*Official* English Football Season 2006-07

[Pup Clarke]

Anyone else think that Brazil really don't have a "great" team anymore?. Yes they have wonderful attacking players in the form of Ronaldinho, Kaka, Diego, and Robinho but there defence is very suspect and the likes of Vagner Love, Ricardo Oliviera, Jo, Luis Fabiano as striking options aren't brilliant. Ronaldo is past it and Adriano in most games seems very disinterested and has gone dramatically of the ball in the past year. They might really struggle in the next few years.

 

[Nate]

I agree - as I said, I don't like friendlies. But experimentation is usually the reason given by the organizations for organizing millions of them.

The reason we will probably struggle to beat Estonia is not our attitude in an international friendly, it is because our management is a shade dire.

The Aussie cricket team wins friendlies because they are better than the opposition. England are not better than Brazil. Additionally, Brazil are the most successful football team in histry - didn't seem to be taking the game any more seriously than we did tonight.

Haha, talking out of your arse a bit there. Loaded on the pressure in the last 10-15 minutes, pushed and pushed, scored, and celebrated. They didn`t want to lose. England don`t seem to care.

In the World Cup, we lost to eventual winners Italy. They scored a controversial penalty in the last 10 seconds. Did ANYONE say "Oh well, they`re much better than us, we did well to keep up with them."? Everyone around all of damn Australia were furious we didn`t win the match. It`s like that in every sport and is easily the main reason we compete so well in a variety of sports. England`s attitude towards sport is 100% dire.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Australian Cricket Team - Use real, meaningful International matches for experimentation... and we win them.

Your arguement is severely flawed. If no-one is trying to win, how accurate can your reading be of how a player is? There`s no point in experimenting when the match is "meaningless". He`ll get to a crucial point in a match you deem "meaningful", and screw up because of lack of experience in that situation.

Point is, the main factor in England not winning crap in the last thirty years is their disgusting attitude towards winning in sport. So when you struggle against Estonia and the rest of them, it won`t take you long to look for excuses. Look at all the opportunities you had to see how good players REALLY are, and the chances you had to gain psychological victories over big-name opposition. It`s a huge problem that nothing is being done about.

Nah. It's really more to do with other teams being better than us. We've beaten everyone in friendlies: Brazil, Italy, France, Germany; didn't make us any better equipped when the chips were down in real competitions.

& it isn't that the players aren't trying to win, it's more that friendlies never quite have the competitive edge that qualifying & tournament games have.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Anyone else think that Brazil really don't have a "great" team anymore?. Yes they have wonderful attacking players in the form of Ronaldinho, Kaka, Diego, and Robinho but there defence is very suspect and the likes of Vagner Love, Ricardo Oliviera, Jo, Luis Fabiano as striking options aren't brilliant. Ronaldo is past it and Adriano in most games seems very disinterested and has gone dramatically of the ball in the past year. They might really struggle in the next few years.

Possibly, but I'm not convinced. I remember in the qualifying for 2002, Brazil were lucky to even qualify at all, by all accounts they looked dire, especially defensively. Everyone wrote them off. They won the competition.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Haha, talking out of your arse a bit there. Loaded on the pressure in the last 10-15 minutes, pushed and pushed, scored, and celebrated. They didn`t want to lose. England don`t seem to care.

Celebrated? England celebrated when we scored...

If they were that bothered, they wouldn't have taken Kaka off. Simple as.

As for your second point, using a competitive match doesn't hold, as if that had happened in England there would also have been uproar - when we went out in Euro 2004, we were criticizing the ref for days afterwards, and were criticized afterwards for doing so. In an uncompetitive match, no-one cares.

 

[Nate]

Can see I`m not going to sway you. It`s what I believe Tom, and history is on my side. Tonight a severely under-strength Australian side will play Uruguay in a friendly. We`ll go ape if we lose. The 50 000+ crowd will be louder than the 90 000 at Wembley. And it`ll be another building block towards the foundation of a stronger football side.

 

[Johnners]

EDIT: hahaha, wrong thread

 

[roseboy64]

Nath has a point TBH but not strong enough to defeat Halsey and Brumby's POVs.

 

[Craig]

'Meaningless' or not it does seem like a defeatist attitude. And if they are meaningless, why not just pick a bunch of Championship or League One or Two players then instead? At least they would care about playing for England.

