I don't mind them, heck i couldn't hear the band that follows England so i was happy. They play the same fucking tune constantly!
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I don't mind them, heck i couldn't hear the band that follows England so i was happy. They play the same fucking tune constantly!
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Lor
do de dooooo, do de dooooo, do de dooo do de dooo deee dummmm
Woo :) And now the English aren't the only ones who gave away a goal :D
Agreed about killing the atmosphere, without hearing the ooohs and aaahs and silences of the crowd, it's just less exciting to watch! I wouldn't mind the things but they are so monotone... Earthjoker's picture sums it up very well.
2 - 0, nice. :)
Will watch the highlights tonight with interest, but the Beeb summed this up with; But in truth, the ninth game of the tournament followed many of its predecessors as both teams struggled for any sort of fluency and neither could find any real attacking momentum in the Johannesburg sunshine..
Not convincing then ...
I think it's extremely funny that way England seems to consistently under-perform in international tournaments and no one ever seems to stop and wonder "why", but instead just carries on the same irregardless and hope that it'll be different this time. I mean, obviously if they keep under-performing compared to the talent pool available then there's something wrong with the way the teams are being coached/prepared. But no, no, just carry on doing the same old stuff, I'm sure it'll come together one day. Football is truly the sport of ignorant, blokish cretins.
Except that the coaching/preparation has frequently changed. I don't think that Capello is a duplicate copy of Sven
The coach has changed, but has the methodology? I suspect, but obviously cannot prove, that they're pretty much ignoring sports psychology. I don't know much about football, but talented sportsmen or women who consistently fail to produce 'it' in major competitions is a classic sign of it being a mental rather than a physical/talent issue. Badly handled nerves can really fuck you up, and the pressure on these guys must be absolutely immense. The laddish drink drink rar rar I'm a tough guy culture that prevails in football land is hardly conductive to dealing with those issues sensibly.
Don't know a damn thing about FIFA, but someone made an on the air musing during the USA game that England had far better players, but the team unity wasn't there. Am I right to think all the England players come from clubs they spend far more time playing and practicing with?
Oh yes. The premiership is far more important to football, as an industry, than the World or European cups. All the money is in the premiership, so the clubs don't like losing their players to go and practice with England.
This is because football in this country is really a business, not a sport.
Could it be that English players are just overrated? :noob: It's not like there are a lot of them playing outside the British Isles...Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
The premiership is probably one of the biggest leagues in the world (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone), I don't think you get on one of those teams by being mediocre.
And what portion of the elite players there are English?Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Not convincing until the very end. Might be because the Danes had a rather tight defense that was never really penetrated by the dutch attackers. In the last ten minutes or so it became more interesting :) I just saw the stats though, ball possession: 63%-37% in favour of the Dutch.. that's quite a difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
Uh, well, all the ones in the team are Premiership players, so obviously earned their position competing against the best players from abroad who wanted to play on an English team.Quote:
And what portion of the elite players there are English?
That said, I wouldn't rule out complacency as a factor. There always seems to be some kind of unwritten assumption every time there's a world cup that we should do well by default because we're England and we invented the game. I think our players are better than their usual performance suggests, but not necessarily as good as we think we are - or we just don't give other teams enough credit.
Which doesn't change the fact that a large portion of the top players there are not English. Just looked at team of the year for 09-10 (3 Englishmen out of 11):Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Goalkeeper: 100% English
Defense: 0% English
Midfield: 25% English
Attack: 50% English
Same thing for 08-09 (4 Englishmen out of 11):
Goalkeeper: 0% English
Defense: 50% English
Midfield: 50% English
Attack: 0% English
So you can hardly attribute the quality of the Premiership to English players.
No, you've got my argument the wrong way round: I'm attributing the quality of English players to the fact that they've earned their place in the premiership, not saying the premiership is a high quality league because it's English.
They've earned their place because it's too expensive to bring in mediocre talent from other countries. All that proves is that English talent doesn't get demolished by foreigners. It doesn't mean it actually is better. So let's see: the top players in Spain are Spanish (and South American), the top players in Italy are Italian, the top players in France are French, and the top players in England are English, Spanish, Italian, French, and South American...Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
You really think the Premiership is the only league in the work which imports foreign talent?
A high amount of foregin talent speaks more to the prestige of the league, rather than any deficiency in the English players.
It relies on foreign talent far more than the other major leagues. For a comparison, 4/5 of the teams in the NHL are in the US, but that doesn't mean that American talent is particularly good. In fact, it's probably 4th or 5th best in the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Loki, are you just arguing for the sake of being difficult? And did you just claim American hockey talent is only 4th or 5th in the world? Isn't there a test for that? Oh yes. It's called the winter Olympics, where each country brings its best. Now, who was 2nd there?
You need an English Phil Jackson. The guy has made a hall of fame coaching career by handing head cases.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Yeah, but the Dutch are the ultimate possession team, so that stat says nothing (in fact, it seems a little low to me). Now can they move he ball somewhere while maintaining the possession? That always seems to be the Dutch problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Are you serious? You're going to be basing which country has the best talent on one competition? :bored:Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...Olympic_record
And you can just look at how well the top players from each country play in the NHL. It's pretty damn clear that Canada, Sweden, Russia, and possibly the Czechs have superior talent.
