From: Hildegaard Beauregard [ljlife@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: england vs. sweden

There were two very fun matches: Brazil v. Turkey 
and Italy v. Ecuador. Turkey
gave Brazil some trouble, despite Brazil controlling.
Against the run of play, Turkey scored a great goal
just before half. Then Brazil got busy with their
fireworks: Ronaldo, making his big comeback for the
national team, made some great runs and scored with a
leaping kick on a fantastic pass from a team-mate.
Italy scored in 7 minutes and another in the first
half. They look the class of the tournament so far to
me.

It was very disappointing to watch England control
Sweden in the first half, then seem to just stand
around in the second. England doesn't have their real
fighters in there. Newcomers Mills and Vassel were
energetic and created lots of chances, but they were
also making mistakes and not coordinating with the
others well. Vassel is hot, but he needs try to get
the ball to someone else up front now and then,
instead of trying to do it all himself, especially
when the other one up front is Michael Owen. Hesky,
Owen's partner at Liverpool, looked inconsequential
for the most part as a midfielder. England went as
Beckham did: a precision control game, with passing,
but timid on the tackling and dirty work. Sweden were
much more aggressive, much quicker to the ball, broke
up numerous English chances, and in the second half it
started paying off for them. By then it looked as if
England were conceding the match to them. Weird.