Golden Generation

comment by Greatteamswinit4times- a terrible enemy (U6008)
posted 12 minutes ago
comment by Zlatan The King Ibrahimovic (U10026)
posted 4 minutes ago
Vassell
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Has Ifarka filtered you again like he has me?
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Has he?

Nope, I've just posted on there.

comment by BruceAndPally (U8201)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Spurtle2 (U1608)
posted 2 minutes ago
Going in 2002 may well have been why he was favourite over other choices. Same as for why Heskey went.

Kind of sums up Sven not having the required balls as England manager to take risks. Hate when managers feel they can go with players who have previous experience even if they have had poor seasons and someone else without that experience in better form could do as good or better a job.
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Jermnaine Jenas did a good job for Sven on the right once, I think it was against Croatia? He was included in every Sven squad for about two years after that, fully fit or not.

There were times with England were it's harder to get out of the squad than into it, nice to Hodgson carried on that tradition
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All England managers this century have been ball-less.

comment by Robbing_Hoody (U6374)
posted 1 hour, 35 minutes ago
Not read the replies but because we went out on penalties which is a bit of a lottery
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I'm not sure penalties are a lottery. There is an element of luck but it's a bit like poker, if you do the right things time and again you'll do well.

Every team needs to get through tough games where they don't play well and many rely on penalties at one stage or another.

The link below is interesting, penalty shootout percentages. The teams at the top Argentina (73%), Germany (71%), Brazil (64%) have got to the latter stages of tournaments.

England (17%) haven't.

http://www.penaltyshootouts.co.uk/countries.html

comment by Can Solo (U6997)
posted 19 minutes ago
comment by Robbing_Hoody (U6374)
posted 1 hour, 35 minutes ago
Not read the replies but because we went out on penalties which is a bit of a lottery
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I'm not sure penalties are a lottery. There is an element of luck but it's a bit like poker, if you do the right things time and again you'll do well.

Every team needs to get through tough games where they don't play well and many rely on penalties at one stage or another.

The link below is interesting, penalty shootout percentages. The teams at the top Argentina (73%), Germany (71%), Brazil (64%) have got to the latter stages of tournaments.

England (17%) haven't.

http://www.penaltyshootouts.co.uk/countries.html

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It's a bit of a lottery, you could have a couple of better takers injured or sent off during the game, one of your players decides to do something completely different to what they've practising.

Like you say, you can out the odds in favour though, I always thought practising penalties (which some coaches don't believe in ) and having a good 9/10 strong penalty takers in the your squad, rather than 5/6 will give you an edge.

You don't want to be in a position like, oh I don't know, being in the semi's of a major international competition with a none-penalty taking centre back stepping forward and the other team have one of Europe's most accomplished midfielders waiting to take their's...

It's less a matter of a lottery with England and more a sign of mental weakness under pressure playing for England. Too much of a coincidence for it not to be when you consider how we actually play in tournaments, the way we defend at times, and complete goalkeeping howlers from Hart, Green and Carson in the last decade. All adds up to being mentally fragile.

Talking of goalkeepers, they've been useless in pen shootouts as well, since Seaman, which doesn't help.

I think the biggest concern for England is why they keep getting into penalty shoot-outs.
From the 1990 WC onwards, England have played 15 games in KO tournament football and 6 of these have ended with penalties. If you're watching England in the KO stages, you're almost 50% sure that it will go the full distance.
Compare that to Germany. They've played 37 KO games during that same period and have only been involved in four shoot-outs.

comment by Spurtle2 (U1608)
posted 7 minutes ago
It's less a matter of a lottery with England and more a sign of mental weakness under pressure playing for England. Too much of a coincidence for it not to be when you consider how we actually play in tournaments, the way we defend at times, and complete goalkeeping howlers from Hart, Green and Carson in the last decade. All adds up to being mentally fragile.

Talking of goalkeepers, they've been useless in pen shootouts as well, since Seaman, which doesn't help.
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Another issue has been the way we prepare for tournaments, we've heard a lot about "Marginal Gains" in the last few years, with the England football team it's more like Marginal losses.

Every 1% you can do to make your team worse, we do it...

Taking injured players, taking players who are off form, not subbing big names who are offering nothing, playing people out of position, not practising penalties, not knowing your best formation, not knowing your best 11 etc etc England have done some, if not all, of those things in every tournament I can remember.

Practice at pens isn't going to make a difference if they're only going to go into a high pressure KO game shiiitting themselves.

While I agree about poor management and strategy, until the players learn to handle pressure in tournaments better, we're only going to go so far anyway.

While that may have been a great squad on paper, England were not the only team to have a great squad on paper.

It would be interesting to see a side by side comparison with the French squad, the German squad, the Brazilian squad, the Dutch squad etc. etc.

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