Another Fantastic Saturday

Another Saturday, another fantastic medal haul to round off the penultimate day of the 2012 Olympics. The overall tally now stands at 62 with a fantastic 28 gold medals. Despite this fantastic achievement, Jamaica and Usain Bolt still couldn't be undermined as they once again created history in the Men's 4x100M Final. The team of Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Yohann Blake and Bolt took the gold (Bolt's third) with a new World Record time of 36.84 seconds. Team USA finished with silver in a National Record time of 37.04, Trinidad and Tobago won bronze with 38.12.

There have already been plenty of candidates to stake their claim for this year's Sports Personality of the Year award, now steps up Mo Farah. After his fantastic 10,000M gold last week, Farah returned to the track to add the 5,000M to his collection with a time of 13:41:66. Ethiopia's Dejen Gebremeskel took silver with a time of 13:41:98, Kenya's Thomas Pkemei Longosiwa won bronze with 13:42:36.

Cardiff's Luke Campbell also walked away with gold after beating Ireland's John Joe Nevin in the Bantam final. Campbell floored Nevin in the third round which helped him gain a 14-11 victory over the Irishman. This marks another youth prospect as the 24-year old has a glittering career in front of him.

The day began with gold today in the Men's K1 Kayak event. Britain's Ed McKeever took the 26th gold medal in a time of 36.246. He beat Spain's Saul Craviotto Rivero who took silver with 36.540 and Canada's Mark De Jonge who won bronze in 36.657.

Our final medal of the night came in the Men's 10m Diving event where 18-year old Tom Daley did his late dad proud. After squeezing through the preliminaries yesterday, Daley managed to finish fourth in the semi-final earlier today before doing battle in tonight's final. In the end, his 3.3 point dive in round six wasn't quite enough to secure gold and had to settle for bronze with a total of 556.95, and was duly belated. China's Qiu Bo won silver with 566.85 with USA's David Boudia claiming gold with a total of 568.65.

Unfortunately, the Men's Hockey team couldn't emulate the Women in today's bronze medal match against Australia. Simon Orchard put the Aussies ahead on 16:45 before a penalty corner from Iain Lewers levelled for GB on 28:39. However, they couldn't carry that momentum forward and found themselves behind again after a penalty corner from Jamie Dwyer on 47:56. The match was wrapped up for Australia when Kieran Govers made it 3-1 on 56:59.

The shock of the day was arguably seeing Brazil continue to wait for an Olympic Football gold medal. They faced Mexico in today's final and found themselves 1-0 down after just 29-seconds when poor defending allowed Oribe Peralta to score the quickest Olympic goal. Brazil looked shell shocked and their mountain became even steeper when Peralta headed his second goal home from a corner with 15-minutes left. Brazil tried to mount a comeback and did manage to pull a goal back through Hulk in injury time, but it would only prove as a consolation as Mexico walk away with gold.                

Record Day For Team GB

Team GB secured six gold medals on a day that hasn't been matched for over a hundred years, cruising into third in the medals table and showing no signs of slowing down. It all began this morning when Katherine Copeland and Sophie Hosking claimed GB's first ever Women's Lightweight Double Sculls gold medal. The British pairing finished over two seconds ahead of Dongxiang Xu and Wenyi Huang of China.

That was followed with the Men's Four gold, making it three consecutive golds in the event. Alex Gregory, Tom James, Pete Reed and Andrew Triggs Hodge finished just under two seconds ahead of the Australian foursome. It could well have been three golds in the rowing today when Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter lead in most of the Men's Lightweight Double Sculls. But, with 250m left, the Danish pairing of Mads Rasmussen and Rasmus Quist overtook the Brits to finish .61 seconds ahead.

 Britain's third gold became their fourth in the Cycling as we took the Women's Team Pursuit event with yet another World Record. Dani King, Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell set a time of 3:14:051 to out class the Americans and the Canadians. The gold is even more special for Rowsell who suffers from alopecia.

