England National football team thread

[War]

Manchester United: Rio Ferdinand England recall ruled out by Roy Hodgson - Mirror Online

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1331216/england-boss-roy-hodgson-over-rio-ferdinand-talk?cc=3888

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/england/9856302/Roy-Hodgson-sees-no-way-back-into-the-England-team-for-Rio-Ferdinand-and-John-Terry.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/feb/07/england-roy-hodgson-ferdinand-terry

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/england-future-looks-bleak-for-rio-ferdinand-8486171.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/4784684/Roy-Hodgson-bans-talk-of-Rio-Ferdinand-for-England.html

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/football/view/297592/Reject-Rio-Ferdinand-s-big-Roy-Hodgson-snub/


I fully support hodgson as manager and believe he has the right ideas to build a good team that will get England through the qualifiers safely, so that we can try to better our world cup record in Brazil next year.

But the Ferdinand issue is becoming the major elephant in room in his early management tenure.

Everyone with a brain knows that when he came in as coach, he made decision in the heat of anton ferdinand/terry court case - to not pick rio because he didn't think/or want to have deal with both of them in the same dressing room. That was a big enough issue to deal with so much players already injured heading into the euro's & as a new manager brought in on such short notice - he had enough on his plate.

The FA also probably told him not to pick rio also, so the initial reason to not pick rio on "football reasons" was always a smoke-screen pr disaster statement. Even if one was to factor in that ferdinand had not played for england for like 10 months under capello mainly due to his consistent injury woes @ united.

But come the start of this season since the European championship - a lot has changed. Terry has retired & looked poor for chelsea & if terry has not retired there would have been a large calls now for him to be dropped from England. Lescott is now 4th choice defender at city; caulkner is behind kaboul & vertongen (when fit) @ spurs, cahill & smalling are talented & probably could be the new rio/terry partnership - but they are not first choice players -with smalling obviously even learning from ferdinand right now.

Jaigelka is the only defender that was in the squad vs brazil that is guaranteed to play weekly, but he showed his deficiencies (slow & poor ability pass the ball out of defense) vs poland in the world cup qualifier last year.

While this season Ferdinand has been injury free & has been very good for united & clearly is best english defender in the premier league right now. His experience alongside any of the quick & talented young defenders in smalling, cahill, richards or caulker is just the security the backline needs - which will only make england better.

Hodgson is dead wrong unfortunately to keep leaving Ferdinand out & its obvious its clear he is worried about having to face him man to man after the controversy. But Ferdinand clearly still wants to play for england. He hasn't let the situation get to him & when england plays he always tweets his support & encouragement to the team. He even said recently that he would pack his bags & go to training if ever called up.

So Hodgson needs to swallow his pride & recall Ferdinand.

 

[Lee1981]

War please stop this Ferdinand brown nosing

He is past his best, what has it come to when we banging on for a bloke in his mid 30's to be recalled.

He hasn't been a top defender for the best part of 3 years now, in your eyes he seems to be in some kind of form right now, can't comment as I don't watch utd play.

But even if he is I don't think he is better than any of the current candidates except maybe Lescott who should be no where near an England team anyway

We need to look to the future, Rio has been great, but his time has gone.

We are not gonna be close to winning or even getting to a final for many years yet, so it's time to build and stick with the new young guys who yes may not have adapted to international football yet, but there is no better time than now as the expectations from the media and the fans for this team is at a low I've never experienced as an England fan before.

And hopefully after the next World Cup, when we go out in the quarters again, Gerrard and Lampard call it a day, great servants but we need to look beyond them after that tournament.

 

[War]

Excuse me for being an england fan that simply wants to see the best team picked at all time.

Whether i brought up this issue in this thread or not, its everywhere right now. If you watched the game on skysports martin tyler & stuart robson were talking about it in the post match commentary.

And all the reputable papers & tabloids too have spoken about it in some way in the last two days. Can't bury your head in the sand and pretend its not an issue.

No one is dumb here and all of those journalist & fans who have been following this saga from the start can read between the lines & for Hodgson to react angrily at journalist from bringing it shows he is losing the argument & simply further proves he is sadly ignoring Ferdinand for obvious non football reasons.

Its ok if you & some think that we should go for younger players, especially in this climate where indeed expectation for the national time is the lowest in my lifetime.

However hodgson or you can't speak of "building and sticking in the youth" & "its Ferdinand's time & still use the "if you good enough, you are old enough argument" for picking lampard who is older than ferdinand. Why not pick Henderson or play Osman in mid-field instead now of lampard, if you say you want to blood young defenders like Cahill, Smalling, Caulker, Richards instead of recalling rio?. You can't because its contradictory.

While you also cringe at the idea of recalling a player in his mid 30s my friend, you should note that the defending world & european champions spain - have a 34 year old defender in their squad regularly by the name of Carlos Puyol.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

Considering he's alleged to have beaten up a cabbie because he was wearing a Spurs hat I'd say he's definitely got it him. Supposed to be absolute scum off the pitch is Jack.

There must be about 8 different versions to the story.

