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

Bit iffy treating only Serbia as Yugoslavia?

harsh on Ukraine too. Slovakia gets full credit though

England's European Championship record is a far bigger indictment of the national team than the World Cup shenanigans.

My bad - Sweden have reached the semis four times, England twice

Kazakhstan reaching the group stage would f*ck up those maps nicely.

btw, i heard that Kazakhstan plays their matches on artificial turf, so i guess that makes it about time for Greenland to enter the competition.

http://www.boerenkoolenradijs.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/sepp_blatter.jpe

In the concacaf tournament surely? Would be a genuinely awesome away trip either way.

don't think they've decided yet. CONCACAF is obviously a much smarter idea, snatch up some vaguely Eskimo related Danish footballers and get going :) (Jesper Gronkjaer is a Greenlander)

Don't know that we've touched upon this anywhere, there are a lot of implications if this lassie wins.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11452434

I was quite surprised looking at this lot. Makes Sven look like a big success.

Knock-out games won in 90 minutes in WC finals by England since 1966:
1970: none
1974: DNQ
1978: DNQ
1982: none (round robin 2nd round with two 0-0 draws)
1986: 1 (3-0 win vs Paraguay)
1990: none (2 wins aet vs Belgium and Cameroon)
1994: DNQ
1998: none
2002: 1 (3-0 win vs Denmark)
2006: 1 (1-0 win vs Ecuador)
2010: none

Knock-out games won in 90 minutes in WC or EC finals by Spain, 1966-2006:

1986: 1 (5-1 win vs Denmark)
1994: 1 (3-0 win vs Switzerland)

Anybody watch it? I forgot.

On iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00v8sj8/Inside_Sport_Can_England_Win_the_Next_World_Cup/

I recorded it, will watch tonight. I'd like it if Mourinho, Ancelotti and Cruyff all said that all that's needed is for the players to show more passion, under an English coach.

! that would be genuine 100% classic

Arsenal's Jack Wilshere has been named in both the under-21 and senior squads.

good to see they learnt from spreading theo too thin

ok the start of this show is hilar

already got "dedicated" and "passionate" on my bingo card 2 minutes in. redknapp thought we had better players than anyone. the music sounds like someone's funeral on eastenders. and the footage of the panel watching the game seeing how bad they are v. germany is terrific.

lol at lineker admitting cryuff saw him as the problem at barca and decided to work at youth development and ship him off.

Perhaps worth noting quite how far Kevin Davies has come. He's clearly no-one's long-term solution, but the fact this article was a fairly plausible epitaph for his career in 2003... props for that, y'know?

They are talking about Barca as Spain and yet complaining none of the top clubs in England play enough English players. So great, 8 players of the Spain side play for Barca - but what if they fail? Who is there is to compete with them? What about the rest of Spanish football? You can complain about high priced foreigners in the Premiership but ignore Ronaldo and Kaka and Ozil and Fabiano because Barca only buy a Zlatan or Henry or Alves 1 per season?

Lineker talks about how great it is Real spent so much on their youth academy but neglects to mention that they had to sell off their training ground to the government and have to pay rent on it.

Mourinho saying the problem is the big 4 don't play with English strikers like the Spanish do. Like Messi, Higuain, Forlan and Aguero, Fabiano and Kanoute, Rossi and Altidore...

Jose now saying he feels he has to buy Spanish players - such as the 1/5 he bought this summer (that 1 has only played 2 games, both as a sub, back up to new signing the Argentine Angel di Maria).

Yeah the too many foreigners thing is a red herring. What's clear is that when Real/Barca/Inter buy foreigners they don't buy English foreigners. The English players are overrated thanks to being part of a very entertaining and rich league.

They are painting it as being a problem EVERYWHERE. And the thing is, even after saying that it has taken the 20 since Cryuff took over at Barca for Spain to win the Euro 08, they aren't looking at the gradual changes being made over the past decade at top clubs like Arsenal, Chelsea, Utd, Villa, Everton - who are obviously working hard to change it up and now we are seeing many names around 17/18/19 who are technically gifted as opposed to workhorses - if Chelsea only developed their training academy in 2003 when Abramovich took over then the 9 year olds who joined that year will still not be old enough to really play for their u18s.

