大象传媒

"How could the clever prisoners escape from under our eagle eyes....the guards smelt a rat...the game is up."? Oh boy!

You dozed off .... Try having to get up at 3am to watch the games now and then function (or appear to function) at work all day.....especially faced with the dull greyness of an England performance.

The sooner they reschedule so that us in NZ and Oz can see the games at a reasonable hour with a beer in hand the better ;-) Its just so unfair, NZ has such a massive footballing heritage... both of us want to watch the games !

As a three lions fan in Malaysia, sometimes I wonder whether these players actually played in the EPL or the 2nd Division of England.

Probably some of you may agree with me that England is playing rather cautiously.

Firstly, players do not want to get injured. After the Michael Owen saga the coaches have probably advised them not to be too enthusiastic but try to contain the balls and keep possession.

Secondly, most English players realised that they do not know which referees have mood swings. In the first game against Paraguay, the Mexican referee had blown his whistle numerous times against Peter Crouch because of his size.

Thirdly, English players do not regularly play football in extreme hot weather. In order to play with flair and positiveness, then you need to increase energy. As such if players keep playing at a certain pace the energy might not be sufficient if England reached a certain qualifying round. Players need to conserve energy and focus every five or six days. In the EPL teams like Arsenal, Chelsea, MU or Liverpool that have Euro matches during the midweek do not play like they have superstars on their teams. And Chelsea regularly rotate players to keep the momentum of winning.

Fourthly, at the end of the game the word is "qualify." Six months later, most people have forgotten how England played. The only thing people can remember is at what stage England has qualified to. How many people can remember Greece played poorly and yet they won the Euro? Not until some journalist remembered and highlighted how Greece played.

This seems as good a place as any to talk about yesterday's game. The media is obsessed by Beckham. He is a figure who polarises everyone: you idolise him or hate him. And understandably, there have been lots of calls to drop him from the team. But the obsession with Beckham masks the fact that another England player has been playing appallingly badly - far worse than Beckham. Frank Lampard has had a terrible tournament. In four games, he has not made one decent pass, one telling tackle and his finishing has been appalling. He's got himself into some good positions, but has consistently missed the target or shot tamely at the keeper. Yesterday's match was perhaps his worst. There came a moment in the second half where confusion in the Ecuadorian defence left Lampard one on one against the keeper, and he tried to square the ball to Rooney, only to hit the simple pass several yards behind Wayne. His form is dreadful. Many commentators have lambasted Beckham and asked whether he can justify his inclusion in the team on dead-ball situations alone, but they miss the fact that the entire England team is designed to allow Lampard and Gerrard to play together in midfield. Which means that yesterday England played with a five man midfield and Rooney was sadly isolated up front. The Manchester United fattie did as well as he could on his own, but it was clear that he was highly unlikely to score. So, if Sven really wants to be bold, he should worry less about Beckham and think about dropping Lampard and reverting to a 4-4-2, with Carrick or Hargeaves as a holding player, Gerrard as an attacking midfielder and letting Peter Crouch join in the attack alongside Rooney.

Besides the WC, Dresden is a city of history and mysticism like their team Dynamo Dresden.. Very successfull in the past, very unknown at the present with one player in WC..

'This has been our first foray into the former GDR during our trip'. Eh? Pardon me for raising a point of geo-political correctness but you have been inside the bounds of Saxony and the former DDR/GDR for a few days. Otherwise, why is there that Stasi museum in Leipzig? and why is Leipzig known as the City of Heroes after the events of November '89?

Pity you did not have more time in Dresden, especially for the galleries (painting and porcelain) in the Zwinger Palace. Truly amazing - you need to give youself at least two days to take it all in properly.

For an explanation of why some Dresdeners may express anti-British sentiment, and of how both Germans and British continue to labour under misunderstandings of the truth about the Dresden raids in 1945, I recommend 'Dresden', an excellect and accessible history by Frederick Taylor

I think you should appreciate that, as children, some now elderly Dresdeners, would have seen thousands of corpses burnt on open pyres in the public spaces where you sipped you beers.

James, sorry for any confusion - I actually meant our weekend in Leipzig, Colditz and Dresden.

And yes, although I thought Dresden had many beautiful buildings anyone with their eyes open could see that the huge open spaces in the city centre were not the product of long-term planning but a legacy of the bombing raids.

Is the link to the Colditz video broken?

BTW I visited the castle last year and can guess which lady was your guide - she's a very charming person altogether and coped wonderfully well with the potential quite awkward situation of guiding what were mostly older British people.

As a former West-German I had no idea what Colditz is/was. As a matter of fact this is the first time I'm hearing or reading that name in my life. It must be one of those long-long-long-time-ago things the English keep being obsessed with...