WE watched the World Cup semi-finals as a group while out in Spain and the way Brazil defended actually gave me a sleepless night.

I just couldn’t believe the off the cuff way they defended and the way they panicked after going a goal down.

It was basic mistakes they were making and to compare it to a Sunday League side would actually be unfair to a Sunday League side.

I’m really not sure now how I would react to a team representing me defending in that way and that’s what certainly led to me not being able to sleep.

It also made me change my training session I had planned the following morning and I actually went through a defensive session where I confirmed and went through exactly how I expect my team to defend.

The players seemed to love it and it was great to watch all of the games together.

We made it a bit more interesting by putting all the possible score-lines in to a hat and drawing one out each.

We all put in five euros as well and when Ben Clarkson drew out the 0-0 draw for the Holland Argentina game I offered to buy it off him.

I just thought it was a dead certainty it was going to be goalless because both managers would have seen the game the previous evening.

They would not have wanted to have lost in that manner and would have made sure their teams were both very solid at the back.

In the end Argentina edged through on penalties and we have a great final on our hands now.

They are both mentally very strong and find ways to win games. Germany in particularly were ruthless in their game with Brazil because most teams would probably have stopped when they went 3-0 up.

Germany certainly didn’t do that though. They kept on going and I think it would be good for the European game if they were to come out on top against Argentina.