What an uplifting performance. I'm just elated.

Unfair to single out individuals in such a wonderful team performance, but Seaman, Ferdinand, Butt, and Scholes were truly oustanding. Considering he has been out injured and hasn't played for several weeks, Nicky Butt played the game of his life, and was undoubtedly the MOTM.

SGE did his job and the team tactics were spot on, denying the Argies the time and space they needed to use their talents to the full. The substitution of the injured Hargreaves with Trevor Sinclair was a masterstroke, and imo critical to our victory as he was able to help out Ashley Cole who had been struggling. Sinclair also did quite well going forward.

I thought YMO also had a good game and could - perhaps should - have had a couple of goals. He also created a lot of uncertainty in the Argies defence and kept them fully occupied.

Fanastic win that puts a very different complexion on the Table, and even throws up the possibility of Argentina going out - Sweden won't be a push over.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2002

Answers

.....forgot to mention - you had to take your hat off to Captain Marvel having to take that penalty.

As he was waiting for Colina's whistle he looked a bag of nerves, and in these circumstances his decision to just blast it was clearly the right one.

While I'm on, what an excellent game by the Referee. He created the atmosphere for a game that was thankfully free from negative incident - once he had booked Batistuta anyway!

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2002

Without wanting to sound all Gav, I agree that we should not have sat back and tried to defend a one goal lead like that.

We were lucky, plain and simple. Everyone played their hearts out and did us proud, however we rode our luck. I think on the match thread Gav was just pointing that out. A couple of the Argies were slightly off their games. It all goes into making up the full 90 minutes. The last thing we want is for some of the players to go out and think they can walk all over Nigeria because we beat the Argies 1-0!

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2002

Good Point Mr C. A sign of a great ref is that you rarely see him in the game, and until you brought it up I didn't even think of him. How right you are about him though - he was barely visible in what could have been, potentially, a blood bath. However, there were a number of tackles which in my opinion could have warranted a card.Not least Beckham!

If Simeone had elbowed Beckham in the face and made his nose bleed we'd have been banging on about 'he should have been sent off'; 'dirty Argie Bastards' etc. I reckon Becks was lucky there, albeit there was(I feel) no intent.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2002

I thought they played well, and deserved to win over the course of the match. They could have been at least two up before the Argentinians came back into the match. The French commentators were impressed with England, especially Guy Roux (Manager of Auxerre). He did say, quite rightly I think, that the French match yesterday needed someone like Collina in charge. He thought the ref's authority stopped Argentina from fouling as much as normal for a South American team.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2002

There was a very interesting, and thought-provoking, post-match discussion with a caller into 5Live this afternoon. He was born in Argentina, but has lived most of his life in the UK.

He was expressing concern about what the consequences could be for Argentina if the unthinkable happened after this afternoon's defeat by England - and they were dumped out of the World Cup at the Group stage.

He explained that there have been hopes that success in the WC could lift the spirits of the Argentinian people, who are in the grips of a massive economic collapse. He was fearing that another national failure at this juncture might just have terrible consequences for his country.

As the great and prophetic Bill Shankly once said "Of course football isn't life or death: it's far more serious than that!"

To get a sesne of what this 5Live caller meant, try the following link:

Argentina's Children

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2002

Personally I am on top of the world.....fantastic match, incredibly tense at the end, some great performances, including the ref`s. All week I have been feeling proud of my country. Fortunate, happy and maybe even kind of smug that this week has proved that we are not a nation of cynics.

Clarky`s posting is a good reminder that we have plenty of reasons to feel fortunate to be British, English, whatever, not just when the World Cup is on, or there is a national event to celebrate. We take a lot for granted on a daily basis. I shall still revel in today`s victory, but I don`t feel quite so much like crowing about it now.

I would have felt like sh*t today if we had lost, but at least my family would not have been starving.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2002

Put this down to my complete and utter ignorance of Argentina Clarky, (other than Evita, that is) but is there some reasom why charity in Argentina can't begin at home ?

And while I'm down here, I'm glad I'm not young enough to feel character-mouldingly guilty that I leapt in with both feet with the opinion that king David should have been kicked into touch as far as international football goes, when he was sent off last time we played this lot.

As for the game, I still feel like a piece of chewed string.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2002

I clicked clarky, children are children!

I watched the match live on TV but I missed the national anthems; which anthem was played first (and therefore, who startet the booing?) and, why was "God Save the Queen" played twice?

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2002

I don't follow you're logic Pit Bill. Argentina is in the midst of a massive economic crisis that has seen the country virtually bankrupted when it was in default of it's national debt payments.

Visit the site I provided a link to and it will give you a flavour for some of the problems the ordinary people are facing as a consequence of the country's economic problems. These kind of problems don't just affect the nation's fat cats you know!

-- Anonymous, June 08, 2002

I went into and out of it four times and clicked each time, Clarky, for what good it'll do, because believe it or not, I do have sympathy for the ordinary people, not just the kids, who're suffering probably through no fault of their own.

My point was that like every capitalist 'democracy' in the world, the filthy rich have more than likely exported there readies to off-shore accounts that won't be touched by the state of the Argy economy, and I'll bet anything you like, not many of them will go to that site and click.

If things are so bad, why don't they club together and help bail their country out, even if it means experiencing just a hint of what those kids are suffering ?

The naivety of that last bit was purely sarcastic cynicism, by the way.

-- Anonymous, June 08, 2002

"If things are so bad, why don't they (ie. the country's wealthy) club together and help bail their country out, even if it means experiencing just a hint of what those kids are suffering?"

Because like their equivalents here, most of 'em won't give a crap - and even if they did their contribution is unlikely to even make a dent in the problem.

Does that mean that we also shouldn't care?

-- Anonymous, June 08, 2002

... most of 'em won't give a crap ...

Hence my sarcastic cynicism. But I can't lose sight of the likelihood that, as here, something like 75% of the wealth is in the hands of 10% (if that) of the population, so I need to be convinced that more effort on their part would make very little impression on the problem.

My cynicism wasn't meant to imply that I take the approach that if they're not prepared to make the effort, why should I ?

If the few of us who gibber on here spent even just one day going onto that site and repeatedly clicking, how long would it be before the sponsors noticed that it was starting to cost them real money and

-- Anonymous, June 08, 2002

Sorry Clarky. Ignore most of the crap in that last post, I hit the 'Submit' accidentally half way through setting it up.

Just to be sure, I went back to the site to remind myself what it was about, and it looks a bit more genuine than my first visit lead me to believe. Most of the cynical garbage in that accidental one wouldn't have been in the eventual post.

Now I feel like a bit of chewed string that's passed through a cow's digestive system.

What was this thread about originally, by the way ?

-- Anonymous, June 08, 2002