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Former USA defender Alexi Lalas: I'd love to see England's Wayne Rooney 'acting like a baby' at World Cup 2010
Americans will push Rooney's buttons...
5 Jun 2010 08:38:00
By James Daly
Former USA star Alexi Lalas has stoked the fires before his nation's World Cup opening clash with England, by claiming the Americans will try to rile Wayne Rooney.
Lalas revealed last week that a USA win on June 12 would not be a surprise, and now he has encouraged Bob Bradley's team to exploit the Manchester United's famous hot temper.
"I hope he has a temper tantrum, has a swing at someone and gets thrown out. I would love to see him act like a baby," Lalas said at the launch of the 2010 FIFA World Cup simulation in Los Angeles.
"This is all part of gamesmanship and recognising the weaknesses and the flaws of the individual players and teams."
In a move of the highest gamesmanship, the former USA defender added that England are setting themselves up for a fall in South Africa.
"With all respect to England," he added. "I think they have a good team but they're maybe not as good as they think they are."
England meet the USA in the opening game of Group C in Rustenberg.
No trip to South Africa is complete without a visit to its most beautiful and sunniest city. Durban offers much more than sandy beaches, safaris, casinos and the World Cup, for information on what to do and see, please click here.
| Bet: | Returns: | Canada £37.50 | Draw £34.00 | USA £18.50 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Canada £42.00 | Draw £33.00 | USA £19.10 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Canada £40.00 | Draw £34.00 | USA £18.33 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Canada £45.00 | Draw £35.00 | USA £18.00 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Canada £39.50 | Draw £33.00 | USA £18.30 |
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Lalas revealed last week that a USA win on June 12 would not be a surprise, and now he has encouraged Bob Bradley's team to exploit the Manchester United's famous hot temper.
"I hope he has a temper tantrum, has a swing at someone and gets thrown out. I would love to see him act like a baby," Lalas said at the launch of the 2010 FIFA World Cup simulation in Los Angeles.
"This is all part of gamesmanship and recognising the weaknesses and the flaws of the individual players and teams."
In a move of the highest gamesmanship, the former USA defender added that England are setting themselves up for a fall in South Africa.
"With all respect to England," he added. "I think they have a good team but they're maybe not as good as they think they are."
England meet the USA in the opening game of Group C in Rustenberg.
No trip to South Africa is complete without a visit to its most beautiful and sunniest city. Durban offers much more than sandy beaches, safaris, casinos and the World Cup, for information on what to do and see, please click here.
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Live!
England 1-0 Belgium, Netherlands 2-0 Northern Ireland - follow all the international action LIVE! ahead of Euro 2012
With countries across the continent gearing up for their final warm-up games ahead of Euro 2012, join us for all the action from Saturday's friendlies. Get in touch with us via Twitter with your reaction.
Hosted by Joe Doyle
Hosted by Joe Doyle
19:54 BST
We're still getting plenty of Hazard chat on Twitter. A few are now saying that he's not worth the hype, others saying he was brilliant(!?) and others (which I agree with), saying he created much of his own hype. What do you think? Get involved!
19:46 BST
Joe Hart has also been giving his thoughts after the Belgium game: "It was a really tough game, a good run out. I thought we played well, [but] we were a little bit bitty at times.
"But, we came through. Obviously there were a lot of changes so it's good to get the result.
"Belgium are a very, very strong side who are going to be really good in the future. Vincent [Kompany] told me about them and said that they were coming good and I totally agree with him."
"But, we came through. Obviously there were a lot of changes so it's good to get the result.
"Belgium are a very, very strong side who are going to be really good in the future. Vincent [Kompany] told me about them and said that they were coming good and I totally agree with him."
19:38 BST
Here's Roy Hodgson's reaction to the result and some injury chat: "I'm very pleased, it's been a hard week and we've used a lot of players. There was a lot of disruption in the second-half with substitutions – some forced upon us, some we wanted to do. But it's still a very good end to the week playing against a good Belgian team here. Arguably even stronger than the Norwegian team we played last week and I've got to be more than happy that we've come out with another victory."
"[Gary] Cahill I suppose is slightly more of a concern for me because it is a jaw injury. We're desperately hoping the CT scan doesn't show any fracture and it's just going to be a bruising situation, which will be bad enough, but won't stop him taking part in the tournament. As far as John's [Terry] concerned he felt his hamstring a little bit. Again it wasn't a major thing when he came off but we still need to scan it just to be 100 per cent sure."
Suffice to say, if Cahill has broken his jaw, he won't play any part in the tournament.
"[Gary] Cahill I suppose is slightly more of a concern for me because it is a jaw injury. We're desperately hoping the CT scan doesn't show any fracture and it's just going to be a bruising situation, which will be bad enough, but won't stop him taking part in the tournament. As far as John's [Terry] concerned he felt his hamstring a little bit. Again it wasn't a major thing when he came off but we still need to scan it just to be 100 per cent sure."
Suffice to say, if Cahill has broken his jaw, he won't play any part in the tournament.
19:35 BST
And another point from today: Eden Hazard wasn't great. Don't think you can judge him on one performance though. What do you think? Is it just a case of too much hype around the Chelsea-bound Belgian?
19:32 BST
We're getting plenty of people saying it was boring. PLENTY. But Spain scored seven goals in eight games at the World Cup and I didn't hear too many of their fans complaining. Or as Fran Stinchcombe points out on Twitter: "If we had lost but played free flowing attacking football would these people still have moaned?"
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