Food for thought: England's attacking options:-

Most likely, Gerrard will retain the deep-lying defensive midfield role at which he has been so perfectly performing in the previous 2 seasons under Brendan Rogers at Liverpool. Further up-front in midfield, it’s going to be a toss-up as to who actually plays in the center of midfield; Wilshere, Henderson, Lallana and Lampard each possess different attributes.

It is of an advantage to Roy Hodgson that he has so many central midfielders with different qualities; for if he chooses a more defensive approach (most likely), Henderson and, to an extent, Wilshere offer a very good amount of balance which will be needed. Not to mention the fact that, should Henderson be given the nod ahead of the other CMs, he and Gerrard have already formed a terrific partnership over the course of this last season and it would be a rather easy transition for both players moving from their club’s, and into the national team’s, set of play.

However, if and when Hodgson decides to go on the offensive, then Lallana, and a tad less, Lampard offer dynamic presence towards the other end of the pitch. Both offer more urgency going forward and, especially in Lampard’s case, a very keen eye for goal. Lallana holds the upper hand when it’s about speed and technique and, therefore, might be given the nod, in an offensive lay-out, should Hodgson field other pacey players (more below).

Whether or not Rooney plays in the number 10 role is still something to be seen. However, he usually excels in that position and one would expect that, after all these years, he’s much more tactically-mature and very comfortable with that role given the fact that he has been performing a similar duty for Manchester United over the last 2 years. It is somewhat sad that, seeing as how Rooney will most probably feature as a starting 11, England will not be able to field Ross Barkley at the same time. SURELY the WC would be a much better tournament if Barkley features and mesmerizes the world with his talent!

Given Hodgson’s tendency to favor more defensive tactics, both Milner and Welbeck will most probably feature on the right and left sides respectively; as they offer more of a defensive approach than Sterling and Oxlade-Chamberlain. However, Hodgson won’t be shy to go all-out on attack, when needed, where Sterling’s and Chamberlain’s UNBELIEVABLE pace, technique and dribbling abilities will be extremely hard to stop. That is not to say that he won’t be looking to convert some of his CMs, such as Henderson or Lallana, into proper SMs for part, or all, of the tournament; as they have both shown their abilities to cope with playing on either side of the pitch.

England:-

Ah yes, the English (first of three…)! “The Three lions” travel to Brazil with many expecting an early exit; unusual given the traditional pre-WC SKY HIGH ambitions in England. But are those expectations really justified?

Well, for starters, England’s defense seems “fragile”, to say the least. Neither Cahill, Jagielka nor Baines (all most likely to start) have ANY experience at a major international tournament; in Jagielka’s and Baines’ cases, they even lack experience at ANY major competition apart from the EPL.

That being said, it is ludicrous to assume that, under Roy Hodgson’s command, the defense will play with anything BUT their utmost best! Hodgson places a huge emphasis on strong, coordinated defending and a very high level of commitment from his back-four. So it is pretty unorthodox to expect England to concede many goals at the WC!

The real headache for England will be in midfield. They have a huge contingent of talented and experienced midfielders; however, as always, they seem to go missing in big tournaments! The Gerrard-Lampard combination has proven, time and time again, to be ineffective and it would be a surprise if Hodgson chooses to start with those two simultaneously.

Regardless who features in front of Gerrard, England will look to play a direct style of football. Gerrard will be launching long-balls forward and dispersing play either side of the pitch. The central midfielder playing has the responsibility of properly coordinating the bridge between both sides of the team; which is why a unique positional awareness is needed at all times, SPECIFICALLY against Italy and Uruguay, for starters.

Whatever tactic Hodgson chooses to apply, England will look to expose spaces on the channels and deliver accurate crosses in between both sides of the opposition’s box; wide players might even dive deeper into the final third and roll the ball back to Gerrard and/or the CM, who will look for precise deliveries in between opposition defenders.

A huge responsibility will be, therefore, placed on the striker’s shoulders. It will be the main striker’s moment to shine every time he receives the ball in the middle of the box. Should Sturridge start, he must, hopefully, bring his shooting boots from his club season with him to score the goals England need.

Main man: Wayne Rooney: Amazing vision, pure strength, quickness with the ball and an extremely lethal shot are all just a small part of the complete package a full-fit and in-form Rooney brings along. He is quite simply irreplaceable and it will be his last chance to prove to himself, and to the world, that he is England’s best-ever player.

Odds (average from top 24 betting firms): 31.04167

Within the first 10 minutes, there weren't many chances at all. Greece were playing a high pressing game and the Polish were happy to soak it all up.

