Hey morning everyone! Just can’t wait for Wazza’s 50th International goal!
What a fantastic athlete and great English ambassador!
He has achieved so much in his career, joining Bobby Charlton as the highest goal scoring English player ever and he is set to break that record tonight at Wembley, I’m sure Sir Bobby would be proud of him
To score 20, 30 and now almost 50 goals at that level is a super achievement, and to think he did it in just 106 games just like Bobby Charlton? That is awesome!
As they say, numbers don’t lie and if there is anything about numbers it is that Wayne would still eclipse that number in his career anytime soon (perhaps tonight) God forbid any serious accident on or off the pitch.
So congratulations Wayne Rooney, and we are cheering you on as you go for gold tonight to make it half a century.
Well done Wazza, go for it!
Wales on the other hand look like qualifying for a major tournament for the first time in many years after many years of heartache, disappointment and many fantastic players Finally, it’s just one point away from qualification for Wales and this is by no means a small feet for this Welsh team.
John Toshack, Neville Southall, the late Gary Speed, Chris Coleman, Craig Bellamy, Ian Rush, Mark Hughes, Ryan Giggs have all tried to no avail, so respect to Chris Coleman and his boys led by Aaron Ramsey and Gareth Bale. Dare we say congratulations?
Now Belgium is the surprise team of the moment in every way. A year ago the world was in awe of the array of talent at Marc Wilmots disposal and with one of the best squads in Brasil, a lot has happened in the last year.
If you were to name a few teams that would have qualified for the Euros by this stage based on their World Cup performance, Belgium would have been one of those
Benteke, Hazard, Kompany, Courtois, DeBruyne, Alderweid, Vertonghen, Chadli, Lukaku, Origi, Martens and many others.
But as I watched them again this weekend, they struggled to impose their game upon lesser opposition.
Maybe it’s the fact that even the experienced players in the team are relatively young or a sense of fulfilment within a generation that probably arrived early and with relative ease?
As a Chelsea fan I worry for Hazard, and as we all know, talent is sometimes overrated.
The talents that eventually become superstars had to work at it daily, monthly, and at every game they had an infinite desire to do things others couldn’t dare do.
Is Hazard lacking that deep desire? Is he satisfied with what he has done so far?
That would be a shame if this were the case for this fantastic ball artist, as I think the world has not even seen anything from him yet.
Benteke, Martens, Chadli, DeBruyne, Courtois and the rest are all young boys who are on the brink of greatness, so can Marc Wilmots bring out the best in them?
And as for Benteke, is he feeling the weight on his shoulders already? Is he allowing his price tag to affect him? Since he moved to Anfield, we haven’t seen the guy who terrorised defences in the Villa shirt, he was so poor he had to be substituted at half time in the last game. Lots of promises in this team, but soon the fans would start demanding more, and rightly so.
Diego Costa is always busy. If he is not busy getting into a stand off with his opposition, he is busy berating the grass after another referees decision or even harassing the officials about another decision gone the opponents way.
What’s no disputing is that he that continues to keep defenders busy during games and has failed to score in several games.
His work rate is excellent but goal
Scorers are always remembered for the goals they scored and unfortunately Diego hasn’t been doing a lot of that lately, hence the stick he is getting from Spanish fans.
He is unlucky that his sojourn with Spain has actually started at the end of an era so momentum is low and the aura of invincibility has disappeared altogether
One thing is certain, the next few weeks will go a long way as to how the season would pan for him; can he stay clear of trouble? Can he avoid injury? And ultimately would Chelsea FC find their mojo back so he can get back to goal ways?
The Orangees also continue to struggle as last years semi-finalists crumbled to a
3-0 defeat to Turkey. Danny Blind could have changed the whole personnel for all he cared and he would still wouldn’t have gotten anything from this game
So where is the Dutch flair that we are all used to? Where is the new Cruyff? The new Neeskens? Gullit, Van Basten, Rikjaard, Koeman, Seedorf, Davids, Blind?
The talents keep emerging but instead of playing three, four, five years in Holland, Premiership money means they aren’t baked before they ship out of Holland.
The signs have always been there but have now just surfaced from within:
Ajax have just been knocked out of the champions League and no Dutch team have qualified for a Champions league quarter final for about seven years.
Can Danny Blind save this team? Can he save his country?