Depends who you call "major". Do you include Portugal and/or Russia? (I have below - and we have beaten Russia.) Do you include Croatia (who we've beaten a few times in those 11 year)? If you discount all the above nations, then that only leaves five matches, against Brazil, France (twice), Germany and Italy... 2002 FIFA World Cup Quarter Final 21 June England 1 – 2 Brazil UEFA Euro 2004 Group B 13 June France 2 – 1 England UEFA Euro 2004 Quarter final 24 June Portugal 2 – 2 (a.e.t.) England (6 – 5 p) 2006 FIFA World Cup Quarter-final 1 July England 0 – 0 (a.e.t.) Portugal (1 – 3 p) UEFA Euro 2008 Qualifying Group E 12 September England 3 – 0 Russia UEFA Euro 2008 Qualifying Group E 17 October Russia 2 – 1 England 2010 FIFA World Cup Round of 16 27 June Germany 4–1 England UEFA Euro 2012 Group D 11 June France 1–1 England UEFA Euro 2012 Quarter final 24 June England 0–0 (aet) Italy (2–4 p)
7/8 (depending in whether you include Russia as a major footballing nation): Brasil 2002 France 2004 Portugal 2004 Portugal 2006 Russia (debatable) 2008 Germany 2010 France 2012 Italy 2012 In addition, we lost every single one other than France (2012) who we drew with.
we beat russia 3-0 in a euros qualifier in 2007 so you can't count them unless you change your original proposition. that leaves 7 games. italy, portugal 2004 & 2006 were drawn matches with defeats on the penalties according to tradition. so that's four draws, two defeats by one goal, and the germany mess. so three defeats in ten years. how does that compare with other countries?
I'd include Portugal & Croatia in there as biggish teams- they've both been to more semi finals in recent years than we have. Portugal got the final in 2004. You have to go back to 1996 for the last we went past the quarter finals.
Brazil haven't had to play qualifiers and they usually play the likes of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile who are pretty good. That'd probably be why they've dropped so low.
we've beaten croatia three times in competive games since 2002 (and been beaten twice) since 2002, so that doesn't help the original proposition.
Fair enough, I saw Russia as dodgy ground but I think it'd be very harsh not to count Portugal. I don't think how we lost matters, fact is we lost. A record of played 7, lost 6, drawn 1. However you look at it, that's ****e. Well, Spain: 2004 Portugal L 2006 France L 2008 Italy W 2008 Germany W 2010 Portugal W 2010 Germany W 2010 Netherlands W 2012 Italy D 2012 France W 2012 Spain W 2012 Italy W 2014 France D 2014 France W Played 13, lost 2, drawn 2, won 9. Italy: 2006 Germany W 2006 France L 2006 France L 2007 France D 2008 Netherlands L 2008 France W 2008 Spain L 2012 Spain D 2012 England W 2012 Germany W 2012 Spain L Played 11, lost 5, drawn 2, won 4. I checked a few others but can't be bothered to type them up, as far as I can see, if you call the major footballing nations; Spain, Germany, Argentina, Portugal, England, Italy, Netherlands, France and Brasil, we're the only one that hasn't beaten one of the others in a competition for over 10 years.
They've played four games this year, they beat Bolivia, but only drew with Russia and Italy and lost to us. They've definitely dropped down due to a lack of games, but this their lowest ranking ever and the Brazians seem to think it's one of their worst teams ever too. They've brought Scolari in to try and sort things out and he's brought back 33 year old Ronaldinho.
To be fair, Ronaldinho isn't the type of player where age should affect his game too much and Frederico Chaves Guedes (AKA Fred) that's just started playing regularly for them at 29 and plays for Fluminese now looks their best striker. Looking at their youngsters coming through (e.g. their Olympic team) I think 2014 will be too soon for them and there'll be immense pressure on them as hosts, I expect Spain to win again.
i would count a defeat on penalties as a draw myself. all but one of the defeats have been as narrow as they can be, so that's no shame. we don't lose often, but it only takes one defeat to go out of a tournament. we can easily lay claim to being one of the best 10 even if we make hard work of it sometimes.
since 2000 (which i ignored as i just wanted to do this century and regard 2000 as the end of last century), england have played 143 internationals with 86 wins, 34 draws (i've included the three pens defeats) and 23 defeats. That's about 60% won, 24% drawn, and 16% lost and for comparison that record over 46 games would have given 94 points.
"half decent" ignores the fact that there are more than 200 other countries playing. when you say "half decemt" you're talking about other teams in the top ten, ie the very best teams, not the half decent ones.
Shame the World Cup isn't played in a league format. City are getting promoted with hardly any wins against the other top sides, England are doing **** all in the cup formats they have to play.
We Yanks at 48 doesn't bother me. I think we can do much better next year but we're not there yet. But friggin' Mexico at 14?? No stinkin' way!
