Fucking good game, great comeback, great viewing.
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Fucking good game, great comeback, great viewing.
I didn't see it but that all but puts us through I'd imagine.
We should put at least 4 past Algeria and then will only need a draw against Slovenia to be certain of qualification. Easy easy!
What about Germany? HAHA!!! Well done Serbs!
....that was crap reffing...9 yellows?!?!?! Really!!!
We had a shit first half, we conceded one goal on a marking mistake and the other one we just couldn't help, hell of a goal but Donovan, Bradley, and Edu had great performances to draw us to an "even" 3-2 draw.
Anyone notice the star Slovenian looked like Louis from American Psycho? Same haircut and all....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oT7Z0YGFVA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq53pDtuMiY
England puts 0 past Algeria Bilbo :D
We really are fucking shit. I mean, Algeria?????????????
Right now I'm not confident we could even get a draw with Slovenia, let alone the win we need.
Fucking awful, get Postman Pat out and get someone like Martin O'Neil in.
I don't know why everybody is so surprised...
We didn't even qualify for the Euro's. How exactly do you go from that to winning the world cup? Just making it past the first stage will be an improvement.
We are not an elite world class team... it's not the management, the players don't need to get inspired to awake some slumbering football rapture - we're just not that good, not much more to it than that I'm afraid.
If we were that good and it was management and tactics etc, then maybe we'd have only beaten Algeria (who haven't been in the world cup for 24 years and who's captain had never been in an international tornament) by 4 nil and not 5 nil. Not had a goaless draw
Massive hype job... everytime round... ignore the papers...
No ammount of changes is going to have us beating Brazil, Spain, France, Argentinia etc. no fucking chance.
That's why I loved it when Newcastle went down... all these dick heads blaming the club owners and saying that Newcastle were a slumbering giant... as big as Chelsea etc... fuck off :rolleyes:
This post is ridiculous Adam. So are you saying we should just give up supporting our national team and that we'll never amount to anything?
Beside's it crap, as we SHOULD be good. We have some of the biggest clubs in the world, in fact I believe Man Utd is the biggest, we have arguably the best and richest premiership league in world football, and we have undoubtably several absolute world class players.
With the players, domestic infrastructure, fanbase, money, name etc we should be one of the top 4 or 5 teams in Europe no excuses.
Players like Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard etc could get into virtually any national team in the world. But they are not simply not performing.
That's not the best these players can do, not even close.
Sad fact is Lampard and Gerard suffer from 'John Barnes syndrome' they have never recreated their club form for England. Watching them week in week out in the EPL, you would think thet could make almost any starting 11 in the world, but for England they have played about 160 games between them and only had ahandful of really good performances each.
It's not like playing teams like Algeria means playing against better opposition than they face in the EPL, the EPL has some of the best players in the wordl
It's baffling!
Capello is too stubborn and pig headed! He needs to tell the players the team 4 or 5 days before the game so they can prepare as a 'Team' in training, he needs to accept that 4-4-2 doesn't work aswell!!
As for U.S.A - That is what I call commitment and team spirit. A pleasure to watch!!!
Yeah I agree with you Big H, it is baffling. WE have consistently underperformed for, well decades. Saying we are an average team, as if we just don't have the resources or talentpool to ever improve and that we are merely playing to our potential is absurd imo.
With the premier league we have, the clubs we have and domestic income we have we have absolutely no excuse not to have absolutely one of the best teams in the world. That we haven't screams of failure at some level, whether it's the FA, the toil of a packed domestic season, innapropriate choice of managers or whatever, the fact is that it is still not good enough.
I don't expect for use to be in contention to win the world cup, a look at our squad will show we fall behind the likes of Spain, Argentian and Brazil. But we absolutely should be on a parity with teams like Germany, Franch, Italy, The Netherlands etc in this tournament and certainly should be far too much for the likes of Algeria and Slovenia.
I'll give England a pass for the USA game, the USA team have performed very well in recent years and are a credible side. But not beating Algeria is an appalling result, it's like Man Utd drawing with Scunthorpe or something, it just shouldn't happen.
Still, we do have a habit of doing things the hard way and 'hopefully' we can rally and scrape past the Slovenians. I think we'll do it, most like with a free kick or an own goal 15 minutes from time, but we should make it.
Ironically if we finish runners up it may help us avoid Germany following their shock loss to Serbia, although Ghana will be no mugs either.
I reckon we will beat Slovenia, and then go through as runners up. Defeat Ghana, and then probably go out to Argentian in the quarters or something.
Not at all Bilbo... Algeria and the USA's etc fans are supporting their teams, who I'm sure 99% of them know are not going to win the world cup. Nothing wrong with that.
