The man who recently underwent knee surgery needed just
two touches to finish off a Steven Gerrard flick on in the second half. Muslera
cleared a long ball and Captain Fantastic’s jumped did not elevate him enough
to make the relevant contact with the ball. Suarez lurked behind and outpaced
Cahill, looked up to see the position of the goalkeeper, got his eyes on the
ball, adjusted his stride and concentrated on the technique of striking the
ball with his arms wide for balance. He
hit the ball hard in the middle, as if to dissect it into two hemi-spheres. Hart
tried to spread his body across the goal by advancing and narrowing the angle,
but he could not even see the ball whistle past him.
Looking at the body of the whole match, Uruguay had
a game plan to deny England’s youthful team any space to settle on the ball and
the time to think. They pressed hard high on the pitch and reduced the space by
moving quickly to press when the ball moved from one player to the next. They
packed the midfield, doubled up in marking, and got as many men behind the ball
as possible. They were in ‘take-no-prisoners’ mood and were lighting fast in
transition and were always first on both the first and second balls.
England started the match hoping for a calculative
affair. They were taken unawares as they got intimidated and denied any space
to play. They became ‘uncomposed’ and gave away the ball quite easily. The
defence panicked and threw themselves at the ball and in flew into tackles. The
wingbacks found pockets on the right and more so on the left with Baines. The
frustration over failure to construct any methodical attacks caused anxiety and
desperation in preparation zone as the midfielders tended not to track down
their men as well as the third man running.
The marking was very bad and many crosses found
their way to the penalty box as the wide men arrived late from attacking
duties. However, the wide man run forward proved useful as Glen Johnson
supplied Wayne Rooney with a tap-in in between Suarez’s double. Cahill robbed
the Liverpool striker of the ball and quickly passed to Steven G who played
with Daniel Sturridge who turned well and fed the overlapping Johnson on the
right. The right back took his man on, darted in and out into the penalty box
and passed to Rooney who timed his run perfectly and finished with aplomb. Rooney
had a good match, forcing a fantastic save from the keeper and hitting a post
with header from a foot out.
England could not string passes together and had no
rhythm at all as they could not cope with the pace and intimidation of the
South Americans. Their attacking moves out of the midfield and the entries into
the final third lacked urgency and pace. Besides being too slow in mounting attacks, they were guilty of taking too long to deliver crosses too, allowing Uruguay to regroup and take good defensive positions and shape. As a result, Uruguay had sufficient
personnel to deal with any threats posed, particularly forcing early shots that
went off target, were weak or went straight to Muslera.
It must be said that Rooney finally got a Fifa World
Cup goal.
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