Football Euro 2004

I've been enjoying these European Championships. It's great to see overpaid, puffed up superstars get humped by much less glamorous players and teams. One by one the big guns have fallen; Spain, Italy, Germany, France and of course England. England, oh England... you really should have won this trophy, it had your name written all over it even more so than the last World Cup which you also threw away. You actually have a solid little team there which unlike the other superstar nations, listed above, are the right side of 30.

So what went wrong? It was plain to see through my eyes of a Northern Irishman living in Scotland. Beckham wasn't fit or interested or very good and your manager, Sven, was scared, cautious, blind, tactically inept etc etc. Scollari had the balls to hook the useless Luis Figo and won the match (and probably the Championship). Sven didn't have the balls to hook Beckham and lost.

I actually predicted before the England v France match kicked off that Beckham would retire from International football at the end of the Championship. It is looking like he won't, but he should. The writing has been on the wall for him for a long time now. Ferguson knew it and acted upon it, Sven now knows it but will never act.

England will easily qualify from their World Cup group (along with my beloved Norn Iron... I can dream can't I?) but unless Sven ditches Beckham for good, the same painful story of Referee bias, unlucky breaks, crumbling penalty spots, long season etc etc will be replayed over and over again. I can hardly wait.

Category:

• Sport
• Football
• World+Cup
• Euro+Championship