It's the arrogance and gullibility of the average English football fan during the pre tournament hype that gets me... we've 'consistently under performed for decades'... are you not seeing the pattern here?
A few of our players probably could get into most top clubs... but they wouldn't see half of the fuss that they do over here.. they wouldn't ge anywhere near the appraisal of accolades off the fans of those clubs.
They're treated like gods in this country... which is part of the reason why they think they don't actually have to play any football and still win.
It's a lot easier to play well when you're surrounded by the best players in the world, but when you're getting balls from the likes of Heskey and every touch you make needs to count for something thats when you see whether you're a good player or not.
Gerrard managed to trip over thin air for fucks sake... every touch of the ball Rooney had (all four of them) was bollocks... I could play a better game of football than he did, not even joking.
There's under performing and then there's being out played by Algeria... it's not like you could see we were better but nothing was coming together... England didn't look a class above Algeria... in my opinion Algeria were pretty unlucky not to walk away with 2 points.
good individuals don't make a good team... they don't have the attitude (Rooney being 'upset at the fans' who are stupid enough to make him obscenely rich says it all) to be a good team... and it's the team I'm talking about. I would be more shocked at us making the quater finals than I would if we went out this round.
Not saying don't support the team... but people need to get real... that way they'll be able to enjoy the cup instead of suffering the sheeple angst they seem to go through every time we 'underperform every time' (ie our expectations are always set higher than our actual ability)
You are totally missing the point of being a football fan Adam. People don't sit down and make an objective assessment of their national team's realistic chances before they decide how much to support them, it's the World Cup, it only comes around every four years and most blokes, and even a lot of women like to celebrate it for the massively partisan sporting occasion it is. It's a great month to get behind your national team, support your country if not even the guys on the pitch and to hope and believe that this time we can pull it off.
There is nothing wrong at all with that, it's a festival not a science, and most of us with pathetically ordinary lives and nothing of universal significance going on like to take advantage of this month long carnival by catching up with mates, going to the pub en masse, enjoying the type of collective community and comaradre with strangers amongst the people of Britain that apart from during the World Cup and the Euro's never ever happens in this country.
You don't even have to be a big football fan to appreciate it, it's a great unifying celebration for everybody, just cheer on your national side.
I really think you are missing the point of what the World Cup is for most people.
Anyway, that said, England should be much better than they are. The individual compenents are better than the actual machine. What we can do to fix it I don't know but with the football heritage, the league infrastructure, the financial resources, the domestic player base and the fans that we have there is no real excuse for us not to be a top 8 footballing nation consistently.
I haven't read many papers I admit but I've not heard any serious commentator say we are favourites for the world cup so your whole argument is a straw man.
I think before the tournament anything less than a quarter final place would have been considered disappointing and most hoped we could reach the semi's.
I see no reason why those expectations are too high at all, even now.
Germany lost to lowly Serbia, tournament favourites Spain were defeated by fucking Switzerland, France are all but out of the competition and Italy laboured to a draw in their first game.
The Netherlands aside the whole of Europe has looked pretty crap, in fact only Argentina have really impressed thus far.
England aren't out of it yet, and instead of sitting back and critiquing them negatively just so you can have the frankly weird satisfaction of being able to say 'I told you to so!' to those who are actually patriotic, why not put on an England shirt, get down the pub with a group of mates, paint your face, get pissed and cheer like mad for England?
Sure, we may not win, but I guarantee if we do you'll have one hell of a great fucking night conga-ing through your city centre and jumping up and down celebrating like an idiot with mates and even strangers.
That's what the World Cup is all about!
That's my point Algeria etc aren't going to win it... but there's nothing wrong with them getting behind their team though... or us getting behind ours.
They know they're not going to win but luckily they can enjoy their team putting up a good effort with out being arrogant cunts about it... we can't do either! ;)
and please don't call supporting our football team patriotic!! :p Could go off on a massive tangent about my thoughts on that... but I'm going to spare the forum for now!
I'd support the team if they were utter shite but gave it there all... as it stands they're a decent team who so far have given fuck all... why would I get behind that? ;)
If I had to chose between a group of Algerians who have never played in the world cup, who earn a pitance compared to the vast majority of the england players and who go out and put up a good, honest effort or a bunch of stuck up posers (supported by some of the worlds top sports scientists, nutritionists, coaches etc) who can't even be arsed to show up - I'm not going to pick the latter just because they're from the same country as me!
Especially not the likes of John Terry... or Ashley Cole who looked like he was wearing more make up than his ex missus does!