World Football Thread XVIII: The Beckham has Landed

[Kropotkin]

Most countries have a strong tendency to make believe that their national side is better than it actually is. Swedish press is awful, and as I've stared to despise the national side, their childish tantrums just makes me more annoyed over the concept of international football.

England is not an exception from the rule above. Instead, it's perhaps one of the worst examples of this in the western world. One world cup victory on their own turf in a competition that didn't actually go down in history as a victory for 'the beatiful game'.

Home game against Croatia, the last match for England. Obviously, for anyone that actually seen the balkans play (rules out most sports writers), that's a huge task.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
WTF is wrong with our "world class" players that they seriously can't string 10 positive passes together? Of course McClaren is useless and should be gone, but I'm struggling to remember a game where this "golden generation" have ever impressed me on a world class level under any manager.

They are simply not as good as they and the press believe they are.

I'm with Waddle on this one, forget this lot and start teaching our youngsters how to control a ball properly.

Despite the stick that Wenger recieves for not paying stupid fees and salaries for over-rated and under-skilled English players, there are some promising English youngsters growing up in the Arsenal academy. They play Wenger-style : ball to feet, passing and movement. They were quoted as being amazed when they trained with their England youth set-up about how different the style of the other players were. Something like "We are used to moving it along the ground. They just lumped it". Until this basic quality of technique becomes standard for English youngsters, we can forget about having a decent national team.

I'm usually for the Scots, but how long would it take to live it down if they qualified and we didn't?

Exactly. '74 and '78 are still ringing in my ears.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Cort Haus

They are simply not as good as they and the press believe they are.

That's true, but theres no doubt though in some areas, Terry, Gerrard, Rooney, J.Cole, Owen and even Lampard are world class, but when all these players have the same weaknesses the problems are amplified when they all try and work together. Add to that managers that don't know how to deal with it and it's a mess of low possession, set-piece football.

Despite the stick that Wenger recieves for not paying stupid fees and salaries for over-rated and under-skilled English players, there are some promising English youngsters growing up in the Arsenal academy. They play Wenger-style : ball to feet, passing and movement. They were quoted as being amazed when they trained with their England youth set-up about how different the style of the other players were. Something like "We are used to moving it along the ground. They just lumped it". Until this basic quality of technique becomes standard for English youngsters, we can forget about having a decent national team.

I'll believe it when I see these players break through at Arsenal. If they go to lower clubs to get their experience then what's the point? If they don't break through they'll be released. Either way they'll end up playing lower league football like the rest if they aren't given top-flight game time.

[Cort Haus]

Why should a manager shooting for top honours pick anyone but the best players? His job is to deliver for the club.

If a guy is only good enough for Blackburn, he plays for Blackburn. If he's good enough for Arsenal, he'll play for Arsenal. Even if they're not good enough for the first team, they might be better for their experience, whoever they eventually play for. The fact is that Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool and even Tottenham have not brought through any top grade English youngsters into the first team in recent years.

As Harry Rednapp says, the problem is with the quality of English players, not the failing of managers to pick second-rate players. Arsenal's policy of spending money on bringing up English nine-year olds to play proper football is the best thing that can happen. Whether they are eventually good enough to play in one of the top leagues in the world and the European Cup remains to be seen.

Other clubs should do the same. Forget the 'traditional English style' of hoofing it and 'getting stuck in'. It's not good enough.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Why should a manager shooting for top honours pick anyone but the best players? His job is to deliver for the club.

I agree, and why take a chance on the more expensive version (British) of two similarly gifted players?

Which also applies to Harry's comment. If you've got the whole world to look at, as most Premier League clubs have, chances are you're gonna find a cheaper/better player outside Britain. That doesn't mean our young players can't cope with top flight football anymore, they just don't get half as many chances as they used to.

[*End Is Forever*]

Question:

Keep Everton In Our City - http://www.keioc.net/

What is the big deal about moving a couple of miles down the road to Knowsley?

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by *End Is Forever*
Question:

Keep Everton In Our City - http://www.keioc.net/

What is the big deal about moving a couple of miles down the road to Knowsley?

The majority of fans voted to move to Kirkby anyway so it's tough titty now.

[Agathon]

And Newcastle humiliate Spurs yet again, thumping them into the relegation zone.

After the first half, we'd had 71% of the possession.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Agathon
And Newcastle humiliate Spurs yet again, thumping them into the relegation zone.

They were already there.

Some top-quality wailing and gnashing of teeth over here though.

[Cort Haus]

Hard to see the 'Fat Dutch Clown', as the Spurs faithful call him, being around for much longer.

[Maquiladora]

Apparently we fielded a strong team tonight, all I saw were

Gareth-dribble out of trouble-Bale
Didier-made a couple of runs though-Zokora
Jermaine-it looked like it might hurt-Jenas
Michael-swing a boot at it-Dawson
Younes-don't mind me-Kaboul
Darren-dribble to the corner flag-Bent

that is all.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Very solid effort by the Magpies .

Why hasn't Jol been sacked yet?

[MikeH]

He's their most successful manager ever in the Premier League. He took them to 2 consecutive 5th place finishes, Their previous highest before Jol was 7th, and that was a long time ago. Other than that they've been 9th or below. And they've always been a relatively big spending team.

There were allegations that Jol wasn't very keen on buying Bent for a lot of money, when their real problems were in midfield and defence, but the board wanted Bent so that's who they bought. I think he'll go, but he's not a **** manager.

[Cort Haus]

As Mike says, the problems at Spurs run far deeper than the manager. In fact, the way he was undermined by Levy early in the season probably affected the players adversely, as they would see Jol as a lame duck and not respect him. Berbatov, for example, seems to have a massive sulk-thing going on.

The thing is that Jol did retain support from many of the fans despite their poor start. This goodwill seems now to have evaporated.

[MikeH]

Part of their problem is that their fans think they are a big club who should be challenging for the top 4.