful Game, the other played by England," he wrote. "When Sven-Goran Eriksson and his long-ball sect were eliminated on penalties by Portugal last night, it ended the embarrassment it has been to be an Englishman in Germany this past month."
Added Gary Lineker, former England star and current TV pundit, in the Sunday Telegraph: "This is a golden generation of English talent but in terms of picking the right squad and getting the right balance of the team, Eriksson ultimately got it wrong. It is as simple as this: Eriksson never gave them a chance."
The Observer also lamented what might have been.
"With England's World Cup hopes cruelly jettisoned, despite their spirited last-ditch stand at the Gelsenkirchen stadium, it's goodbye to Sven-Goran Eriksson, goodbye to the Wags [the England team's wives and girlfriends] and, in all probability, goodbye to what was England's best hope of World Cup glory for a generation," it said.
The Sunday Telegraph looked at the bottom line of the Eriksson reign.
"It cost the Football Association about 27 million pounds, or 100,000 a week, in wages for Eriksson and his principal assistant, Tord Grip, to reach a couple of World Cup quarterfinals," it said.
Opinions were split on Rooney's actions, however.
Tottenham manager Martin Jol, in a column for the Sunday Times, disputed the striker's red card.
"It wasn't even a booking," he wrote.
"When Rooney trampled on Ricardo Carvalho, he didn't do it on purpose," he added. "Before that he was being impeded and should have had a foul anyway. The referee blew his whistle and paused and was thinking of what to do when [Portugal's Cristiano] Ronaldo ran over and asked him to show a card. It's how Ronaldo always behaves, trying to influence referees, and it turns my stomach when players do that," Jol wrote.
Sir Geoff Hurst, hero of England's 1966 World Cup win, told the Sun he thought Rooney had failed to deal with the pressure of the match.
"Rooney's red card was the turning point -- it changed the flow of the game. We never looked in any danger but he's been found out in the big game. It's a huge disappointment as we could have gone much further," he wrote.
Former England manager Terry Venables also pointed at Rooney.
"To me it was a red card no question," he said in a column for the News of the World. "Let's be honest -- he stamped on Ricardo Carvalho where it really hurts, right in the groin. It was foolish. It was a moment of madness and it again underlined the fragility of Rooney's temperament."
"I have to say that hot-headed streak, that explosive loss of discipline is something which could threaten his abilities to become one of the world's great players," Venables wrote.
The Mirror had a more sympathetic view of Rooney and his red card.
"It felt another harsh decision against England by the Argentinian referee," Steve Purcell wrote.
Bolton Wanderers manager Sam Alladyce was also unimpressed by the referee's work with the whistle.
"The refereeing in Germany has been a joke, but last night Horacio Elizondo took it to a new level," he wrote in the News of the World. "He allowed himself to be conned, time ands time again."
"What is it about foreign teams being allowed to get away with play acting, feigning injury and so called simulation?' John Terry got booked for a brave, committed challenge, which actually ended up with him getting injured and then, of course, Wayne Rooney was sent off for, well, I still can't be certain," Alladyce wrote.
"He was actually fouled in trying to challenge for the ball but because he is so strong, so honest, so determined to win the ball, he stayed on his feet and was then penalized for it. Had he been a Portuguese player he would have thrown himself to the floor at the first moment of contact and won a free kick, long before the incident that earned him a red card," he wrote.
Most observers saved their praise for holding midfielder Owen Hargreaves, named man of the match.
"It is no exaggeration to state that, for an hour, he did the work of two men," said Patrick Barclay in the Sunday Telegraph.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later