Englishman In Africa: Part 3
Well, I know I’m in South Africa and you guys have had a bad week with the football here, but at the moment I’m feeling a little bit let down by my own so-called national team, and from the people I’ve spoken to, you guys aren’t too happy about it either.
As I walked to the stadium on Friday night, I was blown away. The amount of support for our boys was intense, not just from our travelling fans but from our South African following as well and as for the ground… wow. The cleanliness, the organisation and just the pure aesthetic beauty of the place was incredible, the people here have done an immaculate job.
If only my team had been as brilliant as the view. On Friday night I saw my own team let down two nations and for the first time in my life, I was embarrassed to be English. To see so many glum faces, English and South African, was heartbreaking, the result was bad enough but the feeling of disappointment was overwhelming.
25,000
Along with the 10,000 who did make it in, were around 50,000 South Africans, sporting the red and white of the Three Lions and looking to see their heroes of the English Premier League perform. Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney. Not only did these players not perform, they didn’t look like they were even bothered.
Never have I seen Wayne Rooney bottle a challenge, on Friday he did it twice. Something is going wrong in the English game, I don’t know what it is but something is going awfully wrong.
All credit to the Algerians for holding
strong and getting a result out of the game, a game in which they looked like
the better side.
However, I’ll leave with two questions. Do these English players know how much the world respects them as footballers and more worryingly, do they even care?
|
|
|
|
