Franz Beckenbauer‘s column in the Johannesburg Times, criticizing England’s play in its opening game against the USA, certainly hit a chord back at theEngland camp, where Coach Fabio Capello said the former West Germany captain and coach should to comments on his own national team.
Beckenbauersaid the soccer he saw from the English in their 1-1 draw against the USA “had very little to do with football. It looked to me as if the English have gone backwards into the bad old days of kick andrush.”
Capello said he was surprised by Beckenbauer’s comments. “Always, when you speak about someone, you have to respect their team,” he said. “I respect his team and he needs tospeak about them. But it’s easy to speak about teams when you stay in the stands.”
Capello blamed the pressure of the highly anticipated opening game on the England performance. “We hadto play long balls to go forward to win,” he said. “But in the second half we played very well. We didn’t play long ball but a lot of passes and had a lot of possession. We created three clear chancesto score. So I don’t understand what Beckenbauer is saying. It was easier for Germany to play Australia, who played offside with the line of their back four, and it was too easy for them to get togoal. There was probably a penalty for Australia which would have made it 2-1 and they had a player sent off. So it could have been different.”