The other three gold medals were our first in the Athletics events. After her amazing display yesterday, Jessica Ennis rounded off her fantastic Heptathlon with a score of 6955, the fifth highest score in Olympics history and a new British and Commonwealth record. The Sheffield girl finished 306 points clear of silver medallist Lilli Schwarzkopf of Germany. Ennis has now put herself alongside Bradley Wiggins and many others as candidates for Sports Personality of the Year.

Ennis' gold was quickly followed up by Mo Farah who put on a fantastic performance in the Men's 10,000m. Farah finished .48 seconds ahead of USA's Galen Rupp to cap a brilliant two years for the athlete. GB's final gold medal of the day came from a surprise source, Greg Rutherford from Milton Keynes. Rutherford managed to finish .15m ahead of Mitchell Watt from Australia in the Long Jump.

All eyes will be on Andy Murray tomorrow who has the opportunity to win a further two gold medals for GB. Murray will play against Roger Federer in the Men's Singles and then team-up with Laura Robson who will take on Victoria Azarenka and Max Mirnyi from Belarus in the Mixed Doubles Final.

Robson and Murray started the day against Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Stosur in the quarter finals. The Brits took the first set 6-3 before the Australians responded with a 6-3 set victory of their own. This produced a Champions Tie-break which Murray and Robson won 10-8 to reach the semi-finals.

A couple of hours later, Robson and Murray were on court again, this time against Sabine Lisicki and Christopher Kas of Germany. The British pairing once again stormed out of the gate quickly, taking the first set 6-1. The second set then went to a tie-break, which Murray missed a winner that caused the Germans to take it 9-7. So, for a second time today, Robson and Murray were once again enthralled in a Champions Tie-break. At 7-7, Britain broke the Kas serve to lead 8-7 before Robson held both of her serves to win the set 10-7 to put GB's name in tomorrow's final and a guaranteed silver medal.

The Women's Tennis event came to an end today with Serena Williams securing a career Golden Slam after thrashing Maria Sharapova. Williams took the first set to love before Sharapova managed to take a game in the second set. Azarenka took the bronze medal with a 6-3 6-4 victory over Russia's Maria Kirilenko.

The Bryan brothers went home with the Men's Doubles gold, making it two golds for Team USA. Bob and Mike faced Michael Llodra and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France in the final. The Bryan's took the first set 6-4 before taking the second set 7-2 in the tie-break. Fellow Frenchmen, Julien Benneteau and Richard Gasquet took the bronze medal with a 7-6 6-2 win over David Ferrer and Feliciano Lopez of Spain.

The heartbreak of the day once again came from a penalty shoot-out in the football. The men's team faced South Korea and found themselves 1-0 down just before the half hour mark when Sunderland's Ji Dong-Won leathered a shot past Jack Butland. GB levelled seven minutes when they were awarded a penalty for handball, Aaron Ramsey stepped up and just squeezed his effort through the keeper.

Five minutes before half-time, GB were awarded a second penalty when Daniel Sturridge was brought down in the box. Ramsey again stepped-up but this time his effort was saved. The score remained 1-1 and the dreaded penalty shoot-out was upon us. The shoot-out stood at 4-4 before Daniel Sturridge stepped up and had his shot saved. Celtic's Ki Sung-Yeung placed South Korea's fifth attempt past Butland to dump GB out of the event.              

Eight Golds As First Week Concludes

With the first week of the Olympics coming to a close, Team GB currently sit fourth in the medals table with another three gold medals accumulated today. Our first came in the Women's Double Sculls; Katherine Grainger had three managed to gain three silver medals in previous games, but today she finally found that elusive gold with the help of Anna Watkins.

The British pairing finished almost three seconds ahead of the Australian duo, Kim Crow and Brooke Pratley, to earn GB's second gold medal in the rowing. The overall medal tally for rowing now stands at six after claiming a further two bronzes. The first of which came from Alan Campbell who achieved third in the Men's Single Sculls. Campbell was well off the pace set by gold medal winner Mahe Drisdale of New Zealand and silver medallist Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic, but he did stave off a late fight from Sweden's Lassi Karonen to gain that impressive bronze.

