International Friendlies are lame. I usually don’t comment about non-German football, but since I have a captive audience, I get to pontificate…
Basically, I don’t put much value in these matches, and the main positive is that your players don’t get injured. Lots of folks expected Germany to spank France, and when it didn’t happen, they feel there’s some problem. However luckily, those are the minority. If you’ve watched over the years, you’d know that Germany doesn’t give much of a rat’s ass about the result. Nothing is at stake, so if they don’t win, they really don’t care that much. As long as they don’t stink, then mission accomplished. When trophies are on the line, that’s another matter.
So when the USA beats Italy for the first time in 82 years (in Italy to boot), I have to take the same attitude. So what? Does it mean Italy is in crisis? Not really. They’ve got some work before the Euros, but they knew that already. US is ready for prime time? No, but they’re becoming respectable. Sort of what’s been going on for the last 15 years…
Oddly enough, it’s the Brits that seem to blow things out of proportion. Everytime England plays, if they suck, the sky is falling, woe to Albion. (Actually, Brazil or Argentina are even worse. You should listen to Globo when Brazil is playing…) But if they show some life, well, “Stuart Pearce might be the right guy for the job.” What nonsense. Maybe Pearce is the right choice (couldn’t be much worse than some of the other clowns they’ve had or talked about), but your choice shouldn’t be made on a meaningless friendly. It should be more along the lines of whether you can afford to pay Harry Redknapp’s salary demands, since he won’t be able to benefit from bung-payments anymore, hehehe…
The other problem with these friendlies is that there are way too many international fixtures anyway. Semi-mediocre players rack up ridiculous number of caps, and nobodies get called up. Brazil seemingly capped players just so their clubs could inflate the price when selling them to Europe, plus you have to wonder about “Albanian internationals” playing in the Regionalliga.