England's World Cup hopes in shreds
27/05/02 | by Matt Chadwick

When I wrote the previous article on my hopes for the World Cup I was optimistic and looking at the squad we had thought we could do well. The past few weeks has been nothing short of disastrous.

Gerrard will definitely miss the finals; a player with huge talent and someone I was particularly looking forward to in his first world cup.

Murphy is out; not one of our better player but may well have had a part to play. Not to mention Butt and Neville, who has fallen to the curse of the metatarsal. Beckham has made progress but it is still uncertain whether he will be fit, or that if he is fit, will he be his usual, brilliant self.

But where does this leave England? Not in a very good position I must admit, and this isn’t just your average few injuries. - this can definitely be called a crisis. What makes the situation so annoying is that I think we had a genuine chance of doing well in this tournament, if not winning it, so I am very frustrated.

If Dyer and Beckham can regain their fitness, and we don’t suffer any other setbacks, then we might be able to do ourselves justice, but I think our main priority now is just getting out of the group, and seeing how things go from there.

One thing I will mention though, on a totally different subject is, how can Japan and Korea have all these brillaint stadiums, worthy of hosting any tournament, and England, the home of football cannot even manage to build one!