The second bronze medal in today's rowing came in the Men's Pair. George Nash and William Satch claimed the third place but only finished an agonising .66 of a second behind France's Germain Chardin and Dorian Mortelette. New Zealand's Eric Murray and Hamish Bond took the gold medal.

GB's other two gold medals came in today's cycling events. The first came in the Team Pursuit where the British team set another World Record in the Velodrome. Ed Clancy, Steven Burke, Peter Kennaugh and Geraint Thomas put in an amazing performance to score a time of 3:51:659, almost three seconds ahead of the Australian team who won Silver.

After her disappointing disqualification yesterday, Victoria Pendleton put that behind her to come through and take the Women's Keirin gold medal. Pendleton beat China's Shuang Guo and Wai Sze Lee of Hong Kong to victory, claiming Britain's third gold in the cycling events.

GB also amassed a further two bronzes today. Rebecca Adlington followed up her 400m Freestyle bronze with her second bronze in the 800m Freestyle. Adlington finished almost six seconds behind USA's Katie Ledecky who claimed gold by setting an Americas record. Spain's Garcia Mireia Belmonte claimed silver.

Our final medal today was awarded to Karina Bryant who claimed bronze in the Women's +78kg Judo event. Bryant lost to Japan's Mika Sugimoto in the semi-finals but the Japanese had to settle for silver as she lost to Idalys Ortiz of Cuba in the final.

Jessica Ennis has began her quest for Heptathlon gold by breaking her own personal record in the 100m Hurdles, setting a time of 12.54 seconds which would have won gold in the proper event. She currently has a 184 point lead over Lithuania's Austra Skujyte going into the second day.

Andy Murray has also guaranteed himself silver after providing a fantastic performance to overcome Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals. Murray won in straight sets, 7-5 7-5, to set up a Wimbledon rematch with Roger Federer. The Swiss overcame Juan Martin Del Potro in the longest ever Olympic Tennis match. Del Potro took the first set 6-3 before Federer fought back, winning the second set tie-break 7-5. The third and final set went into overtime where Federer finally came through with a 19-17 victory.

The disappointment of the day came in the Women's football. Unfortunately, Team GB couldn't continue their fantastic performance against Brazil and ended up losing 2-0 to Canada. The men's team face South Korea in tomorrow's quarter final.               

Golds At Last

In a very typically British manner, we've waited the best part of a week for a British gold medal and then two come at once. Firstly this morning, Helen Glover and Heather Stanning pulled off a fantastic victory to win gold in the women's pair rowing. With a time of 7:27:13, the pair were a whole two seconds clear of the Australian couple who took silver ahead of New Zealand.

That was then followed by the sportsman of the year, Bradley Wiggins. He is, without doubt, set to scoop the BBC Sports Personality of the year award and probably a knighthood. Not only has he become the first British rider to win the Tour De France in majestic fashion, he has now taken the gold medal in the men's individual time trial. Wiggins finished just under a second ahead of Germany's Tony Martin to move Britain into eleventh in the Medals Table. Christopher Froome backed Wiggins by grabbing the gold medal to heap extra celebration for the GB cycling team.

The two golds take Britain's medal tally up to nine with more set to come. The cycling team have won another medal as Elizabeth Armitstead took silver in the women's road race. Zara Phillips and company have also taken silver in the team eventing equestrian event. 

Big medal hopeful, Louis Smith, has helped his men's gymnastic team take bronze behind Japan and China. The men's eight in the rowing have also taken bronze alongside that emphatic gold by the women pair. Team GB have also accumulated two medals from swimming. Michael Jamieson has made a name for himself by taking silver in the Men's 200M Breaststroke with the bigger name of Rebecca Adlington, taking bronze in the Women's 400M Freestyle and she is also looking to make history by regaining her gold in the 800M.

In other sports, Andy Murray has made his way into the fourth round of the tennis tournament. Both the men's and women's football teams have made it out of their groups to take their places in the knock-out phases. After two games in the hockey tournament, the men's team are currently second in their group whilst the women are first in theirs.

