Come anticipate Fabio Capello's two years as England manager with me

Capello's reaction after reading Phil McNulty's latest blog entry.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/58395000/jpg/_58395692_58395691.jpg

xp

we had another thread pondering the grim inertia of english football but my head hurts too much to think about why any more. greed + xenophobia + innate conservatism + the remnants of the class system + football "culture" plus god knows what else

Having the "best league in the world"?

If it ain't broke etc!

symptom more than cause imo but

this is like when the Roman Empire had the best arenas in the world and then suddenly their army was shit

Winning the World Cup with Alan Ball, Nobby Stiles + Jack Charlton in the same side didn't help

'suddenly'

don't really care about international success all that much
actually rather like things the way they are

When I heard this my first reaction was to recall that slogan from the Czechs as the tanks marched into Prague: 'Wake up Lenin they've all gone mad'. Associaton/memory blah.

Hilarious if arry was convincted, but actually that trial shd help, imagine the mud that would've been slung at him as the Euros approached. He effectively passed his interview during the trial.

Rafa is a better choice.

for what?

We know how this ends anyway: Redknapp leads England to semi-final defeat to German on penalties -> WC qualifying starts well -> Mail on Sunday expose on massive raft of previously unknown Redknapp bungs -> Redknapp sacked -> England fail to qualify for 2014 World Cup under new manager Roy Hodgson after conceding a heartbreaking late equaliser against Greece.

... scored by Georgios Samaras

don't really care about international success all that much

i cd care less really and yet

there's something so maddening about the endless misadministration and underachieving celebs and baying jingoism that part of me wd just like to see people of good will create a national football ethos to be proud of, just once.

Haven't we had 10 years of 'why the shit don't we just let Trevor Brooking have free reign? we keep thinking everything he says sounds sensible and achievable and always do the complete fucking opposite in an incompetent manner.'

eh, must be the money

is there money in being incompetent fools? i bet england shirt sales have drooped like crazy post-sven, for example.

England Memorabilia is so over:

1) The £1 shops are full of 2010 World Cup souvenir flags, t-shirts, etc

2) Who would buy a full-price 2014 world cup one, when they have seen all that?

surely it is pardew's time? is he can do okay at newcastlol then pretty sure england can absolutely rake everybody under him

I think we can all agree that Pardew would be a huge fucking disaster, right?

Why don't they get Ricky Tomlinson? At least we'd all 'ave a laff'...

Havin' laffs was actually forwarded by Neil Warnock as a priamry reason for the FA to give the job to Redknapp - that and his ability to speak, if not quite write, English

Alan Pardew is the new Steve Bruce, he's a limited manager benefiting from an excellent talent scout.

hey guys pardew was joeks it's almost friday!

Chu for England

it's almost Good Friday

Never mind the new Steve Bruce, England need the old Steve Bruce.

In 1988?

don't really care about international success all that much

i cd care less really and yet

there's something so maddening about the endless misadministration and underachieving celebs and baying jingoism that part of me wd just like to see people of good will create a national football ethos to be proud of, just once. i do, i really do.

Fixed.

not really, i wasn't talking about success there and i guess my chagrin is more related to that feeling you get when you've got a knotted string and you feel compelled to untie it - abstract mental tidiness of some sort.

on a strictly pleasurable level the hapless travails of the national side wd take a lot of beating.

or perhaps i'm thinking that a national side i'd want to support wd have to change in many ways, and "success" is the least of those ways

Obviously I used to hate England - but as things are, for a sheer entertainment roller-coaster ride they cannot be beaten. Well maybe by France, there's a national side with everything. Argentina too, that's your triumvirate.

Obviously I used to hate England - but as things are, for a sheer entertainment roller-coaster ride they cannot be beaten

can i get this on a tshirt pls

* off-pitch only

Actually, even that's unfair - up there among last night's oh so many lols was Rob Green's howler on a loop on the BBC rolling news.

love watching England

sometimes gruelling

motherfucker is that a famine reference

hear that NN he made a famine reference this is incredible

chips on your shoulder?

goddamit and the mods all busy too

love watching english people who love football convince themselves they don't care about england or hate england, when i have the sinking suspicion their eyes would well with big, st george cross shaped tears if arry won the world cup.

They are one of the most boring teams, football wise, in world football

ah yeah

i mean, i sometimes read the real-time updates from the thread during the germany game in the WC

suuuure you guys don't care

suuuuure

Hardly ever play any football worth watching. They're like a good version of Norway.

love watching english people who love football convince themselves they don't care about england or hate england

if you say so

but seriously, i love football more than is healthy and my relationship with the england team is only ever gonna be as complicated as my relationship to the english nation. well, maybe fractionally less complicated.

the english football team changes personnel every 4-7 years tbf

i mean clearly i spend time thinking about "the england football team" but i'm pretty fucking certain i'm not just hanging on for an excuse to paint a red cross on my face and punch the nearest german

and, once again, i love my club...the national team is this weird tragi-comic distraction mainly worshiped by southerners afaict

lol at NV in role of prime apologist

the english football team changes personnel every 4-7 years tbf

Yeah but they don't change much