Every four years is an excellent changes for nations to go show off the the talent that their borders have nurtured from youth level. When you think about a professional player's journey to reach it to the top it really is a lot invested. Like time. How many times has a goalkeeper every caught a ball. How many tackles has a defender put in throughout his lifespan. When did a striker scored his first goal. You get what I'm saying. Governments, well some of them pour vast amounts of funding into their nations sporting sector in order to breed a golden child or even a golden generation. This current crop of Spanish players are Spain's golden generation. While there is a renaissance going on in Spain, their is a tragedy going on in places like Italy and France. They should remember in order to find gold you have to wade through tin so nations like Italy and France should know it will take awhile. While they wade through the garbage I will pick at it for fun. The World Cup for all its dazzle and a good platform to ink your name on the pleasant side of history's pages, it is also a wonderful way to embarrass yourself on a global stage and bring shame and disgrace to your family name. I have found such gentlemen at this summer's carnival. Lets take a look at the losers shall we.World Cup Squad
(Coach)
Raymond Domench (FRA)
(Goalkeepers)
Robert Green (ENG), Faouzi Chaouchi (ALG), Ri Myong Guk (PRK)
(Defenders)
Fabio Cannavaro (ITA), Martin Demichelis (ARG), Chidi Odiah (NGA), Patrice Evra (FRA), Cha Jong Hyok (PRK), Craig Moore (AUS), Joseph Yobo (NGA), William Gallas (FRA)
(Midfielders)
Sidney Govou (FRA), Steven Pienaar (RSA), Felipe Melo (BRA), Sani Kaita (NGA), Claudio Marchisio (ITA), Tim Cahill (AUS),Walter Martinez (HON), Vince Grella (AUS)
(Forwards)
Alberto Gilardino (ITA), Nikola Zigic (SRB), Wayne Rooney (ENG), Nicolas Anelka (FRA)
Formation
4-4-2
The most basic of formations in football. I chose it because I would not want to confuse these poor guys too much but given their performances and the characters in this squad they will find a way to f**k it up. Also it is an extremely effective and flexible formation. Even though each and everyone of them played like a middle age Ecuadorian midwife with menstrual cramps I still want them to redeem themselves.
Starting XI
Goalkeeper- Robert Green (ENG)
Right Back- Chidi Odiah (NGA)
Centre Back- Fabio Cannavaro (ITA)
Centre Back- Martin Demichelis (ARG)
Left Back- Patrice Evra (FRA) (captain)
Right Midfielder- Sidney Govou (FRA)
Centre Midfielder- Felipe Melo (BRA)
Centre Midfielder- Sani Kaita (NGA)
Left Midfielder- Steven Pienaar (RSA)
Striker- Nicolas Anelka (FRA)
Striker- Wayne Rooney (ENG)
WHY?
Robert Green- Listen everyone has been giving this guy a hard time for his high profile gaff against the United States that cost his nation what would have been a scrappy victory. They are right in giving him a hard time, at this level you have to be better than that this isn't the Sunday league. Don't worry Robert I am here to your rescue. I think your a great goalkeeper and you had a mental lapse. Do I think you should have been England's No. 1? That would be a no. Robert Green is not very vocal and doesn't command a defense and is really a man who is a better shot stopper and reaction keeper although he didn't prove his shot stopping abilities on this occasion. I really feel sorry for Green the media the world over ripped him apart and his coach Fabio Capello yanked him from the starting XI so the guy didn't even had the chance to redeem himself.
Chidi Odiah- Have you ever met someone who clearly has been told by others they are actually good at something when you know and can clearly see that they are absolutely horrible. Chidi Odiah is that man. Where did this guy come from. I think he is quite possibly the worse thing since BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Holy sh*t I don't think I saw him make a decent pass. A baby gold fish has better defense skills than this man and the person that told him that attacking from a fullback position was a good idea on his part is a dumb ass not only is he slow he constantly got stripped of the ball. I couldn't believe he is a professional no wonder Nigeria looked so out of place. He is a shame to the Russian first division and his club CSKA Moscow. I think he should be a farmer. That is just me. Don't get me wrong he had a bad tournament on a bad team but from what I saw he was real bad.
Fabio Cannavaro- As that famous footballing cliche' states. "Oh what a difference four years makes. Four years ago Italy was crowned world champions with then skipper Fabio Cannarvo hoisting the trophy aloft in Germany he was 32 then. In 2010 he hoisted his luggage in his over head compartment on the plane ride back to Rome. I'm not mad at Cannavaro for wanting to serve his nation. He is a real patriot but Lippi you are the monster here. You made a 36 year old outfield player shoulder the responsibility of guiding a back line. Cannavaro was at fault for the goals Italy conceded. He was out of position, slow to recover and the men he was marking was literally one step ahead or even eight and he heaped so much pressure on his partner Chellini he wasn't able to settle.He quite simply was a liability. I felt sorry for him, to go from a god to a pariah he deserved better and I think he should have let fresh blood be able to show what they could do. Selfish really.