Two startling records have taken place in the tennis and football. Ryan Giggs became the oldest player to score in an Olympic tournament during GB's 3-1 win over UAE. After John Isner and Nicolas Mahut's 70-68 thriller in the 2010 Wimbledon tournament, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Milos Raonic paid homage to that by breaking the Olympic record. With the match tied at one set apiece, the third set went into a tie-break. But the pair still couldn't be separated at 23-23 before the fourth seed finally saw off the plucky Canadian to squeeze through. Tsonga has since beaten Feliciano Lopez in straight sets to join Murray into the fourth round.

England Nearly Out-Klaased as Wales Say Emotional Farewell

With an extra day in the calender year this year, there was an extra international football friendly fixture for the world to enjoy. Stuart Pearce's start as interim England manager began at Wembley against the Netherlands. The first half was a very tight affair with both teams creating opportunities, the closest came from Arjen Robben whose shot was smartly saved by Joe Hart.

There was a half-time substitute apiece as James Milner replaced Gareth Barry and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar came on for Robin Van Persie. This would be a potential game changer as Robben picked the ball up in his own half and made his way to the England goal. Huntelaar pulled Chris Smalling out of position with a diagonal run, this left space for Robben to run into before smashing a shot into the bottom corner 12-minutes into the second half. Before England knew what had hit them, they went 2-0 down when Dirk Kuyt's cross was headed in by Huntelaar a minute later. Unfortunately during the header, Huntelaar and Smalling had a clash of heads in which both players remained on the floor. Neither player could continue and Smalling had to be stretchered off.

This stoppage arguably killed Holland's momentum and the game became a little dull. The last time these two met, Holland took a 2-0 lead before Jermaine Defoe scored a brace to earn a draw. This time Gary Cahill found himself in the box in open play, Leighton Baines played the ball into him and the Chelsea man turned before shooting exquisitely to pull a goal back with five minutes left. With four minutes of injury time to be played, Phil Jones played a killer pass into the path of Ashley Young who slotted his fourth goal in five international appearances to seemingly give England a draw. But Holland went straight up the other end and poor marking allowed Robben to take a shot that deflected off Cahill before out-foxing Hart and giving the Dutch the win.

But across the border, football came second as the heroes of Welsh football all gathered together for the Gary Speed memorial. Cardiff's Ninian Park put on a fantastic pre-game show with many bands paying their tributes to the late Welsh manager. Costa Rica were Wales' opponents for Chris Coleman's first game in charge, the nation Speed played his Wales debut against. With the sombre atmosphere and the likes of Gareth Bale, James Collins and Aaron Ramsey missing from the squad, it was understandable why Wales may not have been fully up for it. The script was tore up on just seven minutes when Arsenal's Joel Campbell scored for the visitors. Wales tried their hardest to get back into it with Steve Morison coming closest but his first half header hit the bar. Unfortunately, it wasn't the result that Gary Speed deserved but the tributes and memorial service bids a fantastic farewell to a fantastic player and would-be manager who left us far too early.  

Gary Speed: A Tribute

The football world has lost a true gentleman in Gary Speed. The Welsh manager has seemed to have taken his own life as more news to this tragic story gets uncovered.

Speed had a very long playing career, making his debut at the age of nineteen for Leeds. He went onto win the Division One title in the 1991/92 season. After making 248 appearances for Leeds in eight years, he spent two seasons at Everton before having probably his most notable spell at Newcastle. After spending a further four years and playing another 213 games he moved to Bolton in 2004. He ended his playing career at Sheffield United in 2010 and became their coach. He played a total of 677 games in club football and is still the most capped outfield player for Wales earning 85 appearances for his national side. He also received an MBE in 2010 for his services to football in Wales.

He became manager of the Wales team last year and after a bad start, Speed won his final three Euro Championships qualifiers with Wales looking to become a force. With Wales seemingly on the up, it is hard to come to terms with why Speed decided he couldn’t carry on.

