World Cup 2014

[TitoFan]

Last play of the damn game. It doesn't get anymore heartwrenching than that.
Hope the U.S. can recover psychologically.

[Xwetie]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzB5Iz5BWAg#t=28 Quite funnay!

[Kirkland Laing]

Suarez the cunt.

Him and Gerrard. If we go out tonight it will be a Liverpool players fault, either way. Cunts.

You've got to cut them some slack. Those two and three others of the England team were just part of the biggest late season collapse in the history of professional sports. They've been crushed psychologically and may never recover from a momentous debacle like that.

[Kirkland Laing]

I'd like to say well done to the Team America All-Star soccerball team who were amazingly close to a famous victory over South American opposition but a Portuguese player knotted the game with an overtime headkick.

[Master]

I just don't know what to say. We were through.

Fuckim commentators jinxed that shit sayin us hasn't advanced after two games since 1930shit wasn't over

I do not think it was the jinx more the cross from Ronaldo and the superb header to score the equaliser.

[Kirkland Laing]

England's problem isn't that they're scared of playing for the team or scared of the press reaction or whatever. Try dealing with the Brazilian or Spanish sports press if you think our press is bad. England's problem is that they can't make three passes without giving the ball away.

International football. You either need to tiki taka dominate possession or you need to be able to move the ball at great speed from player to player on the counterattack, the current tiki taka antidote.

England can't do either of these things because our players have fundamentally shit technique compared to foreigners.

Although he now looks like Uncle Fester Ray Wilkins was once a supremely gifted footballer. Captain of Chelsea at 19 and could play the ball better than Hoddle. One thing every Englishman knew was that Wilkins was amazingly gifted at passing the ball. Wilkins thought the same thing until he went to AC Milan and found that even the teenage trainees had better technique than him.

They used to have a training game where one guy went on the middle of the other players who were in a circle and passed the ball to each other. The guy in the middle would try and intercept it and the guy he intercepted it from then went in the middle. Wilkins spent almost all his time in the middle.

And we haven't got any better. Go abroad and you see pitches split in five crossways and five four versus four or five a side games going on instead of twenty two tiny kids playing on a full size pitch watching the ball soar over their heads all game. Foreign kids learn how to pass and controil the ball. English kids don't.

We breed payers who are big lads who can run all day and that's great for our end to end domestic league but shit for international football. And with the number of English players in the top league getting less every year the national team are going to get worse and worse.

[ryanman]

England's problem isn't that they're scared of playing for the team or scared of the press reaction or whatever. Try dealing with the Brazilian or Spanish sports press if you think our press is bad. England's problem is that they can't make three passes without giving the ball away.

International football. You either need to tiki taka dominate possession or you need to be able to move the ball at great speed from player to player on the counterattack, the current tiki taka antidote.

England can't do either of these things because our players have fundamentally shit technique compared to foreigners.

Although he now looks like Uncle Fester Ray Wilkins was once a supremely gifted footballer. Captain of Chelsea at 19 and could play the ball better than Hoddle. One thing every Englishman knew was that Wilkins was amazingly gifted at passing the ball. Wilkins thought the same thing until he went to AC Milan and found that even the teenage trainees had better technique than him.

They used to have a training game where one guy went on the middle of the other players who were in a circle and passed the ball to each other. The guy in the middle would try and intercept it and the guy he intercepted it from then went in the middle. Wilkins spent almost all his time in the middle.

And we haven't got any better. Go abroad and you see pitches split in five crossways and five four versus four or five a side games going on instead of twenty two tiny kids playing on a full size pitch watching the ball soar over their heads all game. Foreign kids learn how to pass and controil the ball. English kids don't.

We breed payers who are big lads who can run all day and that's great for our end to end domestic league but shit for international football. And with the number of English players in the top league getting less every year the national team are going to get worse and worse.

That has been one problem in the past yeah. But at this tournament England had an 87% pass success rate vs Italy (the highest of any team in the first round of matches) and 82% vs Uruguay.
So on this occasion the reasons lay elsewhere.
This time I don't think there is a deeper reason to be uncovered other than we played two good teams in tight matches which could have gone either way but we ended up on wrong side 2 out of 2 (which isn't exactly a statistical improbability).
Of course though, if we were better, had better players, had a better style, then those matches wouldn't be 50/50 calls (or 60/40 or whatever) so the lack of English players at top clubs and the style of play in the EPL are issues.

[Master]

England do not have enough quality players or any world class players. The ones that are decent are over paid spoilt brats. Every world cup since 1982 I build my hopes and this is the same result again.

1990 was the best team we ever had since class 66.

[ryanman]

England do not have enough quality players or any world class players. The ones that are decent are over paid spoilt brats. Every world cup since 1982 I build my hopes and this is the same result again.

1990 was the best team we ever had since class 66.

But it can't just be about that. Because that doesn't explain the team's lack of success between 2004 to 2010 when the team had at peak or near-peak the likes of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Lampard, Gerrard, Beckham, Owen, Rooney. They were all world class or very close to it, and nearly simultaneously. Yet we still didn't reach a semi final, final, or win anything in that time. So there must be more reasons than a lack of quality players.

[Mark TKO]

I'm turning against the England team as much as the next man and am sick of the 'next time we'll be better' shit. I don't ;ike what's happening in english football one bit

But had Rooney netted the easy equalizer against Italy and put two of his chances away against Uruguay we'd have been talking about how they were showing potential to go on from strength to strength in this tournament

We were dominated by neither, I've said before, just not clinical and a couple of silly defensive lapses. Every team is doing them and quite a few teams not playing to their potential.

Did you know there were only 6 attempts direct on the england goal in the two games. Hart saved just 1, 4 went in and Jagielka cleared other off line. That's not my stat it's from the Sun if you challenge it.
I have to say I can't remember Hart making a save to be honest


If they go out and win 3-0 tomorrow I'll be even more angry !

[armin]

ah shit looks like croatia out basically too...

[Maravilla2012]

Mexico advances 😁 but I fear we will be eliminated by Netherlands

[Gandalf]

England is terrible for the reasons I highlighted earlier. If you want good home based talent, then you must nurture it. You cannot allow foreigners to just come in and laugh at you. They don't come for the weather.

The England team will NEVER improve unless the premier league is tamed. Unless you care about the home nation, then nothing will ever get better. I apply this logic from football to immigration, to everything.

[Beanz]

England is terrible for the reasons I highlighted earlier. If you want good home based talent, then you must nurture it. You cannot allow foreigners to just come in and laugh at you. They don't come for the weather.

The England team will NEVER improve unless the premier league is tamed. Unless you care about the home nation, then nothing will ever get better. I apply this logic from football to immigration, to everything.

You support the corporate behemoth that is Liverpool and consequently are part of the problem.

[Gandalf]

England is terrible for the reasons I highlighted earlier. If you want good home based talent, then you must nurture it. You cannot allow foreigners to just come in and laugh at you. They don't come for the weather.

The England team will NEVER improve unless the premier league is tamed. Unless you care about the home nation, then nothing will ever get better. I apply this logic from football to immigration, to everything.

You support the corporate behemoth that is Liverpool and consequently are part of the problem.

Not really, Liverpool was a couple of years. Where was the rest of the UK? Exactly. It had nothing. It is a metaphor for the UK. A tragic and pointless nation.