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

oic

Amazing - just walked past Andy Gray on hungerford bridge, talking into his mobile, and I promise you, absolutely no word of a lie, the only word I caught was 'sexist'.

I know it's not the right thread but it was too fun not to post and it did seem pretty tragic.

superb

tho I am now worried I saw him and projected onto some "elephant shoe" formation.

no comment, but wow

what a hit son, what a hit.

I love this miserable bastard

Newcastle United's Joey Barton has said England will "never win" the World Cup, and dismissed Gareth Barry's role in the midfield as evidence of a lack of talent.

"France killed us at Wembley," Barton said. "We English will play the next 50 World Cups and we'll never win one. The people in charge at the FA played football maybe 50 or 60 years ago and still think that we can win a World Cup in the same way we did in 1966.

"We're too focused on tradition in England, like always having to play 4-4-2. Sometimes you need to experiment, drop a bit deeper so you have more space to move into. France, Italy and Germany have done it. We've been doing the same thing for 20 years," he added in an interview with the French So Foot magazine.

Barton won just one England cap, in 2007 against Spain, but still believes he has a role to play in Fabio Capello's team: "Honestly, I think I'm the best (English midfielder). Luka Modric and Samir Nasri are very good, but in terms of English players ... Well, Jack Wilshere isn't bad, but Frank Lampard's on the way down and Steven Gerrard's been injured a lot."

He backed this argument, with criticism of Gareth Barry: "Did you see the game against Germany at the World Cup? If you watch the fourth goal, when (Mesut) Ozil was up against Barry, it was like the hare and the tortoise.

"Barry's got a very good agent. He's also discreet and always agrees with the manager. He's like the guy who sits in the front row and listens
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/apr/07/joey-barton-england-world-cup

"it was like the hare and the tortoise."

I don't think he read the end of this book.

loving Joey Barton doesn't even feel wrong any more

nonxp ha!

Barry really got the best of Ozil when they swapped shirts at the end tho.

He's also discreet and always agrees with the manager.

Little known fact: Barton's house is strewn with really lovely lace doilies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzXqf_YNyd4

every time some article about english teams needing to learn how to keep the ball like barca crops up (as with lacey on the graun blog today) i think of this goal

some good fundamentals there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL2lgP7XcLI

joe hart rip

Nah. Deflection for the first one, Milner at fault for the second

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIAbvlMHt3o

Says it all really

"The team that defends the best I guarantee will win this game."

"Ok here comes the the ball, oh wait i've only got two touches, ohshitoshit" *hoof*

So England 2 touch passing practice is actually just shooting practice. Sigh.

Even more worrying is that the FA don't seem to see the problem here and that they're happy to upload this shit to Youtube. Unless they totally get it and it's a cunning plan designed to draw attention to the deficiencies of English football. Granted it's been edited, but still.

i was involuntarily drawn to mutter "oh you fucking twats" halfway thru the vid

Option 3: the FA proving it's listening by not making young players play a 90-minute game on a full-size pitch.

q. Gareth Southgate: "In 11-a-side matches there are fewer touches for players. If we go to that format too young, then it becomes much more of an athletic-based game – we have huge pitches that kids can't get around. It benefits the physically stronger players but there's a real danger that we lose the smaller, more technically gifted ones. There is a high drop-out of players in that nature."

madness I say.

I was thinking about starting a thread for this but I guess this is appropriate as any.

Spain have an obvious style of play that goes through the ages (the 'technique is king' aka the Xavi). Germany seem to have spent the past five years doing something similar (the direct + fast + technical ability + organisation aka the Ronaldo). Italy have seemingly always done this (the 'go one up and defend like a bastard' aka the anyone involved in Italian football not named Cassano from the past thirty years). France, Holland, Brazil and Argentina - basically the other BIG footballing nations have been lucky enough to have exceptional talents* but they look as though they are trailing behind Germany and Spain due to disorganisation and no real unity of tactical ideas.

But why are we not looking to create an English 'style' or understanding? Southgate and co have been talking about Barcelona which is fine but where is the bigger picture? If we are copying a style that Cryuff starting working on 20 years ago, we are always going to be 20 years behind. English football does have many great and defining characteristics, much like Italian and German football that should be worked on as well as technique.