The next 10 minutes saw some beautiful combo-play from Poland on the right side with Lewandowski missing the first time. However, a few minutes later they combined again on the same side with Chalkias producing a grave error to allow the big Lewandowski to capitalize and make it 1-0.

Not much was happening for the Greeks over the following 15 minutes or so, notably because they were much unorganized in their attacking midfield areas. They were content with launching long balls forward that lacked creativity and panache!

Shortly afterwards, Pyrquis missed a huge chance to make it 2-0 for Poland, only before Avraam going off with an injury.

A mildly intense opening 45 minutes to this Euro 2012 campaign for both sides. Greece were much unorganized and resourceless, while Poland played very vibrant and robust counter-attacking football; their biggest threat always coming down that right flank.

Salpingidis came on for Ninis at the start of the second half and within 5 minutes he was a Greek hero! Greece combined well on the right side and finished it off with a neat cross into the box, only for Szczęsny to mistakengly abandon his post to allow Salpingidis to finish. Talk about an "impact" substitution!

Another 10 minutes flew by and it was that man again, Salpingidis, who played his way into the box only for Szczęsny to go down on him and the referee rightly pointed to the spot for a penalty and produced a red card for the Polish goalkeeper!

Karagounis was the man to take the penalty but he was denied by a brilliant save by the subbed-on Przemysław Tytoń. This truly was a "game of substitutes" so far!


I do not know what coach Fernando Santos told the Greek players during half-time but they have been absolutely phenomenal ever since the break, especially Salpingidis!

The game faded away during the last quarter of an hour or so with both sides seemingly worn-out after what has been a very interesting opening game to this Euro campaign.

Poland played considerably better in the first half but take nothing away from Greece's great performance in the second half, mainly thanks to Salpingidis' huge impact! All-in-all Poland did have more chances and should've killed the game before half-time; but on such a day, it was both goalkeepers who made a grave error (in Szczęsny's case 2 errors!) which lead to both goals. Will the Greek's rue that missed penalty come next week?!

Man of the match: Dimitris Salpingidis: Absolutely phenomenal display since coming off the bench, a shame that he didn't start from the first place!

As both teams emerged into the great Wembley stage last night, hearts in Catalonia were shivering when they saw no Carles Puyol entering along and back in Manchester, belief in a 4th Champions League trophy for the Red Devils was given a big boost!

As the Hungarian Viktor Kassai blew the whistle for the start of the 2011 UEFA Champions League Final, the United players went into a frantic rage of possession; dictating the pace of the game with Park Ji Sung zapping around from angle to angle. Somewhere back in Madrid, a certain Jose Mourinho was watching and thinking "Time for payback"...

Well for as far as the first 10 minutes of the game, United looked like they were on their way to controlling this game; allowing no space whatsoever for Barcelona's players to pass or even move! With Park trailing Messi, United's back-line delivering those long balls deep into Barcelona's defense and Rooney coming close on the 7th minute after Mascherano was provoked through a long ball.

It looked like Sir Alex Ferguson was on his way to avenge 2009's defeat...Then came Barcelona's first chance in the 15th minute from a Villa-Xavi-Pedro combination and at that moment, it was 66% possession for Barcelona compared to a mere 34% for United (with 111 passes to 51 respectively).

From there on, the game opened up with Villa's shot at the 19th only to be denied by the mighty Vidic. United were still playing those long balls and Javier Hernandez was still being caught offside! A minute later El Guaje produced a fine shot from distance only to see a brilliant save from Edwin Van Der Sar and United quickly took it to the counter with Mascherano recovering in defense.

At that time, Ferguson was ranting and instructing his midfielders to go wide and open up the play but it was just a matter of 2 minutes until Pedro, aka Pedrito, drew first blood for the Catalans! It came after Pep Guardiola instructed Villa to switch positions with Pedro, Iniesta playing it to Xavi in Midfield (who was COMPLETELY unmarked, exactly the thing that United were NOT supposed to do) and Xavi in turn giving it that one look up and playing the smoothest of passes to Pedro, leaving Vidic helpless by himself because Evra was somewhere he was not supposed to be, and the young Spaniard made no mistake of placing it calmly to Van Der Sar's bottom left corner!! 1-0 to Barcelona right there, with Xavi presenting to the world the FIRST reason why FC Barcelona will later lift the cup high in London.

