Football

[Kite159]

Someone mentioned if England was a train they would be a voyager, this picture sums it up

In other news, the gym and pool was nice and quiet tonight

 

[ExRes]

Any chance that some of the multitude of foreign players in the Premier League could qualify for British passports ?, we could have some sort of team then

 

[SS4]

Any chance that some of the multitude of foreign players in the Premier League could qualify for British passports ?, we could have some sort of team then

Nah, they'd all go north of the border and play for Scotland

 

[Metrailway]

Did anyone notice when the camera panned to the solitary Scot in the stadium after Suarez scored? He was happier than all the Uruguayans put together!

 

[Butts]

Did anyone notice when the camera panned to the solitary Scot in the stadium after Suarez scored? He was happier than all the Uruguayans put together!

He could have had a "bet on" but I fear possibly not
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Nah, they'd all go north of the border and play for Scotland

Gazooks we could do with them - Scotland make England look like Holland or Germany

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Switzerland at various points over the last year have only had three players born in the actual country in the starting XI.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Switzerland at various points over the last year have only had three players born in the actual country in the starting XI.

Well, people do move around a lot more than 50 years ago- and to be eligible to play for a country, one can look back as far as grandparents before you even need to look into the rules about residency and schooling. Rather envious of many, as even if I was young enough and good enough (I'm neither!) I'd only be eligible to represent England. I was apparently conceived in Wales, but I don't think that counts!

Well, now we can at least enjoy the football without patriotism rearing its ugly head... Though I'm concentrating more on Bournemouth at home in a few weeks!

 

[Minilad]

Three years ago an official report concluded that coaching is the "golden thread" leading to international success, but new Uefa data shows that there are only 2,769 English coaches holding Uefa's B, A and Pro badges, its top qualifications. Spain has produced 23,995, Italy 29,420, Germany 34,970 and France 17,588.
Between them those four nations have provided eight of the 12 finalists at all the World Cups and European Championships since 1998. England, meanwhile, have not appeared in a tournament final in 44 years.
There are 2.25 million players in England and only one Uefa-qualified coach for every 812 people playing the game. Spain, the World Cup favourites, have 408,134 players, giving a ratio of 1:17. In Italy, the world champions, the ratio is 1:48, in France it is 1:96, Germany 1:150 and even Greece, the Euro 2004 winners, have only 180,000 registered players for their 1,100 coaches, a ratio of 1:135.

From the Guardian. And that right there is our problem in a nutshell. Not enough quality coaching. Too much emphasis on strength and passion. Not enough on ball skills and ball retention.
A foolish belief by those in the media that we have "the best league in the world" and therefore should be a force on the International stage. Too many players believing the media hype about them and their abilities when in reality they are nothing more than average. Too many average players earning stupendous amounts of money and thinking that means they have made it.
I am glad I don't really bother too much about England and International football.

 

[315804]

Three years ago an official report concluded that coaching is the "golden thread" leading to international success, but new Uefa data shows that there are only 2,769 English coaches holding Uefa's B, A and Pro badges, its top qualifications. Spain has produced 23,995, Italy 29,420, Germany 34,970 and France 17,588.
Between them those four nations have provided eight of the 12 finalists at all the World Cups and European Championships since 1998. England, meanwhile, have not appeared in a tournament final in 44 years.
There are 2.25 million players in England and only one Uefa-qualified coach for every 812 people playing the game. Spain, the World Cup favourites, have 408,134 players, giving a ratio of 1:17. In Italy, the world champions, the ratio is 1:48, in France it is 1:96, Germany 1:150 and even Greece, the Euro 2004 winners, have only 180,000 registered players for their 1,100 coaches, a ratio of 1:135.

From the Guardian. And that right there is our problem in a nutshell. Not enough quality coaching. Too much emphasis on strength and passion. Not enough on ball skills and ball retention.
A foolish belief by those in the media that we have "the best league in the world" and therefore should be a force on the International stage. Too many players believing the media hype about them and their abilities when in reality they are nothing more than average. Too many average players earning stupendous amounts of money and thinking that means they have made it.
I am glad I don't really bother too much about England and International football.

