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• Bush Predicts Clinton Wins Nomination, Loses 2008 Election http://tinyurl.com/ytx8n8 Yup. That’s about how it looks to go down. Poor Obama. #
• Obama camp did respond:”I can’t tell if Bush is endorsing Hillary, hoping she’s the nominee, or thanking her for her votes on Iraq and Iran” #
• Reports say Beckham to sit for start of Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia - World Soccer - Yahoo! Sports http://tinyurl.com/ytky99 #
• Bench It Like Beckham? Mac Closing The Beck Door? Mac The Knife? Pick your headline. #
• Oh - the midget Paul Robinson will also sit. I suppose we don’t need anymore own goals. I wonder if Borat will be around. #
• MiamiSportsBlog.com - London Streaker Exposed, errrr, Uncovered http://tinyurl.com/yw8f58 Is this the same guy from the Celtic Porto game? #
• Mojo Filter: Keep Noxious Farts at Bay with the Gas Grabber http://tinyurl.com/3dwnm8 Better X-mas gift than The Clapper! #
• UEFA EURO 2008 http://tinyurl.com/2cgs65 OH MY GOD. England down 2-nil after only 14 minutes!!! #
• Before the game there were 12-1 odds that McClaren would resign at midnight. But 20-1 odds that a Beckham goal sent them thru. #
• Beckham on at halftime. Back t0 4-4-2 #
• Penalty. Lampard scores. ENG 1-2 CRO #
• Beckham to Crouch to level at 2-2! Outstanding! #
• 9 mins left - England now trail 2-3. Drama at Wembley! #
• Wow. England out of Euro 2008. Andorra even held Russia 1-0 and had a man advantage in the last 6 minutes but couldn’t convert. #

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England were half an hour away from qualifying for Euro 2008, putting behind their poor start in qualifying, choice of manager, team selection debates, and goalkeeping errors. Then it happened. The bottom fell out with a silly Wayne Rooney tackle and another Paul Robinson blunder in goal. McClaren reacted in a panic, bringing on Frank Lampard and Peter Crouch too late to make an impact. And now Russia
are in the driver’s seat with a 2-1 victory.

England’s Euro 2008 qualifying hopes were wrenched out of their own hands as they crashed to defeat in Moscow. The result means Steve McClaren’s side must now beat Croatia at Wembley next month and hope Russia stumble in their remaining games against a hopeless Andorra and an Israel side with nothing to play for.

The Russia substitute Roman Pavlyuchenko grabbed both of his team’s goals in a four-minute spell in the second half, cancelling out Wayne Rooney’s delightfully volleyed first-half opener.

Of course the focus will be on the ineffectiveness of Lampard, the hapless Paul Robinson and the “plastic pitch” - an advanced FieldTurf surface which bears no resemblance to the awful Astroturf surfaces of the 70’s and 80’s - instead of maybe focussing on the overrated Wayne Rooney who scores only for his club, and seems to always make boneheaded decisions that cost England. How many penalties and red cards, hot headed challenges, and ineffective play is worth his supposed special talent? Michael Owen and Emile Heskey or Peter Crouch have yielded much better results for England while Wayne Rooney tries to play left back.

Perhaps one can blame McClaren for putting him in the lineup with Owen instead of trying a better combination - as well as sticking with Paul Robinson even with his poor club play (can you remember successive clean sheets for Tottenham?). There’s also keeping the Gerrard/Lampard combination for too long. All topics for spirited debate over the next month until Russia kick off against Israel. Just don’t blame the surface.

UPDATE (10:39pm Paris time):  France’s Thierry Henry has just put 2 past Lithuania with 10 minutes to go - this coupled with Scotland doing what they do and choking against Georgia and their 17 year old keeper means that neither England nor Scotland now look favorites to go through. I wonder what this means for ESPN’s viewership for the Euro 2008 next summer. At least one good piece of news came out. The US finally won in Europe. Michael Bradley scored the only goal against Euro co-host Switzerland to win 1-0. Freddy Adu almost had another.

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