Ok, inlight of England's U21s demise in the latest tournament failure by an England team lacking in creativity and true technical ability, can we name some of the great players over the years this country has wasted..... we'll start with these: Matthew Le Tissier (anyone heard of him) Stanley Bowles Glen Hoddle (I know he played 53 (?) times for England, but they were spread out and he should have played 120 times for England. Anyone for anymore?
Rumour has it that Terry Paine didn't get a fair crack of the whip, but that was before my time really. Perhaps Beddy or one of the Senior members can offer an opinion?
can't have Jimmy Case in that list. Great player, but not the same type of creative flair player as the others listed IMO Rodney Marsh
Steve Bruce???? I'm not looking for good players, but technically gifted creative maestros. Steve Bruce ain't that
There are those that said that when he was at his best.......Terry's biggest mistake, believe it or believe it not was loyalty. He had been in the England squad quite a lot but had not got many caps. Also it was the period when Sir Alf was experimenting with Formations. (A lot of people do not realise that Sir Alf was the first to play what we now know as 442 in the 1966 world cup) Terry was an out an out winger and really didn't fit to well into the 442 formation as he didn't get up and down the field too well. (Rather like Le Tiss) When we were relegated back to Division two he stayed although he had a chance to move on. He was still included in the squad for a while but I do not remember him actually getting any more games. By the time we got back into div 1 he was past his best. So to be fair he was at his best at the wrong time. He was brought into the squad to give England an alternative way of playing. The old 5-3-2 was rarely used after the world cup of 66 so his chances were reduced drastically.
Fair comment letiss just a personal favourite player of mine i just felt compelled to point that he was overlooked by his country seems crazy to me given his achievments at club level with Liverpool
No, the formation was first used By Alf Ramsey world cup 1966. It kinda didn't have a name back then. It was invented to counter our lack of technical ability in the mid field department by giving us what seemed like an extra player there. It is not easy to explain. The Brazilians used the formation after the world cup although they tended to use a sweeper system to get the extra man in midfield, in other words 244. It is true they were the ones that started experimenting with various options after that date as did the Italians. The British tended to go for a more attacking option namely the 433, although to be fair we were not very good at it. Again none of these idea's had a name in those days'.
Rodney upset Sir Alf early on. Marsh tells the story that during one of his first games for England Sir Alf said to him in the dressing room before the game "any of that fancy stuff Mr Marsh and I'll pull you off at half time".To which Marsh replied "that's great boss, at Man City we only get an orange".
Just to reaffirm what Beddytare said about both Paine and the 4-4-2. Paine was in the World Cup Squad, but not really considered a first team player because of the 4-4-2 formation deployed by Ramsey. As for Brazil inventing 4-4-2; I never understood where that came from because the was alot written at the time about Ramsey's tinkering with 'proper' formations; it seems a recent thing that Brazil invented 4-4-2 - a little like China and not us inventing football. Sounds daft; but I get the impression that some people are not comfortable giving credit to the English anymore. Next we will be told the Aztec's invented Cricket!
Two talented English players that gained more caps than they actually deserved based on performances for England....... John Barnes and Darren (sicknote) Anderton.