 

[Johnners]

Can see I`m not going to sway you. It`s what I believe Tom, and history is on my side. Tonight a severely under-strength Australian side will play Uruguay in a friendly. We`ll go ape if we lose. The 50 000+ crowd will be louder than the 90 000 at Wembley. And it`ll be another building block towards the foundation of a stronger football side.

Entirely agree tbh

 

[Tom Halsey]

'Meaningless' or not it does seem like a defeatist attitude. And if they are meaningless, why not just pick a bunch of Championship or League One or Two players then instead? At least they would care about playing for England.

Because to do so would completely devalue it, and the organizations don't want it to look devalued (even if it is) because they make money.

It's just a case of prioritzing - we're in a fair amount of trouble in our qualifying group, as such any friendly whoever it's against pales into insignificance. As I said before, Brazil weren't particularly bothered about this game either, as evidenced by them taking Kaka off, and they're arguably the best team in the World, and undoubtedly the most successful side in history.

Another point is - a lot of English fans support their club sides over the national side. This basically means that international friendlies have two things against them - they are international, and it's a friendly.

 

[BoyBrumby]

BTW, anyone heard the, er, rumours about John O'Shea that're doing the rounds? Probably libellous so I'll say no more than that...

 

[marc71178]

However, I do think it's been a bit heart-over-head for me when it comes to campaigning for him to play international football - he's probably not quite good enough as it stands, but I challenge anyone to come up with a reasonable argument as to how Nicky Shorey is the better player.

Precisely my previous comment - they're looking for a left back, not a jack of all trades.

In consecutive posts he's being talked up as a left back and a left winger.

Which is he?

 

[marc71178]

Cutting in a lot is not good, there are times where it's fine to cut in - making a habit of it is bad for the team.

Still much better than any other option on the left - Downing is the next best and he's consistently been dire.

 

[marc71178]

Well I'm sorry but as a player if you are not up for a friendly against Brazil at a new stadium then you should think about retiring.

A meaningless friendly at the end of a long season - this was more a chance to get them together with nothing at stake before the game that matters.

 

[marc71178]

Australian Cricket Team - Use real, meaningful International matches for experimentation... and we win them.

There's no such thing as a friendly International in Cricket, every game counts for something.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Still much better than any other option on the left - Downing is the next best and he's consistently been dire.

Comprehensively wrong as expected.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Precisely my previous comment - they're looking for a left back, not a jack of all trades.

In consecutive posts he's being talked up as a left back and a left winger.

Which is he?

He's a left-winger, who can also play left-back well and central midfield competently. In an England team where several players (Phil Neville, Jermaine Jenas, Wes Brown) are consistently picked for their ability to play more than one position to a mediocre standard, I'm very surprised that players who can do that and more (Taylor and Barry, to name but two) are overlooked in favour of Shorey, who's never shown much more than the ability to play left-back competently for one season.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Well I'm sorry but as a player if you are not up for a friendly against Brazil at a new stadium then you should think about retiring.

Yep.

Away from this issue as far as I'm concerned there are far too many people in this thread who let the moronic media do all their thinking for them.

McClaren is practically out of a job already if his team decide not to turn up again - that's just ridiculous. Then you've got this bollocks from people saying if England fail to win in Estonia they're out (people who say 'must win' for each and every game in a qualifying group system like this should be shot). You've also then got a huge amount of bias thrown in before a player even steps onto the pitch. As a final example look at how this nonsense of how Lampard and Gerrard can't possibly play together perpetuates - I mean what a crock of faeces. I'd attach as much value to that theory as I would to some fairy tale in the bible. Humans are so bloody gullible.

 

[aussie]

Cutting in a lot is not good, there are times where it's fine to cut in - making a habit of it is bad for the team. A concept which unfortunately goes over your head with you and several others' Joe Cole worship.

Thats what i'm saying, Beckham is the only winger that provides quality crosses consistently. Others like Cole, Lennon just have skill & pace thats why i'm saying they shouldn't be a big stress on getting quality wingers in the national side if most of them either do part, have question marks over their ability on the international stage or are just poor.

I also don't see why you'd look at Spain and Italy for attacking inspiration.

As i said above we shouldn't be stressing on getting wingers, i mean spain & Italy (especially) to show teams who have good wingers but don't really stress on it, they work on the quality of passes coming through the centre of the park & thats what England should be doing since we have the players who can do that.