This u21 team is all fast, strong, taller and full of stamina. Yet our closing down is laboured, some players are trying everywhere, some stand still. We are a faster, a side based on athletisicm instead of the Spanish skill to pass through us - so why are we playing so deep? If we could push them back into their own half with a high line, we'd have to rely on less long balls, while having fast and tall defenders to deal with what they try to get through or over that high line. Our passing technique isn't great so why keep it in the middle? And when we are going down the wings we have been more effective at getting closer to their box but the midfield aren't looking to get into the box for headers or passes - again if we pushed the defence up they wouldn't have to be so worried about keeping that space.

The improvement of the country's collective touch and pass technique is not going to improve over night but the tactical approach can. And then if you get that technique to work with a system already highlighting and integrating understood national strengths, we'd be doing so much better.

*Of course we need to catch up here too.

I should have also added that we do seem to create smart centre halves at the top level. Terry is pretty slow but you never notice it because he's always in the right place. Smalling also looks pretty smart and Rio's positioning is spot on most of the time. They are usually incredibly hard to pass through, whether they have a high line or sit deep.

your collective footballing outlook is mistrust of systems and percentages, and funnels respect more towards the moment of inspiration/brilliance rising from the mire of incompetence.

Your fans complain when centre halves and deeplying midfielders play it amongst themselves

The consistency of performance/touch/whatever from even your top players is alarmingly below the top spanish, dutch, german etc players

Yes

'keep it simple and give it to wayne/stevie' is still the default attitude, with only personnel changing.

English players are a certain type, fit a template, which very rarely changes once they sign their first professional contract, they don't ever seem to work on what doesn't come naturally to them imo.

your collective footballing outlook is mistrust of systems and percentages, and funnels respect more towards the moment of inspiration/brilliance rising from the mire of incompetence.

Your fans complain when centre halves and deeplying midfielders play it amongst themselves

The consistency of performance/touch/whatever from even your top players is alarmingly below the top spanish, dutch, german etc players

― ♪♫ hey there lamp post, feelin' whiney ♪♫ (darraghmac), Sunday, 12 June 2011 20:29 (1 minute ago)

damn, thought you were going to finish with all of your friends are cunts, your mother is a ball-point pen thief

darragh so basically you are saying why bother attempt change?

fwiw i've been watching england under 18/21 teams for along time now, and i don't think they lack talent at that level.

It's what happens after that that seems to hold ye back at international level?

lol xpost

I think it might be as simple as lack of resources. In Spain you have thousands of coaches all working to a plan that seems to have been developed over a couple of decades, in Germany the FA has big machinery behind it too. England has a fraction of the coaches, parents filling in the gaps, and so far as there is a plan it seems to be a handful of guys and/or incompetents either making things up (bad) or copying France or Spain or whoever's on top at the moment because that genuinely is the best possible option available.

As for developing a uniquely English style, everything I've read about Charles Reep makes going that way sound horrendous.

jeez, massive xps, must type faster

Finishing is "technical" too, this U21 team looks good in most respects but not that one.

fuck 'england' btw

there is no good 'england' and they will never be more than remedial cunts

nah i'm saying your managers pick a shower of bad attitude spoiled brat cunts to represent the country, and the attitude of that group sucks complete ass.

Pick the u21 team for the next international, add dawson and a few other players untarnished by association with terry et al, then discipline them.

What they're hearing about themselves at their clubs and from the media is affecting them more than it does other countries, or at least other countries that produce similar levels of young talent. Dunno what to do about it, i think trap's having to deal with the start of a similar issue over here with mass dropouts and what have you.

you a Team GB man then? xpost

fuck the rest of them too

Team British Isles, guys, get this Icelandic crop of youngsters involved

fuck everyone who cares

oh no, turns out they're as rubbish as old Schteve

fuck ireland for being so much like england

xxp yeah, i dunno where the english finishers have gone since owen.

Defoe used to have it, iirc, no idea who since then, and he's near 30

i don't mind iceland though

Finishers aren't a thing anywhere anymore though

huh nakh's a provo now

Walker, mancienne, both centre halves, rose, both strikers all look good players in that first half

shane long's a finisher, in your face