Soccer

» SimonMelville - Winning ugly -- it's not worth it.

Alan, you're right but I'm questioning whether winning like that is worth it. You have to be a one-eyed patriot to be Portuguese and proud of their performances. Maybe we should be more like the Dutch and Spanish and take pride in playing football nicely and not necessarily winning at all costs, although Van Basten's Oranje side failed to do even that.

It's a bit unfair to judge the Italians purely on their performance in the final, with players like Pirlo, Totti, Del Piero, Camoranesi they had a team capable of exciting football which they unfortunately failed to show against France but did show in bursts throughout the rest of the tournament.

As for England winning ugly, I agree we're more than capable of being ugly. But winning? History since 1966 shows otherwise. The reason is because some of that ugliness needs tempering with moments of beauty to win matches -- Italy produce the sort of footballers who can provide that and England don't.

For all the blood and thunder heroics of players like Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard (good, maybe great, players that they are) those aren't the skills to win tournaments -- you need some of the delicacy and intelligence that the English game doesn't provide.

Maybe it's time we stopped worrying about it and just accepted it and lost the histrionics each time we crash out of a tournament?

Thank you for adding to the discussion.

-- posted by SimonMelville