So that's it. 120 minutes, penalties and the England team are on the plane home. In truth, we didn't really deserve to progress. Apart from 20 minutes in the first half, we didn't really play much football. I was disappointed with Rooney, he looked as if he lack half a yard of pace and his touch wasn't great. I thought the enforced break might give him a degree of freshness, but it wasn't to be. Personally I'd have taken Young off instead of Milner, who was having his best game for England. Maybe I'm biased but I thought Young was Englands weakest player in every game.
I thought the team did well to hang in. All the debate of Terry vs Ferdinand has been forgotten, with "football reasons" vindicating Roy Hodgson's decision. I don't really know what England can take away from this tournament. Our players did OK against average teams and less OK against good teams. The trouble we have is that there just aren't loads of great players waiting to break through. Sadly Theo Walcott did not have the impact this time. I suspect that Oxlade-Chamberlain may develop into a very useful player. Walcott also has started to show flashes of what he could become. The downside is that our two best players, Gerard and Terry are really starting to reach their sell by date.
As for penalties, what is it with England? We just seem to pick players who mentally crumble when they are faced with the situation. The other major nations never seem to have the same sort of problems, we were one up and we still crumbled. Oh well, let's hope that with a bit more time and a world cup qualifying campaign, Roy can do the business. It was almost fun whilst it lasted.
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