Quarterfinals

History repeats itself.

Portugal kicked England out with penalty kicks in 2004. England lost again, in the same manner. It was quite surprising that Lampard & Gerrard both missed. In fact, the individuals played quite well in their clubs but the chemistry didn't realize. There is an always a gap between the combination of the best versus the best combination. Having said that, England played quite well after Rooney was out. The tall man indeed managed to get hold of the ball. Among the rest, Hargreaves was quite outstanding and he was running around in the front and at the back in the whole game.

Brazil was very disappointing, or we can say that France played too well. There wasn't any organized attack and they just sent the ball to the front whenever possible. It's interesting to find that France played the Brazilian way and Brazil the European way.

By the way, that was the 2nd goal that they lost in the cup (the 1st one by Japan) and it was the last goal that sent them home...