England squad to face Brazil

[Radovan's Caravan]

Their backline looked very much like first XI starters to me, and Nilmar & Fabiano have very strong cases too. Hardly Z listers...

Brazil's defenders are always Z listers

Fabs will be a benchman in 2010

Denmark will bugger the Ingermongs

[Finnegan]

Eh, end of the day who knows what'll happen at a major tournament? Every form book, every journo's "expertise", every book maker's predictions they all go out of the window. Who the fook saw Greece becoming European champions, South Korea storming to the semis or Russia's impact on the latest Euros.

England may not have a squad to match the Spanish or the Brazillians on paper but anything can happen in a funny old game. Fabio's made England tougher, more resolute, more clinical and they've definitely got a squad capable of beating anyone if fortune swings their way.

They're not the best team in the world, they won't be favourites to win in South Africa and I personally doubt they will. But that doesn't mean they can't or that it's feutile for any English fan to dream because by the time the balls start flying in the summer then, frankly, anything could happen and while I hope they're on the first flight home to fuel my chip-on-the-shoulder amusement; I back them to go a sight further than the Serbs.

You* might be steadily improving as a nation but you're* still making progress.

End of the day, though, who gives a fuck? We shafted the Scots. Aaron Ramsey for World Cup winner 2018.

(*I'm well aware you're likely about as Serbian as Snoop Dogg)

[Edmund]

Eh, end of the day who knows what'll happen at a major tournament? Every form book, every journo's "expertise", every book maker's predictions they all go out of the window. Who the fook saw Greece becoming European champions, South Korea storming to the semis or Russia's impact on the latest Euros.

I would still bet my mortgage against New Zealand in every match.

[Finnegan]

I would still bet my mortgage against New Zealand in every match.

Eh, but that's the thing. Radovan goes on like England have about the same chance as New Zealand which is ultimately just spurious.

Bottom line is any one of the top nations could beat the others just as any team in the Premiership could beat another. Odds may not be favourable but that doesn't mean you write them off completely.

Anything can happen in a one off game. Especially with a side as talented as England's.

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

Finners. Thanks for an unbiased view from someone not English.

[Finnegan]

Finners. Thanks for an unbiased view from someone not English.

YEAH!

[Radovan's Caravan]

Eh, but that's the thing. Radovan goes on like England have about the same chance as New Zealand which is ultimately just spurious.

Bottom line is any one of the top nations could beat the others just as any team in the Premiership could beat another. Odds may not be favourable but that doesn't mean you write them off completely.

Anything can happen in a one off game. Especially with a side as talented as England's.

Problem is the World Cup isn't ONE game - it's a SEVEN game tournament. Worse still, more than half of these are KNOCK OUT fixtures with EXTRA TIME & PENALTIES - a triple whammy for England's nightspot brawling, bimbo roasting, binge drinking buffoons. Cold it might be - unfortunately those Antarctic blasts will be less of an advantage at altitude (so if they do a slow mo of Gerard's ample arse crossing the half way line it'll look like a freeze frame).

England is a team that is considerably less than the sum of its parts. Many of its 'talents' are in fact over-rated - playing as they do for clubs that are successful largely because of their foreign stars - midgets standing on the shoulders of giants. This so called 'golden generation' is no such thing. In fact it's considerable less gifted than your 1990 crew (Gascoigne, Waddle, Barnes, Beardsley & co) so incompetently managed by the late and not so great Sir Bobby Robson.

Serbia may not win the World Cup but we will play the same one touch/first time passing game that all the real pedigree teams play. The sort of football England can't and won't play. The sort of football your ****wit pundits can't see. The sort of football the Ingermong hordes just simply don't get (proof of that is that nobody else on this forum ever discusses this subject)

The correct analogy to draw between England and the Premier League would be to compare them say to a side like Aston Villa (and boy that's being generous). Only when the prevailing order is swept away in some biblical flood would they ever have a prayer of landing the title. The only way England could win in South Africa would be by deploying underhand methods off the pitch if you get my meaning.

Like those used (by others) in '34 '54 '78 '98 '02 and possibly one or two other tournaments (NOT '66 - just to show how fair minded I am).

[Finnegan]

Eh, all I'm saying is that for all your ranting and spleen busting - England have a fair chance of going far and it doesn't matter whether they play ugly or pretty, if it's effective it works.

Capello's a harder task master than a majority of England's recent managers, if not all of them, and probably has the character to get more from this lot than anyone else that's had the job in the last ten or fifteen years can.

