The International break gives you time to have a think about the England football team as well as tuning in to watch them of course. It also gives you chance to watch other nations we are supposed to be on a par with. And it makes me wonder -
We are the oldest and one of the most respected football nations in the world. Every minnow wants to play us, I speak to fans from other countries who say they always tune in to watch England as well as their own teams
We have the biggest and most competitive league in world football.
Over the years we have produced some of the worlds best footballing talent - Scholes, Rooney, Gerrard, Beckham, Lineker, Barnes, Robson, Shilton, Banks, Charlton etc. Gifted players over generations - better than some teams who have won the World Cup, definitely better than many teams to have won the Euros
We have exciting young talent coming through once again, as we do with each generation. Proving without a doubt that the PL isn’t robbing us of young English talent
We have the oldest Football Association in the world in a country that invented the modern game
And yet........
We sit here with one trophy in our 70 year history of major competitive world football - with Gareth Southgate in charge, having been publicly disgraced in the last 2 tournaments - failing to get out of the group stage in one and being beaten by Iceland in the other.
We are world famous for bottling tournaments and under achieving on a regular basis. We appoint awful manager after awful manager (Steve McClaren?!) seemingly going for anyone who is English after the Capello farce
We are miles behind Germany, France, Belgium and Spain who have invested massively in their international teams and footballing academies. We have done too little too late.
How has this happened? How have we ended up with a manager who wouldn’t even get a job in the PL for his lack of experience - yet is deemed fit enough to lead England into a major tournament. How have we ended up with an outdated FA whose own boss admitted publicly that he doesn’t know anything about football?!
What the hell has happened to us since 1966 - any thoughts and suggestions as to how we ended up as the laughing stock of tournament football would be welcome
How has it come to this?
posted on 25/3/18
comment by Black Starr (U12353)
posted 1 hour, 33 minutes ago
comment by Greatteamswinit4times- a terrible enemy (U6008)
posted 7 minutes ago
comment by Black Starr (U12353)
posted 26 minutes ago
comment by Greatteamswinit4times- a terrible enemy (U6008)
posted 1 hour, 8 minutes ago
We've never gone into a tournament as "the best team" so not winning anything is hardly a surprise or an issue. Not playing a certain way with players that perform week in and week out has always been the biggest issue.
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Germany were not the best team in Euro 96. Klinsmann openly admitted they didn’t have the players to match England man for man. Greece were not the best team in 2004. Portugal weren’t the best side in Euro 2016 and Ronaldo wasn’t even playing in the final.
I accept your point about not playing in a certain way regularly - that’s a good shout.
Just looking for reasons why we have underperformed but seem to have attracted a load of nonsense about how we haven’t underperformed at all - one trophy in 70 years is spot on
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I'm not saying that the best teams always win, but in world cups in particular, it's very rare that one of the top 3 best sides coming into it don't win it. We've never been one of those sides. I think we've been a quarter final side at best since 98 really. People talk about the golden generation of 2002 but look at other teams and who they had.
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The golden generation should have come into their own in 2004 and 2006 for me - that was when they should have been at their height
I can only tell you that ex international players from other countries were talking about England as having the best players on paper back then. But as always seems to be the case - we didn’t know how to use them.
During the period of 98 to 2006 many of the English players would have got into other teams. Paul Scholes could walk into any side in the world. Gerrard would have played for Germany or Italy no doubt. Beckham would have gone into any top international side
The idea that the players just weren’t that good makes no sense when you look at their achievements for their clubs
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You just keep naming the same few players.
It’s a team game.
posted on 25/3/18
Too many midfield players of similar abilities/attributes pigeonholed into playing in an unfamiliar position just to accommodate them all.
Blame the incumbent manager at the time.
posted on 25/3/18
comment by selbstgerechtein (U7048)
posted 1 hour, 16 minutes ago
comment by Black Starr (U12353)
posted 4 hours, 16 minutes ago
But one other thing I’ll say is that your comments reflect a worrying trend of self defeatism that’s gone through the roof in recent years.
Almost a re-writing of history to basically suggest that we’ve always been shiiiit - the players have always been pretty average and we punched above our weight once.
It’s something that’s becoming a trend - much like high expectations used to crush us before a tournament began, we are now seeking to pull expectations through the floor and make out we have never been any bigger than Switzerland or something.
