Darius Vassell is now a pub quiz answer rather than a player remembered fondly by anyone bar Villa fans

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.

The single biggest failing in England's recent history is, for me, failing to get Carrick into the team.

He has been so valuable for United, it's criminal that he's been ignored time and time again.

A short second is the combined fact that Scholes - our best player - was put out on the left side of midfield, made even worse by the narrow nature of the team that gave us with Beckham on the right.

comment by Greatteamswinit4times- a terrible enemy (U6008)
posted 7 minutes ago
comment by Spurtle2 (U1608)
posted 1 minute ago
Also, did we really lack that much depth up front that we had to take Vassell with us who ended up missing the crucial penalty?

We could have taken Defoe, Cole, Sheringham, Beattie, hell even Les Ferdinand at that point had had a better season. Shearer had scored 22 goals that season and probably could have been persuaded to come out of retirement.

Seriously, Darius Vassell??
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Yeah, had no problem with him going in 2002 because he had played well for England when given the chance and suited our style. In 2004 though, he should have been nowhere near that squad.
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People forget this, Vassell was one of these weird players who wasn't up to much in the PL but actually performed well for England, someone had a little dig at Trevor Sinclair earlier (who was good in the PL) he had a very solid tournament in 2002, so did Nicky Butt

comment by Greatteamswinit4times- a terrible enemy (U6008)
posted 4 minutes ago
comment by The Sniper (U21079)
posted 31 minutes ago
Outside of the first half against Denmark, England were pretty insipid in 2002. I remember their 0-0 game against Nigeria being probably the worst game of the whole tournament.
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I thought we played well against Argentina, particularly the second half. We looked like a proper international team.
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I remember it being a pretty dull game with few chances. I think England played well from a nullifying POV but it wasn't a performance that really stood out imo.

Since 2000, I can only think of six performances in competitive games from England which left me impressed with them -

5-1 Vs Germany (2001)
3-0 Vs Denmark (2002)
2-0 Vs Turkey (2003)
4-2 Vs Croatia (2004)
4-1 Vs Croatia (2008)
5-1 Vs Croatia (2009)

Odd that half of them came against the same team.

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

comment by BruceAndPally (U8201)
posted 54 seconds ago
comment by Greatteamswinit4times- a terrible enemy (U6008)
posted 7 minutes ago
comment by Spurtle2 (U1608)
posted 1 minute ago
Also, did we really lack that much depth up front that we had to take Vassell with us who ended up missing the crucial penalty?

We could have taken Defoe, Cole, Sheringham, Beattie, hell even Les Ferdinand at that point had had a better season. Shearer had scored 22 goals that season and probably could have been persuaded to come out of retirement.

Seriously, Darius Vassell??
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Yeah, had no problem with him going in 2002 because he had played well for England when given the chance and suited our style. In 2004 though, he should have been nowhere near that squad.
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People forget this, Vassell was one of these weird players who wasn't up to much in the PL but actually performed well for England, someone had a little dig at Trevor Sinclair earlier (who was good in the PL) he had a very solid tournament in 2002, so did Nicky Butt
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Townsend is another one. Weird how it works that way sometimes. I guess some players realise they're shiiit in the league and use England appearances when they come along to prove people wrong. Or something.

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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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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