Hi Michael

<" Seems a sort of etiquette not to shoot when one has the chance, but to try to donate the honour to a team-mate. Why do they keep doing this?">

I think there are a number of contributory reasons.

You will of course remember when " Johnny Foreigner" came over here and inflicted a first ever victory over England on their own soil at Wembley. It was no fluke 3-6 we lost and were given a lesson in football. It was in 1953 and it was Hungary that was guilty of that heinous crime.

Since then we have been always playing catch up and in doing so we have tried to copy the foreign teams. They all play possession football and over the years since then different nations have all had their own brand of this type of game.

To achieve this, teams need to be extremely skilful in ball control and passing rapidly to create openings.

In trying to demonstrate this skill teams tend to overdo the passing and try to walk the ball into the net. What has developed is that the skill of sharp shooting has been affected.

Another possible reason is that the art of goalkeeping has improved greatly and long distance shooting tends not to trouble the keepers these days.

I agree with you that players do not shoot as often as they could do.
Shooting and missing gives possession and control to the opposition. So a player is on a hiding to nothing if he does so. It is easier to pass the buck - literally.

In the individual case of Robben he is a very clever player and runs at defences causing panic. He can be deadly when he gets a shooting opportunity ( as I know only too well when he knocked Man United out of the European Cup two years ago!!!!). But in The World cup this year he is trying just that bit too much and makes some marvelous runs but takes it just too far and runs into trouble. He would be better shooting or passing earlier to the likes of van Persie who can and does shoot and score - especially with that deadly left foot.

I am hoping that Holland can pick up their game and beat Argentina Argentina are improving with each game, The news that Aguero will be back to be in partnership with Messi will give them much more firepower up front.

Aguero is in player Michael, who does shoot and scores from any angle.

My heart says Holland but my head says Argentina.

Cheers

Mike