I agree, England have been incredibly lucky with their draw, with none of them being real cup contenders. Even Croatia look rickety now and i've always thought they lacked a top striker to make the difference. We won't get a better chance to get to the finals. I wonder if this will be the easiest journey any team has had in world cup history? But we have an outside, but realistic chance of winning the cup.
Makes no difference how easy the route to winning the/a final is, history only remembers the winners and the years. All the major clubs that have won cups, particularly domestic have at some times had an easy route to the final and faced much weaker opposition than themselves in the final. Yes underdogs have pulled off shock results(Wimbledon ) but this time around the World Cup draw for the group and so far in the knockout rounds been kind to England. It's very winnable for England, but France or Belgium will be no walkover in the final, unless of course the underdogs of Croatia pull off a shock on Wednesday.
ah... i dunno. i'm sure if you looked back you'd find some teams have had easier runs. I agree croatia have a good pair of big strikers but they are not top drawer like mbaappe and greizmann or hazard and debruyne and lukaku. the chance is there. plenty of quality in croatia but have they the legs now? I just looked back from memory 1994. sweden group: russia and cameroon ... and brazil last 16. saudi arabia. QF romania (pens) SF brazil (lost
2010 uraguay france implode in group mexico and South africa in group south korea and then ghana in knockouts to get to SF. It seems easier runs can happen
In general they are a failure, a team with the likes of Gerrard, Lampard, Sholes, Beckham, Ferdinand, Cole, Terry, Neville etc fu<ked up. HOWEVER.... The rival teams were also some of the best, France had Zidane, Brazil with Ronaldo and Ronaldinho etc, Italy had a quality squad too and late 00s Spain started to emerge as a quality team. If we had that old squad now, I think we would win it.