It's a shame England don't bother too much with International football :roll: And now they wait on Italy tonight to see if they will deliberately draw with Costa Rica to send England home : Or perhaps if England have a slight chance of qualification, Rooney's temper will wear out quicker than the printhead on a Swecoin ticket printer and he'll stamp on or kick someone and get sent off

England's domestic game is way more important than the National team, this is why they suffer. Little preparation, despite 'Football Academies' and the like (probably as much good as our Education Academies :roll: ), they need to take more pride in playing for England, but it's more about having palatial houses, big flash cars and contracts selling clothes / aftershave / trainers... oh yeah, the occasional sticking your head round the corner at Great Ormond Street or a little 'charity work' doesn't go amiss, when you're not caned out of your head in a West End bar or Celebrity party...

This cycle of shame will continue, even if they change the manager thinking that will help...

Perhaps the FA could introduce 4 year 'Manager Franchises' - but who will take over the current Greater Arrogance franchise which I'm sure will be reviewed next Tuesday?

 

[ATW Alex 101]

Ryan Giggs managed to play for Wales because his grandma ate a leek.

 

[ExRes]

If I'd been fantasizing about Brazilian beach volleyball players, female variety, when my son was conceived, would he have been qualified to play for Brazil ?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Talking about the "clutching at straws" media aspirations that England will still qualify for the next stage, I am sure that all the other teams who do in fact qualify are both hoping that this will occur and that they will be the team fortunate enough to play England..:roll:

 

[meridian2]

At least we can now watch proper football teams playing in the tournament.

 

[Donny Dave]

Although I think we have no chance of qualifying from the group now (too much reliance on the 2 remaining Italy games), I'm more optimistic about the future for the England team.

The core of a potentially very good team is there, just a few changes are needed. Firstly, Gerrard needs to be replaced as a deep lying midfielder. He maybe very good at that role in the Premier League, but at International level, his weaknesses are being found out and exploited. Secondly, a new right back and central defender to partner Cahill, although these to positions are going to be harder to sort out as Johnson and Jagielka are probably the best we have currently.

Thirdly, drop Welbeck. He does nothing for Manchester United and even less for England. How he keeps getting selected, I don't know. Fouth and finally, find a way of keeping our best players fit and healthy.

 

[CallySleeper]

England knocked out by Costa Rica's 1-0 win over Italy. Fittingly, the BBC used this song in their closing credits.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

England knocked out by Costa Rica's 1-0 win over Italy. Fittingly, the BBC used this song in their closing credits.

This was the most unlikely outcome but Italy have a reputation for losing games that all pundits said they would win. A few World Cup tournaments ago, they were defeated by (I think) North Korea and when the team returned to Italy, they received shall we say a less than welcoming return home by the Italian supporters.
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If a scoreline could be drawn up that could reflect the usual media and press hype that has been the bane of many people's lives for the last month in particular, may I put forward this one to reflect the England group results to date:-

Unrealistic media hype 0...Logical reality 2....

 

[richw]

Looking at world rankings we were the third best team in the group with both Uruguay and Italy ranked higher than us.

I know world rankings mean nothing but on paper both of those teams are better than us in the eyes of FIFA so is the results actually that bad?

 

[SS4]

Hopefully now the media will shut up and let us enjoy football without having to reference England as though we had the memories of goldfish. I was confused last night because the TV showed Japan but the audio said England

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Looking at world rankings we were the third best team in the group with both Uruguay and Italy ranked higher than us.

I know world rankings mean nothing, but on paper both of those teams are better than us in the eyes of FIFA so is the results actually that bad?

Would you also say that on the football field they were also better than us ?

 

[richw]

Would you also say that on the football field they were also better than us ?

They have been on the 2 games in this tournament, and narrowly which points towards being marginally better than us.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

They have been on the 2 games in this tournament, and narrowly which points towards being marginally better than us.

That shows that both these two teams are also approximately of the same poor standard of England. Perhaps that may explain why Costa Rica recorded victories over both of them.

 

[richw]

That shows that both these two teams are also approximately of the same poor standard of England. Perhaps that may explain why Costa Rica recorded victories over both of them.

Costa Rica were meant to be the whipping boys of the group based on ranking. That worked out well!

Watch us beat them now!

 

[Kite159]

I predict the final 4 will feature at least 3 Central/South American teams, with maybe Germany or Netherlands as the sole European team left.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Costa Rica were meant to be the whipping boys of the group based on ranking. That worked out well!

