What Have You We Learnt From The Sporting Weekend?

On Saturday afternoon sometime between the hours of 5pm and 6pm I was sitting in my living room watching the TV and all of a sudden I found myself with a new career as a statistician.  I actually calculated that England were in possession of the football against Spain for approximately 2 % of the first half of the supposed "Friendly" match.  Actually i lie, but i was slowly losing the will to stay awake as Spain played their own unique version of pass the parcel with a football for at least 43 minutes of the first half and i didn't need a statistician to work that one out.

You could imagine my excitement as the second half approached.  Another 43 minutes of England chasing round after a ball.  Put it on Sky Plus x30 it would resemble something out of a Benny Hill sketch, just add music.

Then all of a sudden it was like some devine power came down from a high and told Fabio Capello and his Lions some pearls of wisdom.  "Thou shall only score a goal against the footballing enemy that is Spain, if you manage to keep possession of the football for more than five seconds".

What do you know!  England get a free kick and a Darren Bent header rebounds off the post and in the direction of Frank Lampard for probably what will the easiest goal of his career.  Spain can't score a goal for love nor money and starting kicking the living daylights out of the England players, and England end up beating the World Champions 1-0.

So in terms of this match, what have we learnt from this sporting weekend? 

Well there is an argument for absolutely nothing.  After all we didn't require a 90 minute exhibition from our Spanish cousins to realise they are a class apart in keeping possession of a football.  Let's face it as well, on another day Spain could well have had two or three goals themselves.

There is another argument that we learnt a lot more from the young England players coming through the ranks such as the likes of Rodwell.  You know the fearless ones who are not afraid to attack on a football pitch and are not weighed down by the guilt of losing several times in penalty shoot outs. A breath of fresh air you may say.

Then there's the fact that Fabio Capello has either come accross the most genius tactic to employ against potentially four or five teams that are ranked higher than England at Euro 2012, or he is stark raving bonkers.  Getting most of England players to stand behind the ball and soak up pressure from teams for 88 minutes of a match and hope they get a corner to score off and win the match 1-0 actually sounds like a ridiculous plan and if employed during Euro 2012 will be most England fan's living and viewing nightmare, and most likely England's demise in tournament.

The truth of the matter is that it is very difficult to know what to take out of this game, simply because it was one of the most bizarre matches i've ever seen between two renowned footballing countries.  There is certainly the positive for England that they have beaten the World Champions irrespective of the manor the victory was accomplished.  There certainly could potentially be more positives, but i think a lot of England fans are reluctant to mould these positives in cast iron.

All we can really do is wait, see and spend an awful lot of time hoping.