Martin Demichelis- When Diego Maradona took over the head coaching role of the Argentine national team I said this will be good fun to watch and it has been. Love Maradona to death but as a coach I still have my doubts. When he inherited the squad he gain attacking wonders such as Diego Milito, Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez. Who are absolutely great but he also got in the deal Gabriel Heinze who can be erratic, Walter Samuel a foul machine and kick everybody Javier Mascherano but he also gained Demi. Demichelis was not tested by the likes of Greece or Nigeria but I could see they were going to have a problem. In the Mexican game which the Argentines won he looked shaky a good indicator for what was to come. The Germans picked him apart not only do the Germans know what he can and can't do from encountering him in their very own Bundesliga but in general Martin is not the greatest defender in the world. His game is more about passing and man to man marking. It didn't help Burdisso was in there next to him instead of the usual Samuel but thats no excuse. He should have known what to expect with the Germans he plays with them like every day. You would think he would learn a thing or two.
Patrice Evra- If there ever was a more destructive force in football Patrice Evra towers over it and makes it feel like the gust of wind that came before the category four hurricane. Pele running at you with his Brazilian swagger dangerous you say? No. There is nothing more deadly than Patrice Evra. You drop this guy in any squad for nine days and I guarantee you he will find away to cause a mini revolt. He and a couple of others are the sole reason for the French abysmal World Cup. Let me tell you what this pompous idiot did. He and a few undermined the very same coach who picked them to represent their nation, refuse to train because another douche bag on the team thought he had more authority than the coach and not only did he kicked started something reminiscent of the Jacobin era in the French camp he also gave half as performances all because you didn't like the coach and your buddy got sent home for being naughty. He doesn't even deserved to be mentioned for his football. He is extremely poor for team chemistry. Domench is an idiot but your a dummy for taking him on and not concentrating on your own game.
Sidney Govou- Hatem Ben Arfa, Karim Benzema, Samir Nasri and David Trezeguet where all left home at the expense of a one named Sidney Govou. Now I think Sidney has had some sparkingly performances in a Lyon shirt. He is an icon of that club and forever be remembered in Lyonnais. However I wish I could forget his French performances this summer. One of the few players Domench actually likes, don't know why.He really did nothing. I can't remember a telling cross, a shot on target or a defender eluded. He even kept Florent Malouda who was in sparkling form for Chelsea in the months leading up to the cup out of the starting line up. There was no menace or penetration to his play. Uruguay kept him quite and Mexico didn't have to pay too much attention to him because he didn't do any thing. To think Benzema and Ben Arfa were at home while this guy ran around without a clue and even though those two were not available France's coach Domench hardly looked to the bench to replace him. He probably tried really hard this tourney but he was over all just a bad selection which really isn't his fault.
Felipe Melo- He is as hated as LeBron James in Cleveland right now. If you don't know NBA star and long serving Cleveland Cavalier was turned his back on his hometown of Cleveland to go for the Miami Heat in some sort of super basketball team. The Cleveland fans reacted by burning his jersey and threatening his family. In the world of football right now Felipe Melo is his equivalnet. It was his own goal against Holland that got the Dutch back in the game but he does make the all-star loser brigade not because of the own goal he made it is because he lashed out at the opposition tried to injure a fellow professional and got sent off thus causing his team the game. The funny thing is Brazil could have won. The games was tied with a sizable portion of the game yet to play. Now he has gone into hiding in his native Brazil because the people pretty much want to beat the shit of him.
Sani Kaita- I'm actually really concern for this young man's life. As you may or may not know Nigeria didn't win a single game at the World Cup. Kaita was instrumental in denying them what would have been a win. In Nigeria's game versus Greece, a game the Nigerians were winning until Kaita stupidly got himself sent off my kicking at a Greek player. Nigeria went on and loss the game basically eliminating them from the competition. As a response to this the Nigeria fans have demonized Kaita. Sending him death threats if he were ever to return to Nigeria. My thing is if you guys want to kill someone based on error what is the point of playing the game. What he did was asinine but to want to take his life is a bit too much. Nigeria were awful in general. He wasn't playing badly he just made a rash decision but it basically caused his nation their spot in the round of 16 so he deserves to make this squad purely on stupidity.
Steven Pienaar- I called it. A couple of blog post ago I said South Africa were in trouble because their best player was Steven Pienaar. Boy I was right. He hardly did anything. He didn't even bother to give the home fans something to cheer about. He was ordinary, lax, unimaginative and really got over awed by the occasion. He looked very tired and out of ideas. I say this to Everton, now would be a good time to cash in on this guy. At times I didn't know where he was playing. I understand South Africa was not a very good team but Pienaar didn't look like he was ready to do anything with the ball. I would say he was a huge let down but I had my doubts before the World Cup, so thank you Steven for making me look good.
