Engtalia

Croatia coach Slaven Bilic insists he was praising England when he said they had lost their "Englishness" under Italian manager Fabio Capello.

Now this got me thinking. Former West Ham and Everton defender Slaven Bilic said this in a good way and I completely agree. England have lost their "Englishness" in the form that they are finally starting to master the international game. For years we have just been selecting the best eleven English players and hoping that they will all mould into one happy World Cup winning team, casting aside the opposition like an Apache Helicopter. Of course this never happens and every England manager ends up getting hounded out like 'Turnip Taylor' or the retina embedded image of that sorry, wet excuse for a man, Steve McClaren, standing on the touchline with his brolly and cup of tea as if he were the coach of a sunday morning boys team.

Capello may have made England into little Italy and look like your grandad but they can defend a lead and they can score goals! Not a bad set of tactics and Italy have won a few world cups to be fair. Now the hacks can blow things out of context without looking at the bigger picture. England can play. Yes, we only beat Slovenia 2-1, but and there is a but, we won and we keep winning. At the big games under Capello we are winning and getting the job done. Italy won the last world cup whilst 'getting the job done.' It wasn't pretty but we are no Brazil either. Even the Samba boys are not playing the walky stuff anymore. With big awkward forwards like Fred and the 'Number 5' in Brazilian football who plays the holding midfield role as we know it over here, is now a bustler like Gilberto Silva. No longer are we seeing the fleet-footed passers and movers like Dunga (and he is the coach!)

To lose the "Englishness" is what we requested from Capello and it what we are getting. Now we are realistically a challenger for 2010. But there still is the fact that European teams do not win World Cups out of Europe. The climate will be a factor and from Europe, I can only see the quality of the Spain side shining through with their players who may well be adapted to the humidity easier than our set of scousers, geordies and crying cockneys...

We'll see what happens tonight as regard to England but with no Luka Modric I think we can take control of the midfield but we have to be wary of slippery charachters in our box.