While the speculation around his death and what drove him to it continues, Twitter has been abundant with former colleagues and friends sending their condolences to the Speed family:

‘The world has lost a great man in Gary speed I'm devastated spoke to him yesterday morning why ! Why. Why !! I'll miss him so much x’ Robbie Savage

‘One of the most consistent professionals of our generation, gone in a flash. Tragic.’ Joey Barton

‘Just cannot believe the news regarding Gary Speed. We waved at each other a couple of days ago dropping our kids off at school. I'm numb.’ Michael Owen

‘I feel so sad.We have lost our manager,leader and an extremely great person who's inspired us all in the last year.Rest in Peace Gary Speed’ Robert Earnshaw

These are just a few of literally hundreds of comments. Former players like John Hartson were reduced to tears when they heard the heart-breaking news and Craig Bellamy, understandably, couldn’t bring himself to play against Manchester City. R.I.P Gary Speed 1969-2011.

Racism: Will it Ever Get Kicked Out?

QPR's Jay Bothroyd became the latest player to 'tweet' his views on racism. It has always been an unfortunate part of the beautiful game and it has been heavily involved in recent weeks. We've had the Suarez Evra allegations that the FA seemingly took forever to find a conclusion, which didn't help matters. Then it was John Terry's seemingly racist remark to Anton Ferdinand that brought even more people into the debate. This was before Sepp Blatter did his best to bring everybody else into this debate with his 'shake hands and move on' comment.

Even though great lengths have been made to kick racism out of football and the equality amongst players has increased, a question still remains as to whether racism will ever be able to be kicked out of the sport. It should be easier in the bigger leagues like the Premiership as it is one of the most ethnically diverse leagues in the world, especially as the likes of Terry and Suarez both have ethnic players within their squads.

But unfortunately there are leagues that aren't so ethnically diverse and this is where the problem is at its work. Places like Russia and Italy, amongst many others, have strong partisan following with little diversity. This led to the shocking banana throwing incident aimed at Roberto Carlos for Anzhi. With these soul destroying antics still going on in certain parts of the world, is it possible for racism to be wholly kicked out?

The 'Kick it Out' campaign has done a fantastic job on making us aware and improving behaviour. But they don't get as much advertising as they should and when the President of the sport's governing body makes completely naive claims, it does nothing to help the good work that has preceded it.

For Sepp Blatter to shrug a racist incident off by claiming that players should just shake hands at the end of the match and move is ludicrous. Racist comments can't just be forgotten after a match has been completed, a school kid doesn't forget being bullied at the end of a school day, so why should this be any different. What is needed is racist investigations like the Suarez and Terry ones to be concluded quicker so it doesn't drag on. The conclusions then need to be told to the public and if it comes out that a player is guilty of racism then he should be seriously reprimanded. This will show others that behaviour like that won't be tolerated from any race and would help campaigns like 'Kick it Out' to continue to gain plaudits.

England Conquer Champions

Another star studded side played England in what looked to have been a lucrative match, yet it was just a disappointing the 'big' friendlies which have preceded it. World and European Champions Spain arrived at Wembley and, for most of it, didn't look like they were interested.

With nine of their World Cup winning starting line-up on the field and with England playing an unusual side, it seemed that Capello's men were there for the taking. But throughout the first half Spain gave away possession far too easily and too often, almost always failing to find that killer final ball. England, to their credit, defended well to keep Spain at bay but the first half just petered out.

The second half was more of the same barring a few more guilt edged chances. But the unthinkable happened as James Milner took a free-kick. Darren Bent's seemingly first touch of the game, he had started, was to head the ball onto the post, completely beating substitute keeper Pepe Reina. The ball looked to have spinning back into the goal but captain Frank Lampard made sure with his head just four minutes after the restart. From there, Spain looked to create more meaningful chances the best chance fell to Villa who smashed a clever volley onto the post. Spain were unusually modest when attacking, balls that were flashed across goal or rebounds just weren't followed up by a red shirt. England managed to hold onto the win but whether they'll gain anything other can confidence from this is hard to say.

