Originally Posted by
jackal2
England's chances in the World Cup will depend on how well we retain the ball when we win it. Time and time again in tournaments, where there is a game every four or five days, our high energy but low efficiency style of play has seen us running out of steam by the time we start facing the better teams. Unfortunately, I think it's built into England players' mentality to go too direct, too quickly, especially when we're under pressure and revert to what's familiar, but hopefully we can learn something from all our past failures. It's not a coincidence that teams like Brazil, Germany and more recently Spain do well in World Cup tournaments. They treasure possession and conserve energy best.