Seriously?! That's brilliant I guess they're adding last season's "treble" to the '66 World Cup in their fictitious honours list.
The World Cup Sun Dream Team 2014 Join the sun dream team and enter this league......... League code..... 8147191 Pass word.... Kai Join Bitches
Boring. Talksport isn't your cup of tea - we get it. Durham is a WUM, and you're jealous of his superior skills - we get it. I don't know why you don't listen to Radio 4, or a 1D CD, if that's more to your liking, and be done with it. They had Ossie on their show yesterday. You must have heard it, as we all know you listen to Talksport from dust til dawn. It was nice to hear from him again, wasn't it? Brad was no there the other day. He always has something interesting to say, wouldn't you agree? Ginola has a regular slot in the mornings. He makes me laugh and he's a likeable chap. Do you find him likeable and funny? You know they phone people back these days, don't you? They aren't a two-bit radio station any more.
They have Micky Quinn, Darren Gough and Stan Collymore as pundits - so it's obviously very intellectual too
I'm loving it. The vast majority of the great unwashed who called-in before the start of the Finals expressed concerns regarding our chances, with a good few - like myself - saying they wouldn't even make it out of the Group Stages. Almost every single so-called "professional" pundit on TalkShite stated the opposite, with some (like Brian Moore, and that complete twat, Mark Saggers) even ripping the piss out of callers for daring to call it like it is. I'd like to think that the likes of Saggers, Moore, Collymore, and Durham will have the balls to apologise for their disgraceful behaviour, especially to those fans who called it correctly and who were mocked for their troubles. Of course, the topic, now, will be more along the lines of a post mortem, with endless discussions about what England must do to improve. None of this will include the obvious recommendation for the immediate sacking of both Greg "what the **** do I know about football, anyway" Dyke and Roy "Jesus! How can anyone be so completely and utterly incompetent!" Hodgson.
The entire FA and England set up is total insanity. Our approach to major tournaments hasn't changed a bit in decades yet we expect different or improved results every time. Sacking Hogdson or Dyke will solve little, if nothing. To make ourselves a force on the world stage takes root and branch changes which frankly, will never happen. Sadly, I have given up on any hope of seeing our country lift a major trophy in my lifetime. It may seem negative to some but I just feel this is a realistic expectation. Euro '96 was the closest we came as it was on home soil. That 4-1 win over Holland will live long in the memory as the greatest England tournament match I have ever witnessed. Since then, it has never been matched. Not even close.
It's easy to forget that the UK is not a one sport nation. Cricket, Rugby, Sailing, Athletics, Golf, Motor Racing, Hockey, Squash, and so on all take our talent sporting wise. Many countries have little diversity with football so dominant all sporting talent ends there. We also do not organise our leagues to suit the national team. We can't expect to dominate in a sport that many nations work in to the exclusion of all else.
Football is the dominant sport in the UK, especially in terms of participation from schools upwards. What we suffer from is: - bad weather, which means heavy, soft pitches - not conducive to playing good football - bad coaching; we still don't look to coach basic core skills repeatedly, but focus on physical attributes - "he's a big lad - he's good in the air, he's quick, he can run all day, he's fearless" etc. Big lads should still be comfortable controlling and passing the ball. - bad attitudes - to winning, which is the priority from schools football, through pub football, minor leagues to the top; football should be played for fun as much as possible and without fear of failure. A by product is poor tactics; instead of doing things which develop skills, we focus on what is needed to win. Often that is seen as getting the ball forward as quickly as possible and pressurising the opposition as much as you can when they have the ball the result is scrappy games where no player has time on the ball and physical strength overcomes skill i.e the English way.
Our lack of qualified coaches is a massive issue, in my opinion. Spain, Italy and Germany each have over ten times as many available to them, so it's hardly a surprise that they're better organised and produce more players of high quality.
I do agree that we have a long history of rejecting our skilled players for our tough ones. Is that still the case? Despite all the foreign players of high skill in the PL as an example is it really still the case? I ask the question because I don't know the answer, but if we still favour brute strength over skill then we need to open our minds to the changes that have taken place in football all over the world.
Youngsters are still picked on physical attributes in a lot of cases, Spurf. Winning games at that level is still seen as being more important than developing players, according to those that I know that work in the game. I think it's turning away from that at some clubs, but being physically capable is a massive advantage to progressing through youth systems at the moment, unfortunately. Very naive, in my opinion.
Britain is always so slow to change from sport to politics, to almost everything, the world moves on and we remain behind expressing disapproval.
