Tragic Football Stories - Let us Kick Around the misshapen Jabulani that is English football right here

istr his tooth gap being bigger

#shanter

vs Italy 1 point
vs Uruguay savage humuiliation
vs Costa Rica 3 points

4 is probably enough for the group but

down to gd w/italy then, how much of a humiliation will matter

Uruguay were not exactly amazing in qualification.

I reckon England have a decent chance of getting through, they're good at groups and usually despatch minnows - Costa Rica are pretty shabby away from home and could well lose all three. Italy in the heat would be bad except its first up so Italy will probably show exaggerated respect and be happy with a draw. Uruguay have been improving but I can imagine a backs-to-the-wall 0-0. Which would leave the last round as Italy and Uruguay trying to eliminate each other while England sneak through.

easier to imagine a backs to the wal 0-0 against costa rica tbph

"In Ross Barkley I see bits of Michael Ballack, bits of Gazza," added Martinez, who was relegated as Wigan manager on his last visit to the Emirates Stadium.
"The manager of England needs to decide what role Ross has, if any, but we need to give him another 50 starts at least to see his full influence. He could give us something unique as a nation."

REFERS TO ENGLAND AS 'US', GIVE HIM THE JOB FFS

A SPAIN SHALL COME

a sprain shall fall

^ when the merest twinge of a rooney will signal the end to the hopes ye claimed but never had nor wanted

Mourinho also paid tribute to the efforts of Premier League players around the country for their performances throughout the busy festive period with their third game in seven days.

"Premier League players in this country deserve fantastic respect because what they do is amazing,' he said. "To play in this period is beautiful. I love it. I keep saying I love it. The players are monsters in a good sense of the word... It is fantastic propaganda for what football is.'

Did he always talk this much bollocks in the past or is it a recent development?

different strain of bollocks

annexing the redknappian tubthumping vacuum to stymie the meteoric threat of sherwood i'm sure

England manager Roy Hodgson's squad for the final friendly before he names his party for Brazil is expected to have an experimental feel to it when it is announced at Wembley on Thursday.

before he picks the same failed shitkickers as usual for the actual World Cup squad

only the most important threads have survived

When you see it written down it dawns just how shit the England defence is.

Defenders: Leighton Baines (Everton), Gary Cahill (Chelsea), Steven Caulker (Cardiff City), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), Luke Shaw (Southampton), Chris Smalling (Manchester United), Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur).

I mean the best guy there barely gets a game anymore.

No Gibbs?

He was injured vs Bayern, don't know whether he's recovered yet or not. Did he play vs Sunderland?

Amazed that Defoe can still make an England squad. He's done what exactly this season?

maybe Drake had a word with Roy

didn't know he got injured, thanks pandemic

read that in a "thanks Obama" sense for a sec

It's 2014 and Ashley Cole is still England's best option at left-back. Thanks pandemic!

Fraser Forster (Celtic), Ben Foster (West Bromwich Albion), Joe Hart (Manchester City), John Ruddy (Norwich City)

^^^ Genuinely terrible.

I thought Ben Foster retired from not being picked for England? Thanks pandemic.

hey now

https://vine.co/v/MKe56h7OjTv

With Rooney operating in the role Luis Suárez takes for Liverpool, there is an option to recreate the dynamic that has helped Sturridge into such prolific form.

Liked this idea, seems totally obvious although I hadn't given it much thought http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/10693435/Sound-of-silence-speaks-volumes-about-bawling-parents.html

When I played organised football as a kid for the school there were never any parents there beyond 2 or 3 who organised lifts and even they kept their mouths shut. Would have hated playing in front of tens of adults shouting 'encouragement'.

Linekar made a similar point recently

http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/pushy-parents-screaming-abuse-sidelines-are-killing-their-kids-love-football

"If we could just get them to shut the fuck up and let their children enjoy themselves, you would be staggered at the difference it would make."

this probably isn't exclusive to the uk but there is something quite indicative about the total lack of apparent enjoyment in english amateur football

when i was about 10 i went with my friend and his father to watch his elder brother playing in some youth tournament in a depressed corner of london and being confused by the grunting stakhanovite desperation of people engaged in an ostensible leisure activity, a lot of people running until they looked sick while it was lumped hither and thither, random onlookers and participants shouting at each other whenever a goal threatened

later augmented by a powellite sermon full of archaic racial pejoratives given by my friend's miserable wreck of father, a senior police officer who wasn't particularly fond of irish people but decorous enough not to dwell on it at teatime

cf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-26543802

some of those 7 year-olds displaying more technique than the whole England squad there

THANKS PANDEMIC

but srsly,

moan about j hart there's no better

baines Johnson you'd argue for better defenders but balancing that with requirement to support attack its marginal

centre half talent isn't good

selection of no cover for those clowns was prob hodgsons only really egregious tactical error along with selection of

welbeck- limited player in awful form. rotten decision to start him.

up front/besides choosing between temperamentally questionable hiccuping second rate talents, some of whom know it and aren't even the better for this.

pick a Southampton xi next time.

you cd pick a Championship 23 that wd not have performed discernably worse

there's a wilful blindness throughout football culture in England. players whose position as superstars is established on some good performances early in their careers and are subsequently never scrutinized. the cult of the Sky-approved big dogs. the ridiculous over-imagination of how other countries think about this one, the ridiculous over-estimation of the team's space in the history of international football. the smug confidence starting Saturday evening that Uruguay and Costa Rica wd be a couple of nothing teams to be rolled over on the march thru to the next round.

yeah there are structural problems all over the place and we coach all the skill out of children and yes yadda yadda yadda but none of it will begin to change until English football fans, pundits, professionals stop fucking lying to themselves. that's the root problem. England's fucking dreaming.

Greg Dyke wasn't dreaming at the draw.

Still think Eng have v good talent in the front end of the pitch. They have no elite defenders and not much coming down the pipeline, but you could maybe patch together a borderline competent defence if they had some protection in front of them. They have zero even anywhere near elite central midfielders. NONE. And none of the young tyros coming through play there. The best might be Ox-Chamb. and I'm not sure he's ever going to play central and if he does it will be as frwd CM not deep lying.

kinda annoying that the only top performer on the night was a much vaunted EPL star tho, best if it'd been a pooh poohd nobody from an inferior league.

Thinking about CM's I guess I left out Wilshere. But who knows with that guy.

as DM? better with Livermore or Rodwell, god help ye.

the smug confidence starting Saturday evening that Uruguay and Costa Rica wd be a couple of nothing teams to be rolled over on the march thru to the next round.

Really? I think this time around there has been some realism (and this is coming down from a great height of delusion) about England's prospects of getting out of the group. There has been a lack of flags around, and any enthusiasm.

A lot of people have stopped lying to themselves..

I can't even call that a start to something, because a few other things would have to happen etc etc.

seemed to last about as long as it took for Costa Rica to beat Uruguay, which was somehow construed as a good sign for England

the realism, that is

it was a good sign for England, tbh. Uruguay are no better than average, bar Suarez. a performance anything like the first hour vs Italy might of done it, bish bosh bash six points mate and all a sudden things ain't so bad

which would be a fairer assessment of the team under absence than the two games have been, except that nobody ever really expects England to do even a decent job at tournaments these days, regardless of personnel or tactic

Will be interesting to see who they can get to manage them if Hodgson is replaced.

sherwood

They won't get rid of Hodgson.