Biggest underachieving home nation?

Comment Deleted by Site Moderator

comment by LordDowlias (U3236)
posted 5 hours, 41 minutes ago
As a Welshman, I am pretty content with how our national side are doing at the minute, even though Ryan Giggs has not got a clue what he is doing.

England obviously are the best of us all, the best of a bad bunch perhaps ?

But out of all the other nations, there are probably only two players that would improve Wales, they are Robertson of Scotland and Johnny Evans of Northern Ireland.

No other players from Rep Ire, NI or Scotland would walk into the Welsh side.

We have a good crop of youngsters, Harry Wilson, Ben Woodburn, Dan James, Brookes, Ampadu, Mepham, Roddan, Johnny Williams. Add into that, Joe Allen, Aaron Ramsey, Gareth Bale, Ashley Williams, Wayne Hennessey.

The problem for Scotland is, the only decent players are at Celtic, and they are not very good, Scott Brown, Griffiths ect... they are all average. Keiran Tierney is not bad.

Then they are left with players from Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen, Kilmarnock, these are not very good clubs. It's like Wales picking players from TNS and Barry Town. At least we have Cardiff, and Swansea producing decent talent, and even at Championship level, it's still higher than what Scotland, Rep Ire, and NI have.

I do not know the ins and outs of what goes on, but there seems to be a hell of a lot of young Welsh players at academies at the premiership clubs, I do not know what scouting is being done in Wales, but they are being unearthed, and Wales as a nation are reaping the benefits of this.

Also, lets not forget, a few of the Welsh players are playing in the Championship, which is arguably a higher standard than the top leagues of most of Europe, especially outside the bigger clubs. Even Portugal, when you take Benfica, Sporting and Porto, would you say teams like Rio Ave, Tondela, Santa Clara and Maratimo to name a few are better than Leeds, Swansea, Cardiff, QPR, West Brom, Fullham ?

Sorry for the long reply, I just wanted to get a point across.
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For me Lewis is better than Davies. Davis would surely get into the Wales team. Evans. Possibly Cathcart too. But yeah, individually Wales have a better squad but not much in it in terms of the actual teams.

comment by Ace (U18814)
posted 1 hour, 33 minutes ago
comment by Sheriff JW Pepper (U1007)
posted 28 minutes ago
Ace again showing his class on here....resorts to his usual crass rubbish or unsuitable content on here & gets deleted...what a dweeb
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What would you know about class you cretinous oaf.
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just can't leave it alone...can you...

Countries that have reached a final of Euros or World Cup since England won in '66:

Italy x 7
Yugoslavia x 1
Germany/West Germany x 13
Russia x 2
Czech Republic x 2
Belgium x 1
France x 6
Spain x 4
Netherlands x 4
Denmark x 1
Greece x 1
Portugal x 2
Brazil x 4
Argentina x 4
Croatia x 1

In addition Poland, Sweden and Turkey have all finished third in a tournament since we last did.

Shows you have facking dire "big team" England have been at international level.

Greece x 1
Portugal x 2

These two are especially embarrassing, Greece were rank outsiders & Portugal are/were literally a one man team.

We should hang our heads in shame...& it won't get any better until we find or develop 2/3 world class players

Kane and Sterling are world class players.

Also, what world class players did Greece have?

comment by Sheriff JW Pepper (U1007)
posted 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
Greece x 1
Portugal x 2

These two are especially embarrassing, Greece were rank outsiders & Portugal are/were literally a one man team.

We should hang our heads in shame...& it won't get any better until we find or develop 2/3 world class players
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Greece did it without World Class players. England's issue is not the quality of player, it's that other sides out teamwork them. England always look like a group of individuals. Perhaps if they didn't have such big rivalries at club level, more moved abroad etc it may work better.

comment by Mason The King Greenwood (U10026)
posted 21 hours, 45 minutes ago
The strength of a domestic league doesn’t tell the whole story, to be fair. Look at Spain, for example. Obviously they were considered underachievers for a long time until 2008, but their league being strong didn’t mean they were a nation that were deemed pathetic for their inability to produce teams good enough to win anything.

England have underachieved, but not to the extent many make out. The issue is that people have always had unrealistic expectations.
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No sense. Ace is spot on about england underachieving. Strongest domestic league for many, many years, and has always been up there with the best. And 1 trophy to tell for it, by far the weakest results of the biggest nations. Had some great players over the years and we’ve consistently failed.

comment by There'sOnlyOneRed's (U1721)
posted 30 minutes ago
comment by Sheriff JW Pepper (U1007)
posted 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
Greece x 1
Portugal x 2

These two are especially embarrassing, Greece were rank outsiders & Portugal are/were literally a one man team.

We should hang our heads in shame...& it won't get any better until we find or develop 2/3 world class players
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Greece did it without World Class players. England's issue is not the quality of player, it's that other sides out teamwork them. England always look like a group of individuals. Perhaps if they didn't have such big rivalries at club level, more moved abroad etc it may work better.
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Greece did just that...to this day I don't think they have the first idea how they achieved it...graft, some luck., good team ethic maybe

comment by Bales (U22081)
posted 1 hour, 20 minutes ago
Kane and Sterling are world class players.

Also, what world class players did Greece have?
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Questionable...getting there maybe (it's the age old question of what constitutes world class...if it's trophies Kane aint...add to the fact that he's a dive merchant

Greece had none...unsure if they even had any very good players...they basically had 11 x seven out of ten ranked players that all turned up for a few weeks