Watch us beat them now!

Perhaps now they are assured of progression to the next stage, Costa Rica may decide to rest their better players in readiness for that and decide to put out a team of their lesser lights against England...:roll:

 

[DownSouth]

Biggest upset for Spain since their Armada failed in their objectives.

Someone's Kangaroo has certainly been tied down. They should stick to cricket.

Loser teams from non-football nations like Australia (it's only the third-ranked football code here, therefore usually referred to as Soccer during the 3 years and 11 months that the World Cup is not on) are allowed into the World Cup for two reasons:

1. So they can have a crack at it, play some entertaining football and at least make the arrogant top teams work for their wins in the group stage.
Unlike what English fans like you would advocate, none of our national sporting teams have adopted when the going gets tough, give up as their motto (please forward to messrs Trott, Swann, Flower etc). Nobody thought they had a chance of scoring even a single goal but our team still turned up to play and did their country proud by holding a superstar team like the Netherlands to account and denying them the lead for three quarters of the match. Spain are on notice that we fully intend on making them look even more stupid than they are already next week.
The joke can get a little out of hand though, it almost backfired on FIFA in 2006 when the Socceroos threatened to go through to the quarter finals, only a quick call from Sepp to the referee and an Italian dive more worthy of a Best Supporting Actress award than a penalty kick sorted out that.

2. So that they can pad out the numbers and get knocked out in the group stage, giving top teams from proper football nations like England the chance to divert attention from their failure to get into the quarter finals by saying "at least we made it past the group stage."

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What's that? You failed to make it any further than even a loser team like Australia? How embarrassing

Perhaps you should have stuck to cricket. Nope, that's even worse because it involves being directly beaten by Australia - five out of five matches with a margin of 1031 runs and 23 wickets last time around - instead of just achieving an equal result.

So not cricket, how about … ummm … errrrrr … any ideas? Competitive knitting maybe? No, we're the worlds largest wool producing nation and we'd stitch you up in no time

 

[muddythefish]

So not cricket, how about … ummm … errrrrr … any ideas? C

London 2012 - your lot taken to the cleaners by Team GB.

Stick to your sheep.

 

[Butts]

I predict the final 4 will feature at least 3 Central/South American teams, with maybe Germany or Netherlands as the sole European team left.

Hopefully however many European teams progress to the semi-finals they will supply the first team from that Continent to win in South America -preferably Germany or Holland turning over Brazil in their own backyard.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Meanwhile back on local matters, the 28 year-old Ecuadorian player, Antonio Valencia, has signed a new three-year contact with Manchester United with an added one-year extension that will run until June 2018.

 

[SS4]

Hopefully however many European teams progress to the semi-finals they will supply the first team from that Continent to win in South America -preferably Germany or Holland turning over Brazil in their own backyard.

Hopefully the rest of the Netherlands will be able to join Holland

 

[Donny Dave]

Loser teams from non-football nations like Australia (it's only the third-ranked football code here, therefore usually referred to as Soccer during the 3 years and 11 months that the World Cup is not on) are allowed into the World Cup for two reasons:

1. Utter claptrap spouted ....

2. More utter claptrap ....

What's that? You failed to make it any further than even a loser team like Australia? How embarrassing

Perhaps you should have stuck to cricket. Nope, that's even worse because it involves being directly beaten by Australia - five out of five matches with a margin of 1031 runs and 23 wickets last time around - instead of just achieving an equal result.

So not cricket, how about … ummm … errrrrr … any ideas? Competitive knitting maybe? No, we're the worlds largest wool producing nation and we'd stitch you up in no time

1. There are more teams from Europe allowed to qualify (IE. Not given a wild card entry as you have suggested that Australia get) for the World Cup as traditionally Europe (and to a lesser extent, South/Latin America) have been the 'powerhouse' of World football. Any recognised national team can take part in the qualification process. Times are changing though. National teams such as Japan and South Korea are getting stronger, and earn their place in the WC and progress through on merit.

2. See my first point ....

As for the rest of your post, there's a time and a place for gloating about the cricket, and the football thread is not the place.

Finally, how about just shutting your mouth instead of trying to belittle others just because it makes you feel good ....