Hi all,

My name is Mark Henty and I am English born n bred and I moved to the States back in 2002 thanks to my now wife Shelly My passion in life is of course football (soccer to you guys) and I am a Newcastle United supporter for my sins I'll be the Goalmouth Scramble correspondent next season when they are back in the Premiership because lets face it, no-one over here cares that much about a Championship side eh? lol!

Anyway, I was able to catch the England game on Wednesday when we comfortably yet un-spectacularly beat Belarus 3-0 and saw another travesty of justice. Did you see that Steve Bruce gave the MOTM prize to Beckham on Wednesday for playing 30 mins and having about 10-15 touches of the ball? Although most of the team did very little to warrant such an award, It should have been Gareth Barry who set up two goals or Peter Crouch who scored two goals. Crouchie has now scored 16 goals in 17 starts for England which is an amazing record and he should be on the plane to South Africa on those stats alone, but if he cannot get a regular place in the Tottenham starting line-up, that may not happen which would be a shame. Back to the Beckham MOTM award. This must've been insulting to the other players who have been out there the whole game and especially to those who played rather well. Beckham gets special treatment so often in England and he will definitely be going to the World Cup a: because he will get that record amount of caps which is a joke because a third of those will be from the bench for 10-20 mins a time and b: he has been announced as the English ambassador for the World Cup 2018 bid which will guarantee that he will be there in South Africa. Form doesn't come into it with him, it's always personality. Some may say that he inspires the team but that won't be enough against teams of the ilk of Spain, Brazil and Holland. Anyone also notice that Beckham has only ever come on in games where England are pretty much coasting during qualification? yet time and time again we hear how he transformed games. He may be able to still score a great free-kick and spray a 50 yard pass but he cannot take people on and just does not have the engine to do it anymore. That said, players like Aaron Lennon and Shaun Wright-Phillips were pretty poor on Wednesday themselves but the problem with England was that the centre-backs were just pumping the ball up to Crouch at ever chance and not trying to play the ball out of the back to give the wingers any chance of doing their thing. England need to sort out a few problems before they can be considered contenders for the World Cup and if Rooney and Gerrard get injured, we are a pretty mediocre team. England, however do have a new attitude under Capello who has finally brought a good 'team' spirit and England were the top scorers in qualifying with I believe 36 goals which is almost 4 per game and that was way clear of 2nd placed Spain.

Cheers all,
Mark Henty (Portland, OR)