I think Klinsmann and Cryuff have come off best on this. Mourinho is Mourinho. I think Ancelotti is realistic, Scudamore just as skeezy as usual, Brooking honest - in a v. depressing way.

Klinsmann talking about it being ok to lose and take risks to make German football have a philosphy is terrific - this dude is like a football nabisco.

Has it ever occurred to anyone in the English games that if foreign players can come to England, English players can equally go and play in foreign?

lol @ Klinsmann's gag about Germany taking their attacking philosophy too far a couple of times in the 20th century.

huh never knew german club teams have to have 12 germans in their squad.

lol @ Klinsmann's gag about Germany taking their attacking philosophy too far a couple of times in the 20th century.

― meta the devil you know (onimo), Monday, 4 October 2010 17:39 (54 seconds ago) [IP: 86.11.143.38] Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah this was great.

lol @ Klinsmann's gag about Germany taking their attacking philosophy too far a couple of times in the 20th century.

Haha that was brilliant! Laughed out loud at that. Love the way his voice goes really high-pitched when he's about to laugh, too.

I think something that hasn't been touched on is that Klinsmann point that he and the German FA looked at a German philosphy. He didn't say it was the recognised 'right way to play the game' (ok Cryuff, you can occasionally close your mouth). Chelsea won this weekend against the supposed Barca way through efficient, 'English' style - strength, character, smart but not indulgant. There is no reason why a team of Lampard's and Rooney's shouldn't be able to win and we shouldn't try to take this character away from the English game. It's just that we don't have enough notable players of top ability to play that way.

Has it ever occurred to anyone in the English games that if foreign players can come to England, English players can equally go and play in foreign?

Well, one of the reasons foreigners go to England is that they'll finally be getting all that r€$pect they're owed. And I think most English players would take a steep pay cut by going to play in other European leagues, with a few exceptions I'd guess (Real, Barca, Inter, AC Milan, Bayern etc). I can't back this up with numbers but that's the feeling I get. And well, seeing as in France we keep being told that the Premier League is "the best league in the world", I'm guessing players in England listen to that even more, so considering leaving said best league must be difficult.

i.e. it won't be long till its like the 80s again - less money and less reputation sees the 'best' skip town.

Pennant was on £40k a week at Zaragoza, working out at £6.24m over 3 years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jul/10/jermaine-pennant-real-zaragoza-transfer

Of course you're right Jibe - I'm thinking more about young players (and even more about managers) constantly bleating about not getting opportunities because they're stuck on the bench at Blackburn. Are they out hawking their arses around the lower reaches of the Bundesliga just to get a game?

Are they fuck.

kinda like the idea of academy kids emailing their cv to teams across europe with a note saying "giz a game".

Just finished watching this. Jose's still kind of great, Jurgen really is great especially his gag - but the bit I liked best for some reason was Ancelotti having to make the coffees himself.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49362000/jpg/_49362381_englandgraphic466index.jpg

I really like this bbc graphic. If Capello issued his squads in comic form it'd make a good front page.

It's like they're getting ready to form Voltron.

I like the look of confusion on Rooney, Rio and Green's faces, like they can't believe Davies has been named, and Davies is all like "yay I made the team!"

http://www.clubcall.com/international-football/fa-wont-rule-out-mcclaren---brooking-1105014.html

Thought this might merit a mention today but don't really know what to say/think except "guh"

"not ruling him out" is the polite term for ruling him out

nah my "guh" was more about why are some reporters trying to make this a thing?

cos he's a top top manager now

Most successful English manager in the past twenty years who is still alive is naturally a candidate? Even if he wasn't ready first time around.

lol

Gary Lineker has claimed that hosting the 2018 World Cup in England would help bring attacking football back to the tournament.

Lineker, an England 2018 bid ambassador, said that the previous two tournaments had suffered from some negative tactics but that the atmosphere in the English stadia would help the flow of the game.

Lineker told reporters at the Leaders in Football conference in London: "I think it would be great for the game of football to have the World Cup in England.

"I think we would have a really good tournament in this country because of the passion we evoke from the stands and that can sometimes help the flow and the attacking nature of football.

"That's important because the last couple of World Cups at times have been a little bit on the negative side.

England did play attacking football in the last World Cup. Against Germany. They got smashed on the counter, time and time again.

and it helped the flow of the game and made for an exciting spectacle - so Lineker otm :)

Makes for a very short tournament though.