I'm not really all that interested in the games that'll be taking place over the next week or so, but I thought I'd create somewhere to put any debate about it, so it didn't leak onto other threads. Looks like there's not going to be anyone left for Hodgson to pick at this rate. Half the Man Utd squad have pulled out of various squads, including Carrick and Welbeck, and now Gerrard and Walker are out. It's probably a good thing, though. No pressure for a win, he won't be forced to pick all of the senior players to please the sponsors and he can experiment with the tactics and the lineup. Give the likes of Baines, Foster, the Southampton players and Man Utd's remaining reserves a run out and see what they can do.
The only reason i'm interested in these games is that i am broke so i will be in watching them at home on my own, hopefully napping at the same time.
Gerrard, Walker and Wilshere all miss the Chile game, but will be back for the Germany game. Convenient how these injuries will all have cleared up after the weekend, isn't it?
Yet another irritating distraction to the PL is how I see it. Just when it was getting interesting RvP pulled out of the Holland squad too. Good. Does anyone want to see their best players run into the ground for the sake of international friendlies? Thought not. I know there are play-off games, but it's still very tedious. Isn't there a better way of doing internationals? Too many qualification games, too many friendlies, too many games at the tournaments; it's ridiculous. Players reach 100 caps by playing little more than half the games they were eligible for over their careers! And by coming on as sub for 10 minutes in many games. If England end of picking players who wouldn't have made a second squad of 20-25 players had everyone been available, who benefits from that?
In news that will surprise absolutely nobody anywhere, Uruguay have taken a 5-0 lead against Jordan in the away leg of their World Cup play-off. Perhaps the only unexpected part of that result was that Suarez didn't get on the score sheet. Pereira, Stuani, Lodeiro, Rodriguez and Cavani all did, though.
The way i see it,let the teams that have to play -off do that,without making all the other countries play meaningless friendlys,where half the squad's players pull out anyway
The penny has finally dropped! but come on, Keane improve his man management, the guy is a psycho! easy to talk about changing but unless he has his balls removed I doubt we will see him mellow.
The Mother Theresa part was a joke at his own expense as that was what he called Niall Quinn at the time of the Saipan episode ,He also made jokes about the training facilities so maybe he is mellowing a small bit (a very small bit !!)
All smiles and jokes until business starts! something isn't right about this o'neil and keane link up, all seems too positive and "nice", won't last!
Google "Gift grub martin o neill" its a daily radio sketch in Ireland think it has their relationship spot on !!
Chile are a dark horse Thor, they've been very good with some very good technical play, you wouldn't want to play them in a meaningful game. They've only lost one game in the last dozen in 2013, having beaten Uruguay, and drawn with Brazil and Spain in that spell, it'll be a good test. Barcelona's in form striker Alexis Sanchez is Chilean. Portugal v Sweden is probably worth a watch, or should I say Ronaldo v Ibrahimovich.
I think the time has come for international football in Europe to have a pre qualifying tournament to remove the requirement for so many pointless matches with a subsequent re-jigging of the international calendar. I think Europe gets 14 places at the World Cup, so ideally we want 7 groups with 2 countries qualifying from each. I also think that 8 matches are enough for the teams to play in qualifying so that requires 5 teams per group. There are currently approx 63 teams involved in world cup qualifying in Europe, so my suggestion would be that the 24 teams who qualify for the European Championships (I think it is being increased to 24 nations for the next tournament) would automatically go into the draw for World Cup qualifying, plus the 4 highest ranked teams in FIFAs rankings that don’t qualify for the Euros and that gives us 4 teams for each group. The remaining 35 teams are then split into 7 groups of 5 and play a mini tournament over the summer (whilst the Euros are on perhaps) and the 5 group winners from this also go into the draw, resulting in meaningful groups of 5 and hopefully 20 competitive matches in each group. So if we were looking at 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign this would start in the Autumn of 2016, I would suggest 4 sets of two matches, played in Oct 2016, then in May 2017, June 2017 (rather than a tour), September and finally Nov 2017. That would allow for 2 friendlies to be added when the group games in our group didn’t include a fixture for us and one other friendly could also be scheduled in March 2017, to be played in midweek (Wednesday) with no need for cancellation of league fixtures. With further friendlies as preparation if we qualify once the season has finished.
Hodgson wasn't impressed by Harts latest plan to recover form then... please log in to view this image
Probably to learn how to deal with Suarez. Back in March when they played Uruguay there was some classic tackling. Two Chilean players went flying into him from different sides with all studs showing. One caught him just above the ankle and the other just below the knee. He didn't need to dive, he went down and stayed down motionless in agony. A pleasure to watch.
