Mon, Jul 03, 2006 - Page 19 News List

World Cup: English critics pan coach Sven

NO FOND FAREWELL Past players and current managers opined in the wake of Saturday's loss to Portugual that Eriksson would not be missed

AP , LONDON

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.

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