I thought he spat at on a taxi (or at the driver) because it had a spurs badge in the window

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Considering he's alleged to have beaten up a cabbie because he was wearing a Spurs hat I'd say he's definitely got it him. Supposed to be absolute scum off the pitch is Jack.

So another England midfield star with a potential built-in self destruct button.

@Lee: Ferdinand is having a good season for Utd. Personally, I think there should be an experienced man in the CB pairing - not sure who else apart from Ferdinand.

 

[puddleduck]

There must be about 8 different versions to the story.

I thought he spat at on a taxi (or at the driver) because it had a spurs badge in the window

Yeah the other story is that he wasn't actually injured but has instead been battling a coke addiction and since it was recreational drugs he got busted for and to avoid a scandal they just pulled him from football for a year to get himself sorted...

However I somehow doubt that wouldn't have leaked

Although, didn't seem to hurt Maradona...

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I fully agree with Lee though. Let's just go with a partnership that may well play together for the next 10 years. Why not let them grow together? As good as Rio has supposedly been, let's not ignore the fact that Man U have not exactly been tight at the back this year.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

Yeah the other story is that he wasn't actually injured but has instead been battling a coke addiction and since it was recreational drugs he got busted for and to avoid a scandal they just pulled him from football for a year to get himself sorted...

However I somehow doubt that wouldn't have leaked

I can actually buy that. It's probably not actually true, though.

What I can't buy is that in the last 15 years only Mutu and Bosnich have tested positive for cocaine out of all of the premier league millionaires.

Oh an kolo toure taking his wife's HRT or the pill or whatever his excuse was.

 

[War]

Ha while some of those stories about Wilshire's private life are humorous - especially the coke story (hopefully not true of course)

Who cares about that really or whether he may be a bit of snob personally. In england over the years, i always get the feelings some fans and the media are a bit too concerned about players personal lives, while overly concerned about them having a squeaky clean image.

This is one of the reasons why my son Ash Cole essentially tells the media f*** off these days.

The eternally holy figure in English football of Sir Bobby Moore cheated on his wife 3 women i recall, you hardly ever hear that about him - just his glorious exploits as a footballers which is all that matters really.


Also finally on the rio saga, don't know why one would draw a link between united's poor defensive record & ferdinand. That was not his fault, it was all down to Sir Alex early in the season tactically getting in many games by picking a soft mid-field of Carrick/Scholes together, which gave the backline no protection.

Comparing for example the two games united played vs tottenham this season would highlight this. When spurs won @ old trafford, that fact that bale playing @ left wing could have managed to cut pass the entire mid-field & somehow find himself running one vs one with rio who was the right-side defender, was one of the most appalling team defensive moments of the season. The culpability is all on the mid-field.

In the 1-1 draw @ white hart lane recently, united defended properly & smartly, rendering bale basically quiet the entire game. Ferdinand was excellent & the rest of the backline did not have to do any unnecesarrry work.

However i digress. If this is surely the end of ferdinand's england career its a sad and undignified way for it to end. I equally believe that the Cahill/Smalling partnership has the right tools to become the new Terry/Rio partnership en route to brazil & beyond. And with Richards, Caulker, Jones & Dawson in support - that is talented group of under 30 central defenders to work & build to the future with.

 

[Lee1981]

Ferdinand will not make the difference between us making a semi final or final.

So, putting him in for 1 more tournament as surely 2016 euros is definitely beyond him, what is the point?

It does not increase our chances, we are not good enough that is fact, and recalling a mid 30's past his peak defender is not gonna improve us, players like Cleverly, Cahill, Jones, Smalling are what is gonna improve us long term

Let Cahill and whoever his partner maybe have a cack tournament it will be a steep learning curve, then come 2016 we can then think about progressing to competing with your Spain's and Germany's.

Leave the old boys in the past

 

[puddleduck]

I can actually buy that. It's probably not actually true, though.

What I can't buy is that in the last 15 years only Mutu and Bosnich have tested positive for cocaine out of all of the premier league millionaires.

Oh an kolo toure taking his wife's HRT or the pill or whatever his excuse was.

There is absolutely no way that Rio Ferdinand wasn't going to test positive for some kind of recreational drug when he "forgot" his drug test!

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The reason the media care is to do with the players supposedly being role models to plenty of kids. You only have to go watch a park football match now compared to 20 years ago to see the massive change in the way the kids talk to refs. To a lot of kids the players are heroes, and their behaviour, whether they want it to or not, rubs off.

There is no reason why being a footballer excuses terrible behaviour. Whilst I agree the media is often too quick to find stories where perhaps there isn't one, there is also the other side of the coin wherein a lot of players believe they are above everyone else just because they can play football.

Plenty of sides to the argument though. There was an interesting point once made that to a lot of journalists, there is an inherent bitterness that football is actually one of the last remaining areas where class is completely irrelevant. Someone with no education can earn millions of pounds, and to some journalists that very fact is enough to drive them to jealousy. They almost certainly wanted to be footballers themselves, but their life of opportunity never gave them that "chance."

