(What follows is a rant that has been in the making for years... many years... of suffering. I've flogged myself too many times with the team that calls themselves the England National Team, and I'll probably be doing it again later this month. Bastards. I guess you could call this an exorcism of sorts, or maybe just the beginning of a long-awaited surgery to remove that cancerous mole from my ass. Read at your own risk.)
I hate England. No, no, I love them... wait, I loathe them... again. Okay, I wish they'd win something other than a Euro qualifier against Germany back when Michael Owen could walk. I also wish no Liverpool player donned the Three Lions. Three Lions, what a joke. More like three caterwauling alley cats. The politics of the FA is disgusting and the longer they let good old boy morons run it, the longer the National Team will be considered a waste of talent. I'll be shocked if they ever win a cup during my lifetime. Anyhow, to get to the point of this rant, both Stevie G and Rafa have been quite vocal lately in McClaren's misuse of Jamie Carragher's services. Why?
Honestly, I wish both Gerrard and Carra 'retired' from international play. Look what it did for Scholes. Think about it, fellas, you can go on holiday to Crete or Iceland instead of once-in-a-while participating in two hours of a mud-drudging waste of time. Give the youngsters a chance, I hear Nigel Reo-Coker and Anton Ferdinand are just dying to don the white and red.
McClaren has the imagination of a frog in a coma. What has he ever done? So he lead Middlesbrough to a League Cup a couple years back, what else? An UEFA Cup Final, where his team was crushed by Sevilla? A seventh-place finish in the Premiership? Does that qualify one to be manager of the England National Team? I can't wait until we lose in the Euro Final or finish third in the World Cup. About the only thing good McClaren did was drop Beckham, but the fact that he is even considering bringing him back makes him look like a fool. The way the team has been playing lately, it's as if before going to bed each night he reads 'A Lullaby in Hell, or How to Play not to Lose and then Lose on Penalties anyhow' by Sven-Göran Eriksson. (By the way, having Stevie G and Carra take penalties against Portugal was about as stupid a move I've ever seen. Gerrard didn't even take a penalty shot in the 2005 Champion's League Final, including the one he won, and Carra is not a penalty-taker. Period.)
Some of McClaren's recent moves have baffled me. Two words: Phil Neville. Ah, it's like a joke that just gets funnier and funnier everytime you say it until it makes you want to cry. Phil frickin' Neville. Not that there's anything wrong with the man, but come on, Phil Neville? Playing Stevie G and Lampard together. It doesn't work, even my grandmother knows that and she can hardly remember my name. Not playing Aaron Lennon enough. At least he could conjure up some excitement. Paul Robinson. I'll just leave that at that, but I'd rather see David James in there. Wes Brown... I could go on, but I don't want to turn this into a suicide note.
So Stevie and Carra, please, I know you love your country, but let's be frank, if you're country loved you, wouldn't they show it by, oh, I don't know, hiring a better manager?