http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/10/uefa-internationals-nations-league-friendlies Uefa is considering a radical overhaul of international football that would see national teams playing a new Nations League competition. The idea, floated at executive committee meetings that preceded a Uefa meeting in Dubrovnik last month, would see Uefa using existing dates for friendlies in the international calendar to launch a new league involving all 54 member nations. England surprisingly would be in the top division. Well at least to begin with.
England would do well in a league format, as we ould beat all the 'lesser' nations and probably get the odd draw at the big teams.
Good idea! But it is a bit stupid if you look at the actual FIFA ranking. I get why they put England in the First Division, they should be in the Second tho.
The FIFA ratings are flawed anyway. Yes England aren't as good as 6th/7th/8th or whatever we was. But we are definitely better than some of the teams that are higher than us.
Well they've recently won the 2nd most important competition they can play in. We've reached 2 semi finals in nearly 50 years.....
You say recently, but it was 9 years ago. A lot changes in 9 years. look at Spain. That makes them better than a lot of nations above them then. There is no way that Greece are better than England.
How the groups might look First division Spain, Germany, Holland, Italy, England, Portugal I can see England going down out of that division. One thing against this is that the Euro tournament would seem less important. The winner of the European division 1 could rightly claim they'd already proven who was the best team in Europe.
You could see any of those teams bar Spain and Germany dropping down in that division. Portugal aren't that great and Netherlands are a side who are very hit and miss when the chips are down. Italy are unpredictable. England struggle at Cup football. That's our problem as it means you are out with just one loss and we crumble under pressure. We would be much better in a league format as there is more than one opportunity and less pressure, so to speak.
That doesn't mean they are a better team. Are you seriously suggesting that back in 2004 Greece were the best team in Europe?
Yes, are you seriously suggesting they weren't? If so, who were the best and on what criteria do you base this? That's the whole point of competitions, they decide the best performer. I'll throw it back at you - if they don't do that then why do we have any competitions?
No they ****ing weren't the best. Nowhere near. You have heard of something called luck, haven't you? The best team in Europe back then was France, who were World Number 2 at the time. Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, Netherlands among many others were much better teams. At Euro 2004, they were dominated in nearly every game and had the luck of the draw in terms of what chances went in and what didn't. They didn't deserve to win it, but they did. Fair play to them. But they were not the best team. They only had 3 players in the 23-man team of the tournament - a record low for a winning side (In comparison, France had 7 players in it in 2000 and Spain had 9 in 2008 and 10 in 2012). There is a difference between best 'performer' and best 'team'. You must be the only person in the world who thinks Greece were the best team in 2004. Even Greeks would disagree with you.
We've had this discussion before, it's quite a confusing one as BCC has to believe that Chelsea were the best team in Europe in 2012 but the 6th best team in England.
I don't understand any of this post. I really don't. So what are you basing it on when you say those teams were better? You do understand the aim of football is to score more goals than the opposition and not play the nicest patterns or have the most famous players in your team? And are you seriously suggesting a team can be that lucky in every game? How many times have you heard sportspeople say "there's no such thing as luck" or "you make your own luck"? I'll ask again - why do we have completions in ANY sport?