Pfft. Loki is just being silly. Obviously a league which can with a relatively straight face consider itself one of the biggest, best and wealthiest in the world is going to attract significant numbers of the worlds greatest players. Since only the better foreign players will be transferred (why bring a poor german player when you can just have a poor english one. Actually, never mind that.) the "team of the season" etc is of course going to contain a disproportionate number of foreign players.
By that same metric, you have just "proved" that countries other than the US are best at basketball. Or, y'know, only really top international players are worth the hassle and cost of buying away from foreign leagues to bring them to the US. Edit: And, on the flip side, only foreign players with excellent prospects deem it worth moving halfway around the world to play. The mid or low level prospects aren't worth it from either side.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
PS The US and Canada hockey teams pretty much kicked the shit out of everybody else at the Olympics. And yes, I'm going to say that a direct competition is a helluva lot better than your pin-headed numbers games. But ain't that just a political scientist for ya?
That doesn't change the fact that most of the top players in the Premiership aren't English. So you can't claim that just because the Premiership is an excellent league, England has the best (or anything near it) players. The reality is that if you look at the top players in the world, far more of them come from Argentina, Brazil, and Spain than from England. There's a reason why those three countries consistently do well in international tournaments.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spawnie
I'll just drop it, since you clearly have no clue about hockey and are being your usual trollish self.Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
Okay, so, to summarise, the Premiership is mostly a competition between highly-talented non-English players?
And a country with many players in the Premiership would be expected to perform better than England does??
The Premiership is a competition between highly-talented players from the entire world, including England. Meanwhile, most of the elite players in the other major leagues are from the same country as the league. If English players were so great, why aren't they being signed by rich clubs in Spain and Italy?Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Because they have a superior league that is conviently right at home?
I'm glad to see Loki coming around to my way of thinking: categorizing people as either "English" or "foreign". :up:
The league might be marginally better, but the players might want to have more success in Europe or simply to get higher wages. Are you honestly telling me that all English players prefer playing in England? Why don't AC Milan, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, and Barcelona have a single English starter?Quote:
Originally Posted by Crowheart
Eh? The whole discussion is about the quality of English players...As I said, English players have only shown their ability to succeed in England, and even then, they usually fare poorly against the foreigners in the Premiership.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Yes, and I think we'd all concede that if you had to pick single team to represent Earth at the Galactic Cup, there would be more people in it from Foreign than from England, possibly only one or two Englishmen, which speaks volumns about how the entire rest of the world produces more top quality footballers than England does, a fact which of course brings deep shame to all Englishmen.
Happily, we don't have to play the Foreign team, as the quaint and amusing foreigners have divided themselves into over 180 of what they call 'countries'.
Actually, yes, I would think that not only all English players, but most players in the world would prefer to play in England, specifically in the Premier League.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Which would back up why those very good clubs you name don't have English starters...if they are good enough to start for those teams, then they are probably good enough to play in the Premier League at home.
It seems clear which way they are choosing, because there are many excellent English players that could start for any of those clubs.
Oh. Was that your point? That argentina, brazil and spain have better football players than england? Impressive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Also, youre right, the rest of the world combined can field a better team than england. Well done.
Of course, these things arent temporary and transitory. And a significant part of the england team wouldnt be snapped up by any of the other "best" teams in the world. Oh wait, the current team has less "great" players than were considered great 4 years ago, but even now, any team in the world would take rooney, gerrard, lampard, cole, terry, ferdinand and barry, and most would take the rest (example the first being an old, out of shape beckham still playing for A.C Milan, and playing better than most of their regular team in this years champs league against Man U).
But yeah, England does only produce shit players and really, we might as well give up now. Never mind the thing you love best: free markets. In good countries, it is more worthwhile to get a degree than to pursue sport. In shit ones like spain, brazil and argentina, there is a solid chance that, should you be even moderately successful, you can make umpteen times what you would at a normal job by playing football, therefore more people do.
I believe there is an analogy between the US and the Dominican Republic in baseball. Is there some kid of unlikely racial bias that only favours (or punishes, in your theory) people from a certain island, or is it that economic factors lead more people to commit and follow with their entire hearts a path in poorer countries than in richer ones?
LOKI YOU HAVE GOT MY ARGUING ABOUT GODDAMN FOOTBALL
I WILL KILL YOU
Totally agreed. Tonight Brazil's game without the usual feverish Brazil drums. No England fans chanting. No music from the argentinians. Just one constant BWaaaaaaahhhhH!Quote:
Originally Posted by earthJoker
Dutch tv turned down the sound from the match because viewers complained. So, now there's just a soft drone in the background. :(
The Swiss channel had to do the same, the Germans did it first, so people switched over to German channels. I watch all but the German games on the German TV anyway.
BTW this 'culture' is only ~7 years old in SA.
I've been watching some of todays Kiwi v Slovakia match. Dear god, the Kiwi's are bad :haha: .... headless chickens spring to mind.
Also, whats with the political/free market bollocks starting to appear in this thread?
It's ruining the vibe! :sour:
Its Lokis fault
He started it.
I forgot how blindly nationalistic you Brits get about this kind of thing. :bored:
Pfff. Nationalistic my hairy arse.
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