England National football team thread

[MasterBlaster76]

Nah it actually makes sense. If a side players no competitive football for that long they go off the boil, ala france 2002.

Qualifying is full of so many dud sides though and the seeding system as it is means the champions should always qualify anyway, if they don't then they aren't very likely to impact on the tournament.

Which is why we could do with pre qualifying tournaments.

 

[War]

England is so frustrating! Look at the last twenty or thirty years - 1986, we matched Argentina stride for stride and probably would've beaten them if they didn't have one of the best players (cheating drug addled git that he was) of all time (Maradona). 1990, we outplayed Germany in the semis of the World Cup, only for our 'old friend', penalties to bugger us up again. Oh, and 'square' Italian goalposts. 1992-1994 ummm... let's just gloss over that. Then in 1996 we were the best team in Euro 1996 only to get done by Germany on penalties again (after repeatedly coming within an inch of putting them out). 1998 was a similar story vs Argentina - there were numerous other occasions like 2004 and even 2006. I don't really need to go on. How has it fallen back so far now?.

Master B mate, i dunno man. Excluding the EUROs which was free tournament with a injury ravaged team, the problems that Hodgson has encountered vs Ukraine, Poland & Montenegro in these qualifiers is the same thing Hoddle, Keegan, Sven, McClaren & Capello faced.

I suspect this unfortunately labelled "golden generation" has developed a dangerous phobia when it comes to killing off teams or being able to win ugly.

If it is this team scrapes to Brazil & does brings the career curtains down on the national careers Gerrards, Lampard, Ferdinand, Cole - hopefully the next era of players that seem to be looking good at Under 21 level currently can play without those shackles for the national team.

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Belgium and Croatia are pitted in the same group Colin, so only one of the two will make the playoffs.

But I get what you mean though. You really wouldn't want to face either of them in the playoffs, considering the form they've portrayed over these qualifiers - 16 points each from 6 games, sitting well clear at the top, and going neck and neck with each other.

Ye i meant Belgium or Croatia. Play-off's is a death trap for England.

 

[Auwais]

Play-offs will most likely be seeded anyway, so England should be alright.

 

[War]

I remember their was a bit of controversy about the seedings in the 2009 play-off's with some of lesser ranked teams complaining seedings would protect big teams like England & it should be a open draw instead of a draw based on rankings.

FIFA hasn't announced yet which route it would take with the UEFA play-off's this time. So it will be interesting to see what they do.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

I posted this in another thread:

Apparently, England could be playing their next game in an empty Wembley because some fans were chanting racist things about Ferdinand in the San Marino game. Anyone hear anything racist? All I heard was 'Ferdinand is a ------, is a ------'. That's not racist. Some countries get away with actual racism for years, yet the very second England are judged to do it, they throw the book at us.

Sometimes I really hate Fifa and Uefa...

 

[War]

BBC Sport - Alleged Ferdinand racist chants 'hearsay' - fan group

Well if it is proven to hearsay, UEFA will have egg on their faces ha..

 

[MasterBlaster76]

BBC Sport - Alleged Ferdinand racist chants 'hearsay' - fan group

Well if it is proven to hearsay, UEFA will have egg on their faces ha..

Apparently, there was a song being sung about burning the Ferdinands on a bonfire. Not nice of course, but hardly racist. Maybe this song:

Build a bonfire,
Build a bonfire,
Put the Scousers on the top!
Put City in the middle,
And burn the tweaking lot!

Just adjusted a bit to accommodate the Ferdinands? Not very nice (like a lot of football songs) but hardly racist. I reckon UEFA are going to look very stupid before too long.

 

[Bevab]

They've looked stupid right from when they have had Platini as their head.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

They've looked stupid right from when they have had Platini as their head.

No argument from me there.

 

[treva]

#England: One step behind

Piece I've written on the England national team and why we're so far behind the likes of Spain, Germany, Holland and Italy.

Agree? Disagree?

 

[Lee1981]

#England: One step behind

Piece I've written on the England national team and why we're so far behind the likes of Spain, Germany, Holland and Italy.

Agree? Disagree?

Agree but in truth just stating everything we already know

Still a good read none the less

 

[ste_mc_efc]

A decent read, I'm a little bit bored of everyone taking shots at Stoke though.

 

[treva]

They are the most boring team I have ever seen, they deserve everything they get said about them. I watch football to be entertained, I feel sorry for Stoke fans paying a serious amount of money to see that crap week-in week-out. They have had 15 games this season where there have been less than 2 goals in a game. I appreciate the whole doing what they can to stay up and stay at mid-table but at some point they have to start trying to do something different. I would love them to get relegated next season, they were far more exciting the season they went up from the Championship.

Thanks for the read lads.

 

[Auwais]

The shot at Rio is predictable, as is the criticism of Stoke. Scholes and Giggs have scored plenty of wonder goals between them down the years.

Hyping up the above-average Lansbury is another strange one. I've seen nothing to convince me that Sterling is a bigger talent than Zaha, you should have mentioned Derby's Will Hughes or Southampton's Luke Shaw as other interesting talents.

England regularly do well at lower age levels, mainly because of their physical advantage over most other sides at those levels. Their problem is the technical and tactical deficiency at the top level.

 

[War]

Gary Neville: It's time we stood up to protect the soul of the British game | Mail Online

We all know of this problem. This is why although i'm not a Man Utd fan, Sir Alex deserves great credit for backing british talent in his squad. The investments he has made in Jones, Smalling, Cleverley, Welbeck, Powell & now Zaha has been key. He could have easily shopped foreign, but didn't.

Tottenham & Pool this season has had a fair amount of british players starting, Wenger/Arsenal for the 1st time in more than 10 years has tended to have starting XI with a good semblance of british players. Only Chelsea & City for big clubs don't really have a strong english core base currently.