Nicolas Anelka- You know I was really starting to you buddy. I understand you had to try out a lot of clubs and found it hard to settle. The Real Madrid and Arsenal thing didn't work out and then you came to Bolton Wanderers and revived your career. Now you have found a home at Chelsea and you seem welcomed there. This World Cup that hard work you put in to drop that tag of Le Sulk was all for naught. I think he was the worse player to ever play at any of the World Cups. I am not blaming him for his playing performance because France's personnel and tactics were awful but for his role in the French scandal. This guy got sent home from the tournament. He swore at the coach and was the ring leader in the French training debacle. He is a cancer if I was organizing a girl scout bake sale I would not even let him in on it. He would try to fight the troop leader. He has no shame. Even if France didn't have internal beef he would still find a way to mess things up.
Wayne Rooney- England wow. To my vast knowledge England has basically created all of the world's major and popular sports. They have been accredited with football (soccer). The came up with cricket. They invented rugby. They gave birth to basketball. That is pretty impressive for a country as big as the state Idaho. What I find laughable is that they are not very good at the lot of them. In football they do have one of the greatest leagues in the world but is flooded with foreigners and have one major title, a World Cup which they had to host in order to win. In rugby New Zealand, Australia and South Africa have all left the sorry English in their wake. They were good at cricket in the very beginning because no one else knew what the hell was going on. Then when the rest of the world figured it out the English started to get their ass kicked. So much so they are recruiting Kenyans such as Andrew Strauss and South Africans like Kevin Pietersen presently. There is not an Englishman in the NBA and if there is he can't be very good. England does want to admit it but they suck at their own sports. I have really gone off track here this little segment is dedicated to Mr. Rooney. Like the English fans which he jeered at the World Cup Rooney has a superiority complex. He and his sorry countrymen looked at the USA, Algeria and Slovenia and scoffed and said easy. Well it wasn't, they made it hard work just to advance beyond the group stage. Rooney looked tired redundant, frustrated, uninspired, edgy, bloated, upset and simply bad. He never looked dangerous. Maybe he was burned out, maybe he needs a Cristiano Ronaldo, maybe England is garbage, maybe they are elves. That's a lot of maybes. All I know he was poor and he had the gall to have a go at the fans for booing the team that played like children against the Algerians. Absolutely shameful.
Raymond Domench- They were a lot of poor coaches at the World Cup some I expected to struggle and others well fizzled out. It was a hard decision to pick the worse coach at the tournament, Capello was a joke. Lippi was a tradegy. Maradona did not write the story he craved but none were as bad as Raymond Domench. In 2006 he did get his nation to the WC final against Italy but ever since then he has been woeful. I told you this guy isn't a coach. The squad he chose were without men who could have change a game like Samir Nasri. Who he did choose were clearly not up to scratch like Sidney Govou. His unwillingness not to change things up this summer when the French were underperforming was just testament to the man's own narcissistic nature. He clearly has no respect from the players because the mini revolution would not had happen if he did. Nor does he have respect for the players. Thierry Henry a supposedly senior member of the team was relegated to becoming the 4th choice striker behind Anelka, Gignac and Cisse. He discarded the veteran as if he was like a piece of parchment paper. Nor did he protect his players after bad performances and to top it off he was disrespectful to the then South African coach by not shaking his hand after the game. Absolutely classless.
Substitutes
(GK) Faouzi Chaouchi- The only reason he is not in the starting XI is the fact Algreia weren't suppose to win anything and that Robert Green gaff was more horrendous. I suggest the Algerian work on his trade some more.
(GK) Ri Myong- Guk- In my crude calculations the North Korean goalkeeper has conceded a whopping 12 goals in this tournament in three games. You definitely made the squad.
(CB) Cha Jong Hyouk- He along with his goal keeper conceded 12 goals this tourney. I had to put him in he was the worse of the lot them.
(CB) Craig Moore- Showed every bit of his age during the tournament. Slow, a late tackler and compensates for his lack of talent through pure brute force. I was afraid this goon was going to break someone's leg.
(CB) Joseph Yobo- Terrible. I will leave it at that.
(CB) William Gallas- Looked confused and his relationship with Abidal looked strained.
(CM) Claudio Marchisio- Who? Exactly. Virtually was non existent for Italy.
(CAM/FW) Tim Cahill- You would think a guy with his experience would be able to rein in his tackles. Obviously he can't and his sending off in the Germany game shows why he will never win anything of real significance.
(CDM) Vince Grella- What? Another rash tackling, over aggressive Australian who does this because he lacks real talent. That is unreal. Join the line Grella, Moore, Cahill and Kewell are ahead of you.
(FW) Walter Martinez- Wow he was terrible. He just runs around. He just runs around. Did I mention he just runs around. If he linked five passes together please someone inform me.
(ST) Nikola Zigic- Congratulations Birmingham City of England you have just signed 7th feed of nothingness. How are you that tall and that weak in the air. Serbia disappointed me and I knew he wasn't great but he has cleared up any lingering doubts I had about how bad he is.
(ST) Alberto Gilardino-You know what? I'm going to leave you alone. Just watch him in his AC Milan days and this World Cup and that will explain better than I ever could.
Yip that's the worse of the worse. I know it's hard to come up with a full squad of the worse but just give a couple they are a lot of options out there.
