Kriss Akabusi's Blog

I must admit I don’t know much about football. Well that’s what my mates tell me, why else would I follow West Ham ☺ It was only while watching England v Holland on the 29th February 2012 at Wembley that I realized that Captain Scott Parker was the same fella who had played for West Ham, I thought he was called Man of the Match Scottie Parker. Yeah alright, leave it leave it ☺

England lost 2-3 to a world class Holland Team, the same team (nine players) who were runner up to Spain two years ago at the World Cup of football. It was a friendly, between two teams preparing for the European finals taking place this year in June. The English team managed by Stuart Pierce, a veteran from the ‘Italia 90’ World Cup playing English team, made some daring additions to what has been an aging squad. He also picked an attacking line up full of young English flair players hungry to prove themselves to the manager, each other and the country.

Yes there were some questions, three strikers on show Daniel Sturridge, Danny Welbeck and Frazier Cambell had one goal between them in a collective four game start prior to this match, and the 14th pairing at center back were young, would they be naïve against such world class opposition? But the courage of our young lions was never in question. The Captain lead by example, putting the body on the line time after time, and that spread like a wild fire as the whole team, especially in the first half, made it extremely difficult for the technically proficient Dutch to break us down. England went into the second half definitely good value for the nil – nil draw. Not that the English team had been defensive, great runs, dribbling chicanery from our attackers Adam Johnson, Ashley Young, Danny Welbeck and when Sturridge came on the team had plenty of peeps at goal and an opportunity to nick the advantage. It was a great display of youth daring to let lose their skills, they showed off talent in abundance.

Eventually naïve defending at the back, and giving the ball away at the top end of the park, saw England down two nil within 15 mins of the start of the second half. England did not roll over or die and they did not stop trying new stuff and I loved it! With a minute to go in full time my house erupted (audience of one) as Ashley Young flipped a great ball over the flailing arms of the Dutch keeper, rendering the score 2-2 as he added to the goal previously scored by Gary Cahill, bringing us back into the affray. Alas thy young lions snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory and the Dutch in the guise of their genius tormentor Arjen Robben went up the other end and scored again, we lost 3-2.

There were many stories that night at Wembley and depending upon your disposition will depend upon what you saw.

The Guardian Article

The Telegraph Article

We don’t see things as they are, but really as we think they are. Before you argue any further have a look at this selective attention test by Daniel Simons & Christopher Chabris on Gorilla dot com, an interesting perspective:

CLICK HERE

Germany lost 2-1 against the French the same night as our defeat to the Dutch, but it will take a brave person to bet against them being in the last four come the end of the Euro’s. Every four years they turn out a mixture of youth and experience, having dared to lose and try out new blood in between tournaments. Traditionally in the UK we have tended to hold on to our tried and tested (even when injured) at the expense of the exuberance of youth and I believe this has been at our detriment. By the time our fledgling starlets get their day in the sun expectations are so high externally and internally, and the losers syndrome is so infectious that they dare not release their flare incase they are the butt of the vitriolic attacks the fourth estate met out the next day. For me, Wednesday was a good day for English football, full of promise revealing the talent is there, we just need to be able to blend this talented next generation with a few old heads, one of which must be Man of the match Captain Scottie Parker.