Football's International Farce Association

This past week has seen the English FA belittled by the rest of the world. The question is, how do you stop a disease from spreading when the cure is ignored? Allegations into FIFA's corrupt governing body started way back when the votes for the next World Cup were being given. As we know, Russia will host the 2018 World Cup and Qatar will host it in 2022. Immediately questions were asked over how Qatar managed to get the World Cup but FIFA swept them aside rather quickly.

At first it was the English press that brought the allegations to light with Jack Warner being the man exposed. But is has took until last week's FIFA Presidential elections before anyone started listening. This was because both America and Germany also accused FIFA of being corrupt. This lead to Jack Warner being suspended along with Mohamed Bin Hammam who was running for Presidency. Following his suspension, Bin Hammam decided to withdraw from the Presidential election, leaving Sepp Blatter the only candidate to regain his position.

There was supposed to be a investigation into Blatter's part of the bride allegations but as he is the President, how can you prove anything against him? This would mean that Blatter would stand unopposed in what would be the most pointless election process. The FA tried to postpone the election until someone else stepped forward to compete with Blatter but the FA lost that vote 172-17.

The failed vote put the FA in a bad position. This was because the bigwigs at FIFA could use England as a scapegoat by saying all they ever do is moan and whinge when they should get on with it. Needless to say the election vote saw Blatter get re-elected with 186 votes, surprise surprise.

One change within FIFA saw Blatter change the World Cup voting system. Originally the voting system has seen representatives from the Continental organisations vote on the hosts of World Cups. But now, Blatter said, all 208 member associations will get a chance to vote. As for England, there's not a lot we can do. We are in the catch 22 situation because although we are against FIFA because of their corrupt nature, we can't exactly leave FIFA because there's nowhere we can go unless you fancy a tournament with the likes of Tuvalu?

World Cups 2018/2022

Congratulations have to go to Russia and Qatar who won the right to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. From an English point of view, I don't really care who got the World Cup but I do care how they got it. With the England bid knocked out in the first round with only two votes, it's quite surprising to note that actually we came out on top in most of FIFA's reports. So how on earth did we finish last?

Of course the time has come for everyone to blame the media scandals for our defeat. But surely the evidence is there to suggest that corruption reigns supreme in this election process. If the scandals hadn't have been made public then it would all still have been going on behind our backs. Lord Triesman hinted at Russia cheating in their bid way back in June during this year's World Cup. It cost him his job, but did he have a point?

If we look at the scandals and the result, then yes I think Lord Triesman might have just had a point. Isn't it funny how Russia's president Putin didn't turn up? Many thought it was because he knew Russia had lost, but actually, couldn't it have been that he knew Russia had already won and therefore saw no point in turning up?

I'm glad that the media haven't backed down from this and also glad that they are still looking into this corruption. If FIFA or the FA won't do it then someone needs to, for the sake of our sport. It isn't fair on the players or, more importantly, the fans and until this corruption is sorted or at least being looked into officially then unfortunately the beautiful game is going to suffer badly.

The Panorama Debate

With the 2018/2022 World Cup hosts to be announced on Thursday, BBC's Panorama deciding to air a special FIFA programme detailing certain bribing issues. With England hoping to mount a successful World Cup bid there was huge controversy about the showing of such programme. With fears of it jeopardising the bid because it was going to show the world of how corruption is occurring in the FIFA headquarters. The programme showed various big shots within the footballing world getting backhanders in return for their World Cup host votes in previous World Cups, there is also substantial evidence that three of the committee members in this year's election process have been involved in bribing scandals.

During the World Cup earlier in the year there were claims that Russia were cheating in their quest for the 2018 World Cup. Because of the timing and also for the chances of such allegations jeopardising England's 2018 World Cup hosting hopes, it was all hushed up very quickly and resulted in jobs being lost.

