Post-Mortem: Trashing Sven & England

The trash talking has begun, led by the BBC:
“This was a great, great opportunity for us to have done well and it’s ended in a very sad way. You could see the difference in the penalties between England and Germany. From the way they walk, the way they approach the ball and the way the Germans took the penalties with the accuracy and precision, you never thought they would miss.” — Graham Taylor
“We haven’t played well, we had years to prepare and nothing’s changed, we are a quarter-final team and no more. Every time we play a team with a bit of craft and skill we can’t deal with it. It’s such a burden on our shoulders knowing that we are no good at penalties and we have to make sure we win the game and not put ourselves through that. We have got to face reality that we are a team nowhere near the top seven countries in the world… But we have got to wake up in this country and realise that we are not a great team. We coach too much at a young age and we take the skill away from our youngsters. Look at Cristiano Ronaldo, Simao, Pauleta. We don’t have a player anything like that. Every other country has one, but we don’t. We have got to go back to basics and teach skill to the youngsters…” — Chris Waddle
“I think Wayne Rooney should go back to the Manchester United training ground and stick one on Ronaldo”
— Alan Shearer
“You have got to feel sorry for the players who had the bottle to take the penalties, and then you have to praise the players who stood up and held Portugal out during the match. But the decision by the manager to play one up front was absolute folly. The system never looked like working. Everyone will question the manager now and rightly so…
I think the manager has contributed to England’s downfall. He never got the shape or balance of the team right.”
— Alan Hansen
“Right from the beginning in the choosing of the squad there were problems. You don’t take gambles, you don’t have a plan B. You must have the plan A. There has been mistakes right from the very beginning. You can’t expect players to just turn it on at this level if they’re playing in the wrong set-up, it just doesn’t happen.” — Alan Ball
“While this was a gallant defeat full of big-hearted performances, it must not be used to mask the gross deficiencies of Sven-Goran Eriksson’s management. This is a golden generation of English talent but in terms of picking the right squad and getting the right balance of the team, Eriksson ultimately got it wrong. It is as simple as this: Eriksson never gave them a chance. The over-riding reaction may have been despair at losing another crucial game in a penalty shoot-out, but this cannot mask the problems that have dogged this team throughout the tournament. Despite all their assembled talent, they have not delivered one good performance.” — Gary Lineker in the Daily Telegraph
“England have played a wonderful match with 10 men and we have to congratulate them… The penalties are always a lottery…I want to value the attitude of the English players. It looked like 11 against 11…” — Portugal’s Brazilian coach, Big Phil plays the diplomat in Sporting Life
“We just weren’t good enough to win” — Sven in his press conference