Similarly though, being a footballer doesn't excuse behaviour and just as football should never excuse fans being scum under the old proviso "that it's just football innit," neither should it apply to the footballers. Should John Terry be national team captain after he sleeps with the wife of a fellow player? Of course not. Should taunting Adebayor over a genuine terrorist attack where real people lost their lives, or Spurs fans with chants about the holocaust be acceptable because it's football? Of course not, were it done in the street by an individual it would be rightly considered abhorent behaviour.

One of the big issues in football, is also the inbuild xenophobia that still pervades it. Football should be inclusive, but it is just a game. Still, too often we are quick to label European players as scum for rolling around on the floor, yet ignore the potentially leg breaking and career ending tackles and in fact hold them up as a shining example of the grit and fighting spirit of English football. Mentalities are certainly shifting in the right way, but we still have far to go....

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Ferdinand will not make the difference between us making a semi final or final.

So, putting him in for 1 more tournament as surely 2016 euros is definitely beyond him, what is the point?

It does not increase our chances, we are not good enough that is fact, and recalling a mid 30's past his peak defender is not gonna improve us, players like Cleverly, Cahill, Jones, Smalling are what is gonna improve us long term

Let Cahill and whoever his partner maybe have a cack tournament it will be a steep learning curve, then come 2016 we can then think about progressing to competing with your Spain's and Germany's.

Leave the old boys in the past

The aggravating thing is back in 1990, 1996 and 1998 we were competing with the Spains (well, Argentina) and Germany. All I've seen throughout my life is England teams make decent progress, but then we seem to always end up back at square one! It's so bloody frustrating!

 

[Lee1981]

Know the feeling MB

Thing with me now I've actually given up caring about our national team now, I realise how bad we are

But it makes watching tournaments easier as there is now know need to go hide in the pub toilets as you can't bare to watch us try and hold on to a 1-0 lead for 80 mins then go out on pens.

The drama has gone for me, I sit there with my beer and actually enjoy the football, well not our football, Italy against us euros..... Germany World Cup 2010, we got absolutely out played both games,, and fair play, we lost to the better teams.

Something we need to get used to for sure, which is why I say there is no point in dragging up the past in Rio, we are at a point where now where we go to tournaments with no expectation, we go out in the group would anyone be shocked? I wouldn't and it doesn't really matter anyway does it, we aren't gonna win the thing anyway

Go to the world up, with a young inexperienced team who just maybe step up and play exciting passing football and get us to the knock out stages, now that is success for me, not a team of the old guard, battling through every match leading by 1 goal then defending all match,, with the inevitable quarterfinal defeat,,,,, Been there done that ,,,, move on

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

this is what you get for cheating your way to 1966. crossed the line my arse, eternal mediocrity is the price.

 

[War]

Ferdinand will not make the difference between us making a semi final or final.

So, putting him in for 1 more tournament as surely 2016 euros is definitely beyond him, what is the point?

It does not increase our chances, we are not good enough that is fact, and recalling a mid 30's past his peak defender is not gonna improve us, players like Cleverly, Cahill, Jones, Smalling are what is gonna improve us long term

Let Cahill and whoever his partner maybe have a cack tournament it will be a steep learning curve, then come 2016 we can then think about progressing to competing with your Spain's and Germany's.

Leave the old boys in the past

Agree in general, just hope that the younger defenders learn quick enough & make less mistakes so that sir Hodgson nasty ending of Ferdinand's career for his own sake will be eased.

Like you my expectations for the national team is at an all-time low ever since the 4-1 hammering from Germany in 2010. I believe this is the case for a lot of long time england fans. Its all about one game @ a time & them earning back that high level of belief & more performances like the brazil one this year will help.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

this is what you get for cheating your way to 1966. crossed the line my arse, eternal mediocrity is the price.

Not this again. We won 4-2. Had the goal not stood, we would've won 3-2. 3-2 is still one more than the Germans, thus we still would've won!

Oh, and have a good close look at one of the Germans' goals - the one that pushed it into ET I believe: the freekick that led up to it was never a freekick in a million years. Enough already! We were the better team on the day (just as we were in 1990 and 1996) and the better team over the whole tournament (just as we were in 1996). And let's not forget that in 1970, Gordon Banks picked up a bout of food poisoning or something, otherwise he would've been in goal and that clanger would never have happened. You just can't accept that Scotland will never, ever, ever win a damn thing - at least we've won the World Cup once - doesn't matter how long ago - and that just sticks in the craw of some of you Scots, doesn't it?

Oh and we played you off the field in the Six Nations as well.

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Know the feeling MB

Thing with me now I've actually given up caring about our national team now, I realise how bad we are

But it makes watching tournaments easier as there is now know need to go hide in the pub toilets as you can't bare to watch us try and hold on to a 1-0 lead for 80 mins then go out on pens.

The drama has gone for me, I sit there with my beer and actually enjoy the football, well not our football, Italy against us euros..... Germany World Cup 2010, we got absolutely out played both games,, and fair play, we lost to the better teams.

That's the worrying thing: we usually put up a good show against the 'bigger' team and even outplay them for large periods of the match (Germany 1990, Germany 1996, Argentina 1998 and Portugal 2004) but recently we've been blown away by our opponents. The match against Brazil was encouraging but we've got to pull that out of the bag when it really counts.