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I don’t think you are even reading what I am have been writing, so it’s a waste of time.
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Yet you’re continuing to comment
Thanks for everything you’ve brought to the thread it’s been invaluable......
posted on 25/3/18
comment by Keep It Greasy Fick mich, du (U1396)
posted 35 minutes ago
Too many midfield players of similar abilities/attributes pigeonholed into playing in an unfamiliar position just to accommodate them all.
Blame the incumbent manager at the time.
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Good comment. We definitely didn’t know how to use the talent we had. Poor management has been another factor
posted on 25/3/18
The classic example would be the Gerrard/Lampard conundrum which successive managers never solved by picking just one, instead they nearly always played both.
Hence the team(s) lacked balance
posted on 25/3/18
comment by Keep It Greasy Fick mich, du (U1396)
posted 1 hour, 38 minutes ago
The classic example would be the Gerrard/Lampard conundrum which successive managers never solved by picking just one, instead they nearly always played both.
Hence the team(s) lacked balance
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Completely agree. The great strength of Alf Ramsey was knowing how to fashion the players he had into a functioning unit - every player having a specific job, e.g Nobbie marking Eusebio (the worlds best player at that time) out of the game completely
These days England is just a strung together collection of individuals
posted on 25/3/18
comment by Black Starr (U12353)
posted 6 hours, 5 minutes ago
comment by downsouf (U4095)
posted 46 minutes ago
I’ll turn the clock back (pun not intended) as usual and focus on the distant past. Following the World Cup QF defeat at Leon in 1970 there followed a rather indigent period for the England team. An ageing side aptly nicknamed the “old guard” which the FA and Sir Alf persisted with (though I still believe SAR is our greatest-ever national team manager) that seemed to set the trend for the decade and our failure to qualify for 1974 & 1978. Those coming through to the “new England” had to cope with world-wide talent that was literally born with a football at their feet. I saw no sign of that here and so the rot set in. I believe it took until the mid-80’s before we saw a truly competitive side once again but by then we had fallen behind the prestigious footballing nations of the world.
Whilst our own City were setting out a 2-3-5 and it worked exceedingly well we had an England team of “wingless wonders”. Look at how devastating the likes of Brazil turned out to be along the flanks yet we as a national side had nothing to offer in return (unless you, of course, can remember bet than I can) and there’s been very little in response until more recent times, certainly within the past 20 years.
Wrong formations and the players who deserved to be out there never got a look in.
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The first sensible post on here and it’s probably because the poster is over the age of 40 - you’ve seen more than most on here mate and it shows with your comment
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Not a bad guess blacksy. 41 fella 😉
posted on 25/3/18
I don’t think it’s as simplistic as the manager BS.
I think we have a losing mentality as a nationality. It’s our nations pastime to be plucky losers. We train people to be that way.
We need to focus on the psycology side of things in our youth set up to breed winners. Germany believe they’ll win tournaments, so they do.
I don’t actually mind Southgate. He’s got rubbish players to manage and he’s not scared to drop the big name flops. That’s all I ask.
posted on 25/3/18
In a way I'm encouraged by Southgate. Not because I think he's a brilliant manager, or even a particularly good one, but he does seem to have added a certain backbone and determination to the side since he's been in charge. They haven't looked particularly good, but they have fought to the end for a result. That is related to mentality and something that has been lacking in our national side for a very long time. I don't believe he's the man to take us to success deep in a tournament but perhaps he is the man to lay a few building blocks so that a more astute manager can take up the reins in the future. In the meantime, let's see if we can make the quarter finals in a kind draw this time around.
As to the bigger issue, my thought for a long time has been the same about England players: They're simply not clever enough. They are not as tactically astute or aware of the game as their peers in other countries. Partly because of the climate, players are picked for their athleticism rather than for their intelligence. Young players in this country do not try hard enough to become students of the game.
Back 50 years ago, natural talent in a strong footballing nation could get you deep into a tournament. These days the competition is stronger, and while we've kept up in athleticism, we haven't kept up in attitude. That's my reading of the situation anyway.
posted on 26/3/18
Suez, ceding control of the Commonwealth, the national sporting teams, perennial failure at Eurovision, Brexit...
Has something manifested deep in the British psyche that has turned the nation into the world's largest collection of self-defeating bottlejobs?