It’s All Going Pear Shaped for England

Sven-Göran Eriksson admitted today that Wayne Rooney has more than one broken bone in his foot and will need a “miracle” to be fit in time for the World Cup.

For the normally reserved Sven to make such a frank statement, the news must have been bad. For England that is.

Poor England, they could be in tatters before they even get to meet Sweden in what promises to be one of the ties of the Group stages.

England have a poor record against Sweden and with the injury to Rooney looking increasingly serious, Steven Gerrard getting all emotional and upset that England won’t have a chance without the steely scouse striker, and the English supporters beginning to wonder if the omens are against them yet again, it’s all good news for Sweden.

To cap it all, the English FA seems to have shot itself in the foot with the hullabalooh surrounding the appointment of Sven’s successor. With Big Phil ruling himself out of the England job and deciding to stick with Portugal, Sven’s number 2 Steve McClaren looks increasingly likely to get the nod. Talk about undermining Sven. England’s players will be focused up to a point, but they’ll be uncertain about who they’re taking their orders from: the man approaching the exit or the man about to become their new boss.

It’s all starting to look like thing will go pear shaped for the English. Either that or they’ll finally learn to play as a team and actually come through and show some sustained quality for once.

Compared to the English, Sweden’s World Cup plans seem to be going fine. In fact, news paper Dagens Nyheter seemed to tempt the fates today by printing a picture of a young Henke Larsson ice skating in LA during the 1998 World Cup. It’s as if the paper wanted to remind Swedes that nasty accidents just don’t seem to befall our top strikers.
Photo: Zlatan