Off Topic International Break Thread

Mateus Mane is on Forest's books and qualifies to play for England and Portugal.
He's been called up for the U18s. Which country? Both!

 

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Fixtures:
England: Home to Greece on Thursday 7.45pm, then away to Finland on Sunday 5pm.
Scotland: Away to Croatia on Saturday at 5pm, then home to Portugal on Tuesday 7.45pm.
Wales: Away to Iceland on Friday 7.45pm, then home to Montenegro on Monday at 7.45pm.
Northern Ireland: Away to Belarus on Saturday at 7.45pm, then at home to Bulgaria on Tuesday at 7.45pm.
Republic of Ireland: Away to Finland on Thursday at 7.45pm, then away to Greece on Sunday at 7.45pm.

All fixtures are Nations League Qualifiers.

 

Best time of the season for ten Hag though.

 

And by dressing up friendlies as Nations League games, they’ve introduced even more internationals into the calendar.
Football is not like most other sports; elite club level is a higher standard by and large than the international game. That’s because the top clubs are awash with money and can pack their squads with the best international players. Consequently, outside of the business end of major international tournaments, club games have more appeal than most international games. Many countries don’t put out full strength teams anyway due to unavailability of players for various reasons.
Overkill doesn’t help either. These games are not special.
Top level players would play 80+ games every season in the played every game. That’s not sustainable.
International football would be more appealing if it had an allocated time frame (certain summer months after the club season, which would be shorter if it wasn’t prolonged by international breaks) and the games had greater significance and importance.

 

It’s not sustainable and the quality will suffer.

Yes players are paid an obscene amount of money but they’re still human and can only perform at a high level so many times a season.

Something will have to give soon as this many matches is bad for the game.

 

Tino Livramento and Curtis Jones were added to the squad earlier today.
They replace Morgan Gibbs-White, Ezri Konza and Kobbie Mainoo, who pulled out a couple of days ago.

I can understand Jones, as he's basically a straight replacement for Mainoo.
Livramento, though? Good talent, but Alexander-Arnold, Walker and Lewis are already in the squad.
Do England have some sort of ban on left-backs that I missed or something?

 

There was one of those odd discussions on TalkShite yesterday, this one about what the easiest position to play in a football team.

The answer, as shown by England for years is obvious. The answer must be left wing, because time and again it is shown that you don't need to be a left winger to play there. In fact, any good player who duplicates another position in the team can displace someone whose natural position is on the left wing. It certainly doesn't encourage people to specialise in playing left wing if they have England aspirations!

This was said before the Euros, and goodness knows how many times before, that how can you fit X and X (who both play X) in the same team? No problem, just put one of them on the left. It's Foden and Bellingham, but in the future it will be some other players we haven't even heard of yet. England managers just don't take the big decisions and put one of the "big" players on the bench. The fallout from the media and fans would be too great. Doesn't matter what makes the best team. Now the manager has to play Foden, Bellingham and Palmer. There's even talk of not playing a centre forward to do that.

 

Kane's out, so it might be fairly sensible to try Palmer up front for some of it.
He could even go full Angeball and play Foden and Bellingham in the 8 roles. I doubt he will, though.

 

Pundits talking about how to fit Foden and Trent into this England team and how the manager has to find a way to get them in.

Imo you don’t, you pick your best side even if it means leaving quality players on the bench.

 

Pickford!
Lucky man, to not concede through either of two mistakes - the first almost comical.

 

I wonder how other international managers look at these things?
England coach: "How do I get the best out of Gerrard, Lampard and Scholes?"
Opponent: "How do I get the best out of Butcher, Baker and Candlestick Maker?"

 

Watching England like watching Spurs, lots of the ball created very little and the full backs out of position leaving gaps at the back

 

Dire first half. Lucky to be level.

Bring back Garuff

 

That's the problem with Carsley's team selection. Lots of good players, but missing important roles.
No striker, no midfield playmaker and a utility player at left-back.
It's as close to a friendly as these games get though, so he should be allowed to experiment, in my opinion.
It's quite brave really, given his current position.

I suspect he'll want to change things up fairly early on after the break to get a result.

 

Rice is having a terrible game

 

Erling Haaland is now Norway's all-time leading goalscorer. He's 24.

 

Solanke on for England.

England only had 1 shot on target in 72 mins.

 

Trop Parrott replaces Evan Ferguson for Ireland with the score at 1-1 in Finland.
Ireland definitely in the ascendancy in the 2nd half, so let's see if he can do something.