Agree absolutely about Ashley cole. Couldn't disagree more about Ferdinand. The english press decided he was the new Bobby Moore and went with that constantly. I Remember saying Campbell is the main man and afar better defender. Team of the tournament and Sol was in it. And the bollocks he could step up into midfield didn't happen. As he couldn't do it.
Regarding England's "golden generation" - I really think the lack of success beyond quarter finals was primarily down to bad luck. You have to accept that international football hugely relies on luck because it's all knockout games where you only get a second chance after two years of waiting - and then it can just happen again. In 2002, '04 and '06 we had some horrible luck leading to us getting knocked out despite playing well and really deserving to go further at some point in that spell. It's like Belgium's current "golden generation". They've had a couple of tournaments now and not done much, but it happens. You only have to lose one game and then that's it for another two years. Or Messi who won't really be seen as an international success unless he wins the World Cup. But if he did then that means Ronaldo can't win it. Fact is there just isn't enough of these tournaments for all the great teams and players to win one.
Campbell was terrific in 98. It seems weird that he went into that tournament considered England's weak link. Everyone seemed to know him as 'Dodgy Sol'. But from the first game against Tunisia onwards he was immense. I don't think he ever quite matched that standard, though. He stopped brining the ball out of defence quite so much, and I felt that his mobility deteriorated a bit. With Rio, I remember there being quite a few people amazed at the time that the team of 2002 tournament had Sol in it and not Rio. I had felt until that point that Rio was a bit powder puff, and that he could only really operate as one of three centre-backs. But I've not seen an English centre-back defend as well as Rio did in that tournament (and we played against some excellent attacking teams). I didn't/don't really care about what he might have been able to do in midfield, I just saw him as a terrific centre-back in an age where we had them coming out of our ears (Rio, Terry, Sol, Ledley King, Carragher, even an ageing Martin Keown, with the likes of Dawson as back up).
