2010 FIFA World Cup

[Wombat]

Germany is now playing with a very young team, and their under-19 and under-17 teams already became world champions... their future is secured for a very long time. But England? They desperately need to start building a new, young team from scratch.

Agreed. Germany seems to have been successful in the generation shift. England defenders couldn't catch up with the quick and organized offense.

[Monte Carlo]

They desperately need to start building a new, young team from scratch.

 

Nail. On. Head.

 

Problem is the premiership. Do Alex Ferguson or Arsen Wenger give a toss about developing English talent? Nope. They are paid to run successful club sides, they bring in the most effective foreign talent.

 

Down in the lower leagues there is probably some latent English talent, but they are playing in the equivalent of a turbo-charged, cash-fuelled foreign legion. As I posted above, structurally, English football is broken. The Premiership, OTOH, palpably isn't but English fans need to make their minds up what they want. Every Premiership season ticket bought is another tiny nail in the coffin of English football.

[WorstUsernameEver]

They desperately need to start building a new, young team from scratch.

 

Nail. On. Head.

 

Problem is the premiership. Do Alex Ferguson or Arsen Wenger give a toss about developing English talent? Nope. They are paid to run successful club sides, they bring in the most effective foreign talent.

 

That's not just an english problem though,

[Wombat]

That's not just an english problem though,

Yea, it's another possible reason why some countries haven't even reached to this stage.

[Monte Carlo]

I agree, it's a big problem for a lot of countries. Maybe it's so acute from an English PoV because we invented the bloody sport as we now know it and we have such a successful domestic league.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Wow. Great Mexico defense.

[213374U]

I don't follow much futbol, but is it common to disallow goals?

It is, unless it's Argentina.

[WorstUsernameEver]

I don't follow much futbol, but is it common to disallow goals?

It is, unless it's Argentina.

 

I'd seriously like to know what the referee and his assistant were discussing. The offside was so blatant, that they'd have to be pretty distracted to not notice.

 

EDIT: ANOTHER? Poor Mexico. They're dead.

Edited June 27, 2010 by WorstUsernameEver

[Nepenthe]

I'm running out of teams I can support really fast.

[HoonDing]

Argentina was utter **** this evening. Where was Messi? Was he even on the pitch?

 

Without the 1-0 on the silver platter, they might have gone out. Germany, please blitz these overrated bags of wind.

Edited June 27, 2010 by virumor

[J.E. Sawyer]

Yesterday was a bad day, but today went quite well. I cheered on Germany at Old World Village in Huntington Beach and then retreated to an almost abandoned sports bar in Irvine to quietly root on Argentina with a friend. Terrible calls in both games, but I think the better teams are moving on.

 

I like both DFB and Argentina, but I hope Germany takes it next Saturday.

 

 

Argentina was utter **** this evening. Where was Messi? Was he even on the pitch?

He had a nice assist to an offside player.

[Tigranes]

Down in the lower leagues there is probably some latent English talent, but they are playing in the equivalent of a turbo-charged, cash-fuelled foreign legion. As I posted above, structurally, English football is broken. The Premiership, OTOH, palpably isn't but English fans need to make their minds up what they want. Every Premiership season ticket bought is another tiny nail in the coffin of English football.

 

*shrug* Will a very strict English player quota imposed on the Premier League result in a better english team? Maybe, maybe not. At the moment the real problem is:

 

1) English players aren't that good.

2) English players & media & FA think they are.

 

The English team, as a collection of players, haven't had the quality to be contenders for the World Cup for years - maybe in the Golden Balls Beckham days with Michael Owen and the like. The English press rant about how the team has failed, but in fact for England a Round of 16 / Quarter Final finish is exactly what you would expect of them.

 

Look at how many English players play outside England - not a lot. That's the most important statistic, actually. If English football had good talents, then foreign clubs would be buying them up. Seriously. If you want to argue that English talent is being wasted and not being looked at because of the foreign players in the English league, then you'd have to show that the talent is there to begin with - but why do so few English players get picked up? It's because they're not that good, and they can get inflated hype, star treatment and salaries in England.

 

When an English player has good talent, he gets nurtured and developed, no matter how many bloody foreigners are there - see Wayne Rooney, Micah Richards, Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott, Aaron Lennon, etc. The foreigners aren't the cause of the disease, they're just the symptom.

 

Anyway. Argentina played fairly well I thought, even if Mexico gifted them one goal and the referee another. They may not go all the way but they're sure entertaining, same with the Germans.

[Monte Carlo]

*shrug* Will a very strict English player quota imposed on the Premier League result in a better english team?

 

:: sigh :: where did I suggest that? I think the answer lies outside the Premiership. You can't kill the Premiership: it's a 500lb, 22 carat gorilla.

 

 

Maybe, maybe not. At the moment the real problem is:

 

1) English players aren't that good.

2) English players & media & FA think they are.

 

Agreed.

 

Look at how many English players play outside England - not a lot. That's the most important statistic, actually.