As far as I am concerned, I think that England stand to have a great chance of having a successful bid regardless of this programme. I don't think it's right for FIFA or anybody to hide or even let corruption occur in any sport. So to be told that the BBC shouldn't have aired this programme is utter nonsense. How is it fair to allow this sort of corruption to occur with full knowledge and keep it all under wraps? I think, as a football fan, we are entitled to be told what is actually going on behind the scenes of the beautiful game, and unfortunately we see a very ugly side to it. It's upsetting to think that money can shift a person's vote to allow a lesser country, possibly, to earn the right to host football's biggest tournament. For England officials to be appalled at Panorama for showing a programme that show reasons why England's bid could have been, and still could be, lost to Russia or Spain/Portugal or Holland/Belgium because a few hundred grand has passed between bank accounts is even more infuriating. If England lose the bid it should be because FIFA's reports show that we are weak in certain areas, however reports say quite the opposite and I think if England don't win the bid it may have something to do with monetary transactions, that England and FIFA want to hide and allow to continue while denying it's existence! It's just depressing to see sport being governed by big business and not talent or the real reason why fans turn up to watch their sport, something needs to be done all across the sporting world and it needs to be done fast.

England Just Edge Hungary: 2-1

England line-up: Hart, G.Johnson, Jagielka, Terry (Dawson, HT), A.Cole (Gibbs, HT), Barry, Lampard (Zamora, HT), Walcott (A.Young, HT), Gerarrd (Wilshere, 82'), A.Johnson, Rooney (Milner, 66')
Hungary line-up: Kiraly, Liptak (Komlosi, 55'), Vanczak (Laczko, 46'), Juhasz, Szelesi, Vadocz, Dzsudzsak (Koman, HT), Rudolph (Priskin, 83), Elek (Toth, 59'), Gera, Huszti (Hajnal, HT)

Three days before the Premier League starts and the FA (not FIFA) decide our international flops should play a meaningless friendly. Thus interrupting all preparation for the new season which I'm sure all the Premier League managers were happy about. I may have accepted the idea of playing this friendly if one of two conditions were met; we played our flops against someone who we weren't guaranteed to beat i.e. someone in the top 20 or 30 in the world, not a team who are currently ranked 62nd in the World with one player at Fulham , one at QPR and another ex-Crystal Palace goalkeeper the rest are unknowns. Or play a team like Hungary with a completely new look team to actually scout for new English talent.

However as it turned out we actually needed our flops to beat the lowly Hungary and come from behind albeit a goal that clearly shouldn't have been. All the tabloids and media personnel are now all praising England for a much better performance and a good game. Now playing Hungary you would expect a better performance because they're so low in the rankings (behind Scotland and Gabon!) so I'm not surprised the performance was better. But it still wasn't fantastic and against a better team England would have been punished for some defensive errors and a lot of slack passing. It took till the second half before captain Gerrard provided two strokes of ingenuity to save England from the boo-boys. What has also made me laugh is that people have gone on to say that it's more like our 'brilliant' World Cup qualifying display. Now again lets take it into perspective; we played Andorra (minnows), Kazakhstan (minnows), Belarus (minnows) all of whom England should be thrashing five or six nil, we also had Ukraine (their only named players were Shevchenko whose best were well and truly behind him and Voronin who was a massive flop at Liverpool) and Croatia (who again you expect England to win against even though they are an up-and-coming nation).

So before anyone shouts about how great we are going to be in the European Championships qualifiers lets again put it into perspective; we start against Bulgaria (whose best player Berbatov has retired form international football and are ranked 43rd), then we have Wales (who apart from Bellamy tend to look towards lower league players and are ranked 84th), then Montenegro (who don't have the better players of Serbia & Montenegro before they decided to split and are ranked 73rd), finally the only possible challenge England should face is against fellow World Cup qualifiers Switzerland (who beat World Champions Spain and are ranked ten places behind England in 17th) so if we don't qualify it will be a damn right shambles. One final note of the pointless friendly is that Arsenal's Kieron Gibbs and Ashley Young looked very good when they came on at half-time.