Liverpool striker Peter Crouch has blamed exhaustion for the dismal penalty shoot-out performance that ended England's World Cup campaign.

He said Wayne Rooney's sending off left the players too tired for the spot-kicks, which they lost 3-1.

 

"I honestly felt exhaustion set in at the end against Portugal," said Crouch, who was not one of the penalty-takers.

 

"We had played quite a lot of the game with 10 men and I think we took the penalties in a tired way."

 

England missed three of their four penalties after Saturday's quarter-final had finished scoreless.

 

The side had played for an hour with 10 men after Rooney's red card for a stamp on Portugal defender Ricardo Carvalho.

 

Crouch's club team-mates Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, plus Frank Lampard, all failed to net from the spot in Gelsenkirchen. Owen Hargreaves was the only scorer.

 

"Everyone worked so hard and I genuinely feel everyone had given everything by the time we had to take the penalties. That definitely showed in the penalties we had to take," added Crouch.

 

It was England's fifth defeat on penalties in a major competition in the past 16 years.

 

But Crouch, 25, who came on as a substitute after Rooney's dismissal, insisted England could have done no more to prepare for the penalties.

 

He said: "We have come in for criticism in the past for not practising penalties but I can assure you, we had been practising them all the time after going to Germany in early June - and before that.

 

"They had been going well in practice - but we were fresh then. We were in an empty stadium as well, which is a different ball game to Saturday.

 

"When it goes to penalties it is a lottery and we came unstuck again on Saturday. It was a bitter blow to go out of the World Cup the way we did and afterwards a few of the lads were inconsolable.

 

"Every one of us felt we could go all the way this time. We really felt we had the team to achieve that goal and it is such a shame it ended like it did."

 

 

Haha, they were too tired. Thats the most pathetic excuse i've ever heard. Portugal didnt have any problems. :rolleyes:

In fairness Portigal ARE more aclimatised to the hot weather and weren't constantly making up the extra man like England were so yes I think exhaustion MIGHT have just been a factor in there. Not saying that this is the reason they lost but to dismiss the fact that they might have got tired is LUDICROUS.

I agree, this is undoubtably the reason.

 

One could go back a step and say that in a world cup situation your likely to have a game or even games where players will have to play 120 minutes and then take penalties, normally in extra heat to conditions encountered in the UK.

 

At that point you can dismiss half the current England setup for not being fit enough to play World Cup football.

I'm sorry, but this is absolute RUBBISH!!! :lol: :lol: The climate in London (which is where the likes of Lampard and Terry play...) and the South East is pretty similar to that of Germany and even some parts of the MED in the summer, so moaning about 'heat' is just a load of sh!te IMO....

 

I mean, if you're gonna use the heat and the climate as an excuse, well that means that you were never gonna win the cup anyway really.... They'd might as well not bother turning up to South Africa in 2010 then.... Cos if they thought Germany was hot, no way they'll handle the searing heat and humidity of Africa.....

If that's the excuse, then they should be fitter ffs.

I've gotta admit, that, that is rubbish. The players were fit enough and in any game no matter how hot ot cold most players get warn out and suffer from cramp, so they should have all been used to it before.

If that's the excuse, then they should be fitter ffs.

 

Yeah exactly, and maybe NOT BLOODY SMOKING might help a bit in that.... <_<

 

How the hell can a professional athlete possibly stay fit and healthy by smoking ffs....? Doesn't smoking totally fukk up the capacity of your lungs and cause irregular breathing and heart a-rhythmia....? Not exactly conducive to playing in 30-odd degree temperatures is it....?

 

Christ these people are idiots....

 

So Carragher was tired after all his hard work that match?

They're not going to like the next World Cup then :lol: (South Africa)

Compare the England-Portugal game to the France-Germany game and you see England are so unfit.

 

The issue of cramp comes about after dehydration and having a lack of salt in the system. I'd of thought that enough dietary info is about for them for them to have a good diet these days.

Well our two strikers being VERY unfit is enought of an excuse for me as we would have performed better with them fit.

 

We should have got Guus Hiddink if we wanted to focus on fitness then!

 

The issue of cramp comes about after dehydration and having a lack of salt in the system. I'd of thought that enough dietary info is about for them for them to have a good diet these days.

 

Exactly. And laying off the beer and tabs probably helps and all..... :lol:

So Carragher was tired after all his hard work that match?

Yeah, all of 2 minutes. Poor lamb :cry:

Yeah but still osme players have had very long seasons, and Carragher is one of them. He and Gerrard have been playing football just about non stop for a year, and both players give 100% into every game they play.

Yeah but still osme players have had very long seasons, and Carragher is one of them.

 

Well, surely you can say that for for all the top players in the world mate, not just the English ones...

 

But Liverpools first competitive match was just after I went away last year, on July 6th, I think it would be surprising if they weren't tired. Seasons shouldn't last a WHOLE year. It's ridiculous. No other world cup internationals have lasted that long, bar Liverpool players anway. And the LEague Cup is pointless. What DOES it do other than give another team a European place? Nothing apart from adding MORE games to the already crowded calendar year!