 

I don't think so. The reason English players don't bother is (a) cultural - a lot of the players are working class mummy's boys who flounder once you drop them more than ten miles from where they grew up* and (b) the English Premiership offers football every bit as demanding, and better paid, than the Spanish league or Serie A.

 

*Horrible stereotype, but hey footballers are hardly an oppressed minority. To be fair, Beckham bucked the trend.

 

I think there need to be new terms and conditions to play for the English side, i.e. in a World Cup year they limit the number of games they play. Premiership players can't do that. I'd rather get kicked out in the group stages with a committed team proud to wear the shirt than watch these prima donnas. Their interviews yesterday were a disgrace - they can't actually acknowledge their complete lack of skill and commitment.

[Tigranes]

What else other than a quota can you do, though?

 

I mean, the obviously reasonable answer is to look at the academies and the way youth talents are bred, both in terms of the methodology and the culture (i.e. get rid of "we ain't need no technique we just need hard strong English men", which is happening at the moment I think), but that'll take decades. What do you think they should look at changing?

 

Fair enough about the culture argument. Re: wages, Spain has a more competitive tax rate for highest earners, but that probably only effects the Ronaldos.

 

I think the fact that EPL / La Liga / etc players play so many games is a factor, yes, but that's hardly limited to England.

[213374U]

Re: wages, Spain has a more competitive tax rate for highest earners, but that probably only effects the Ronaldos.

That's being looked into, fyi. We can't have the rich becoming richer as the poor become poorer. Equal distribution of misery is a top priority atm.

 

As for the quality of English footballers, I'm going to say that the team had, I think, sufficient quality to be world champions. The WC stakes just aren't high enough (individual awards can be earned without winning the championship, too), and they don't play as a team nearly long enough to be as compact as they are as part of their respective clubs. UEFACL/League tournaments are a much better representation of their ability... because they give a damn. The current setup means that competitions with the national team is something that pro footballers do on the side. Besides, nation-states are so pass

[Meshugger]

Re: wages, Spain has a more competitive tax rate for highest earners, but that probably only effects the Ronaldos.

That's being looked into, fyi. We can't have the rich becoming richer as the poor become poorer. Equal distribution of misery is a top priority atm.

 

As for the quality of English footballers, I'm going to say that the team had, I think, sufficient quality to be world champions. The WC stakes just aren't high enough (individual awards can be earned without winning the championship, too), and they don't play as a team nearly long enough to be as compact as they are as part of their respective clubs. UEFACL/League tournaments are a much better representation of their ability... because they give a damn. The current setup means that competitions with the national team is something that pro footballers do on the side. Besides, nation-states are so pass

[WorstUsernameEver]

Re: wages, Spain has a more competitive tax rate for highest earners, but that probably only effects the Ronaldos.

That's being looked into, fyi. We can't have the rich becoming richer as the poor become poorer. Equal distribution of misery is a top priority atm.

 

As for the quality of English footballers, I'm going to say that the team had, I think, sufficient quality to be world champions. The WC stakes just aren't high enough (individual awards can be earned without winning the championship, too), and they don't play as a team nearly long enough to be as compact as they are as part of their respective clubs. UEFACL/League tournaments are a much better representation of their ability... because they give a damn. The current setup means that competitions with the national team is something that pro footballers do on the side. Besides, nation-states are so pass

[Zoraptor]

What else other than a quota can you do, though?

IIRC even if they implemented a quota they be obligated to make it apply to all EU players rather than only English/ British, so much of the problem would still exist.

[Bendu]

At the moment the real problem is:

 

1) English players aren't that good.

2) English players & media & FA think they are.

I wouldn't blame the media or English players. First and foremost I would blame the Glazers, Abramowitsch, Gillett, Hicks, Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and so on. They are the cancer of british football.

[Meshugger]

At the moment the real problem is:

 

1) English players aren't that good.

2) English players & media & FA think they are.

I wouldn't blame the media or English players. First and foremost I would blame the Glazers, Abramowitsch, Gillett, Hicks, Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and so on. They are the cancer of british football.

 

Who are those guys?

[Tigranes]

Basically billionaires who come out of nowhere, buy up a club, and then take one of several permutations:

 

(1) Treat the club as their plaything throwing money at it (and, through that spending, causing market inflation and making that club's finances unsustainable) and interfering

(2) Taking up huge debts to buy the club and the hoping the club can be used to pay it off, again making the club's long term future bleak

(3) Billionaires who buy the club but run it with relative moderation, so far

[Bendu]

Who are those guys?

Investors/owners of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City, turning football clubs into private toys they can play or companys they can milk.

[Meshugger]

Interesting that they happen to be the very same teams that are in the Champions League I recon that the ratio of local players is quite less compared to other clubs?

[Meshugger]

Meh, the samurais lost

[Gorgon]

Well, maybe a squad with a tactic aiming for 0-0 should have practised penalty shootouts a little more.