Manual : How to Play Football

I've never enjoyed football. Really. Last wednesday, I was dragged by four football fanatics to the beastly warfield of Wembley Stadium and was forced to sit for the longest one hundred minutes of my entire life. I hurt my butt, but it was an experience indeed.

It was the friendly match between England and France. Looking back at history, these people have never liked each other with the Brits secretly wishing the wind to sweep the evils out of the island and bring them south-east as it blows.

Pic credit to Acip

Anyway, I really wanted to blog about the match but it took me almost two hours to write a single sentence. Nothing came out and I just didn't know what and how to explain. Except for the rows of heart-stopping, godlike men in shorts and boots, of course. Other than that, I've always wondered why do guys get glued to the tele on weekends to watch twenty-two men running and chasing after a ball when they're supposed to be watching the likes of Maria Sharapova or Anna Kournikova. Hotness ok. 

Heck, I'll never understand men.

So I cheated and asked a dear friend to write about last week's game for me. And this is what I got:

"Andy Carroll, Kieran Gibbs and Jordan Henderson made their debut for England. I've been most impressed with Henderson's abililty to cover every blade of grass and last night's match was no different. Ben Foster started in goal as Joe Hart was sent back to Manchester City cuz he sustained back injury during training. As someone who has frequently played at centre back for his club, Jagielka was asked to fill in at the right back slot in the absence of Glen Johnson in otherwise a pretty solid young side. 

The game started quite brightly to England as Steven Gerrard fired a shot through a free kick in the first minute which was well saved by the frech goalkeeper, Hugo Lloris. after the shot, however, France took control of the game very quickly, largely inspired by some brilliant moves by Arsenal's Samir Nasri who regularly threatened England's shaky defence. With England's players were chasing shadows, unsurprisingly the first goal arrived in the 15th minutes from Karim Benzema of France after a neat one-two with Florent Malouda. 

I was expecting more from this so-called experimental side of England but the tactics that the Manager (Capello) used was very much similar to that of when he had his full injury-free squad at his disposal. He might have realized Carroll had a physical advantage against France’s centre-backs as England ended up resorting to long-ball tactics, pumping the ball into the box, hoping Carroll to be able to flick on the ball to the running wingers. The first half ended 1-0 to france.

In the second half, England made a few substitutions in order to cut France’s defence open. Not for the first time though England started the game well. This time, it was Micah Richards who made a powerful run down the right but the move was well-stopped by French’s left back, Eric Abidal. The only caution of the game came in the 49^th minute when Henderson made a reckless challenge on Nasri, leaving the referee with no choice but to show the yellow card. The next move in the 57^th min proved to be decisive for the away team as Valbuena connected well from a cross by the handsome Bakary Sagna who made a comfortable run down the right wing. England finally realized they were supposed to be playing football. 

A glorious chance came from Gerrard when he hit the  ball wide as a result of good piece of football by Adam Johnson. He blew it though. An injured Gerrard was substituted by Peter Crouch who then managed to make an immediate impact to his team as he volleyed the ball straight to the net from a corner in the 85^th minute.

With 5minutes to the final whistle, France intelligently adopted time-wasting tactics by making late substitutions , and keeping the ball to the each corner of the field. Very Henry-esque. Final score, England 1 – France 2.

Fun Fact: that was england’s first ever defeat at new wembley" - MME

Pic credit to Acip

I had to re-read five times (very slowly) to actually understand what he's talking about. Then I realised, hey I was at the stadium the whole time but I didn't see any yellow card being pulled out?

I guess my mind was somewhere else.