Time was passing by and United were just wandering around, watching Barcelona play their football, like the 400 million TV viewers around the world! At the 32nd minute it was still 66% for Barcelona but 265 Passes at the time, compared to the 100 from United (which were mainly in their defensive-midfield area!). A throw-in from Abidal to Villa and the ball was all of a sudden in Barcelona's box with Rooney playing Giggs inside and the mighty Welshman playing it back to Rooney for a signature goal from The Boy Wonder. Whether Giggs was offside or not, it didn't really matter for any United fan out there as it gave them hope before the break! Another shot from Xavi, a one-touch play from Villa and the whistle for the first Half came with the score line at 1-1; but no one knew why there's a 1 next to United's name at half-time, not even Sir Alex himself (who seemed to "educate" Rooney just before the break on who the boss really is!).

The players came back from the halftime break looking fresh and United's fans were hoping for a far better second half, so did Barcelona's fans; who experienced a much more competitive semi-final against rivals Real Madrid and were hoping for something like that, seeming it was THE FINAL and all...

Sky Sport's directors were running some sort of joke when they compared Xavi's passing accuracy to Carrick's at the start of the second half, standing at 95% to 76%, although they both played the full first 45 minutes, correct me if I'm wrong please...

Barcelona went into their rhythm very early, pressuring and pushing forward every chance they got with Dani Alves coming close on the 51st minute followed by a cheeky shot from Messi to be denied by Evra's head (his first MAJOR contribution in defense so far). 3 minutes later and it was Lionel Messi's turn to score; given absolute freedom in United's area, the young Argentinian had all the time in the world to take aim and power a shot at the 40 year-Old Dutch goalkeeper to score his first goal on English soil!! It was such a preventable goal for United, especially for the defense and the goalkeeper!! But alas, 2-1 was the score line as Barcelona just started to end United's misery! Leo Messi showing the world the SECOND reason why Barcelona are the best in Europe, if not the world...

Antonio Valencia took his tally of fouls committed to 4, but no yellow card was shown in any of those 4 fouls though (so far) and it was Dani Alves who received the first booking of the night for a ferocious tackle on Patrice Evra; only for Michael Carrick to pick up the second yellow card of the night a few seconds after. The game started to shape-up slowly with Barcelona enjoying possession and United enjoying, well, to spectate.

A few beautiful shots here and there from Messi and Xavi (got to give credit to Van Der Sar for that save though!) between the 60th and 65th minute with Abidal constantly pushing up to support Pedro. Then it was Nani's turn to "shine", coming in for Fabio with Sir Alex opting to retreat Valencia back into a Side-Back position just like he did against Chelsea in the quarter-final (which proved to be a success). For all those United fans who had some hope of salvaging the game, it was a minute or two before those hopes were shattered!

At the 69th Leo Messi showed some of his brilliance by getting past United's defense then a quick scramble in the box and the ball was at David Villa's feet...Spain's 2010 World cup Top-Scorer taking one of his personal best shots of this season and at such a hard angle with all of United's defense standing there and watching helplessly! That made it 3-1, with all of Barcelona's forwards scoring a goal each, proving the THIRD reason why Barcelona are evidence of the best football played at this era!

At that point, all one could hear in Wembley were the chants of Barcelona's faithfuls singing "Madrid! Cabron! Saluta al Campeon!". With Rooney trying a "Villa" at the 71st and Giggs walking around like he had nothing to do with football, it was all but over (even though that was the case long ago but it was an assurance to every United fan out there at that moment)...

Pep was urging his players to go forward every now and then, Sir Alex on the other hand switched Carrick for Scholes at the 76th and Antonio Valencia finally getting that booking he deserved 5 fouls ago. With 10 minutes left to play, Sir Alex was sitting there on the bench; watching helplessly and squeezing his fists in a method to calm his nerves down as he relived a 2009 Rome Final on the UK's finest stadium. Victor Valdes took another acrobatic jump a few minutes later, and why wouldn't he? He's the only player on the Barcelona squad who didn't GET to contribute a lot during that match. Nani came close on the 85th and Iniesta tried a smart lob from distance a few minutes later, just for the game to slowly fade away until Viktor Kassai blew the final whistle to end United's misery and bring joy to every Catalonian fan out there!!

It was a perfect game for Barcelona, in defense, MIDFIELD and attack. As for United, well we can easily say that they have played much better than they did in Rome but not good enough. All that talk about Park Ji Sung being the key to United's success or Giggs shaking off his off-pitch drama to guide United to a 4th European trophy or Sir Alex Ferguson's 2 weeks planning ahead of that game was all brushed away with Barcelona's magnificent football!

If anyone has a doubt about whether Barcelona is THE team to beat, they just have to watch last night's game again and any doubt will be cleared right away. It was a bitter-sweet end to a great season for everyone; while Mourinho plans for a European takeover next season; we, as lovers of this beautiful game, can enjoy years to come from a great Barcelona side offering nothing but pure and passionate football.