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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

"You're a kick and rush team! Germany legend Franz Beckenbauer blasts England"


Franz Beckenbauer, two times Ballon d'Or winner, three times European Cup winner and a World Cup winner as both a player and a manager, has had his footballing knowledge thrown in to question by the Daily Mail's Chief Football Writer, Matt Lawton. A man who apparently does not even rate Spanish and Barcelona legend Xavi.

This is based on an article Beckenbauer wrote for his column in The South African Times.
In the article Beckenbauer offers his opinion on England's short-comings and expresses his belief that they are a 'kick and rush' team.  I know, England!

Lawton sees this as an attack on the scale of Pearl Harbour.  Or to bring that analogy up to date, Iraq.

Lawton's attack mainly consists of cheap World War II references ('blasts England', 'an astonishing, unprovoked attack', 'das boot') because Beckenbauer is a GERMAN and, you know, they have a history and, well, boooooooooooooooooo!

In fact, if we look around even the most vaguely credible football journalism, Beckenbauer's comments seem quite gentle.  Check out what fellow compatriot Sean Ingle, writing for the Guardian's excellent Fiver football blog, says about it all;
"... it seems clear from these few comments that Beckenbauer is living in something of a dream world. There is nothing kick and rush about England's tactics under Don Fabio. In fact anybody who had actually watched the game against USA! USA!! USA!!! would have noted a pointed absence of any kind of "rush". Instead this was a hyperspace leap forward into "kick and vaguely amble" tactics, mixed with an occasional switch to "kick and wheel around in a tearful panic" tactics. For much of the second half we even saw the brilliantly pared-down "kick and kick" style, or even for a while just "kick". "   Guardian Football World Cup 2010 Live Blog
Still, it's good to have someone to take the attention away from the second rate football team that the papers, Danish beer companies and Swiss chocolate conglomerates have been over-hyping these last few weeks.
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