As I said, I'll be the first one to giggle if England go down in flames - that's banter and if this lot can't hack a ribbing if it all goes tits up then that's their problem - but there's a difference between banter, between rivalry, between enjoying watching a team lose and just being in blinding denial. I've been the first, in the past, to brand England as overrated (and I dare say they still are by their own media and probably always will be, short of major failure) but your brand of blinkered Anglophobia isn't unbiased perspective it's flat-out bile and it's often spurious.

[lcfc_jme]

Hope England go out in the group stages.

[Finnegan]

Hope England go out in the group stages.

[lcfc_jme]

P.S. Chandler is STILL a boring ****.

[lcfc_jme]

What? I don't buy all this "I'm supposed to care for the National side" bullsh*t. I'd love to see them fail. If that makes me German, then so be it.

[Finnegan]

What? I don't buy all this "I'm supposed to care for the National side" bullsh*t. I'd love to see them fail. If that makes me German, then so be it.

Eeeh.. whatever.

Can't imagine not wanting my national side to do well, you're all spoilt you English. I'd be doing backflips if we ever qualified for something and some of you are desperate to see your own team fail!

[lcfc_jme]

Eeeh.. whatever.

Can't imagine not wanting my national side to do well, you're all spoilt you English. I'd be doing backflips if we ever qualified for something and some of you are desperate to see your own team fail!

Whatevs, Finners. I don't regard myself as English but whatevs. Backflips my arse, most of the English National side would rather play for their club side and don't care about the National jersey.. As for seeing them fail, oh well. The immense over-hyping and endless drivel from journalists and arm-chair pundits alike makes me sick to the back teeth of an average footballing side playing mediocre football.

Like I said, whatevs. If I'm "unpatriotic" or a traitor or what, I don't care. I'm not, and will never be, an England fan. Under ANY circumstance.

[Finnegan]

I don't consider you a traitor or unpatriotic, I'm not sitting here judging you - especially if you don't consider yourself English, fair enough.

I just enjoy following my national side would find it a little sad if others couldn't do the same. Then again, I do find the English team somewhat soulless so maybe my opinion would be different were I born on the wrong side of the border.

[lildave3]

This game was about as important as anything Maddog has to say.

[Edmund]

Eh

Eh

Eh

Eeeh..

[lcfc_jme]

I don't consider you a traitor or unpatriotic, I'm not sitting here judging you - especially if you don't consider yourself English, fair enough.

I just enjoy following my national side would find it a little sad if others couldn't do the same. Then again, I do find the English team somewhat soulless so maybe my opinion would be different were I born on the wrong side of the border.

I would suggest that's the key-point, to be honest. I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon when the WC comes around, even if England romp their group and destroy all in their wake (highly unlikely but people will dream )

I would suggest you're lucky in some respects that your National side is Wales seeing as you don't have to put up with the immense over-hype of an eternally underachieveing side and when results come around like this afternoon's you all enjoy and milk them for what you can get!

Nobody will ever fully understand my position and I get that, but I'm comfortable with what I feel and my reasoning, and I know that won't change regardless.

[Finnegan]

Eh?

[Radovan's Caravan]

Eh, all I'm saying is that for all your ranting and spleen busting - England have a fair chance of going far and it doesn't matter whether they play ugly or pretty, if it's effective it works.

Capello's a harder task master than a majority of England's recent managers, if not all of them, and probably has the character to get more from this lot than anyone else that's had the job in the last ten or fifteen years can.

As I said, I'll be the first one to giggle if England go down in flames - that's banter and if this lot can't hack a ribbing if it all goes tits up then that's their problem - but there's a difference between banter, between rivalry, between enjoying watching a team lose and just being in blinding denial. I've been the first, in the past, to brand England as overrated (and I dare say they still are by their own media and probably always will be, short of major failure) but your brand of blinkered Anglophobia isn't unbiased perspective it's flat-out bile and it's often spurious.

So the Rafa FACT that England use the long speculative punt more than any other team, the FACT that they can't pass first time, the FACT they have only ever won ONE penalty shoot out of SIX (and don't realise it's their keepers that lose them -not the takers) the FACT that their idiotic high defensive lines get caught out time and time again is 'flat out bile' is it?

These deficiencies plus a number of others (indiscipline and low fitness levels amongst them) have all been cited by sports scientists as reasons why England do so poorly in major tournaments. So, hoofball isn't effective and trundling around in possession doesn't work (your statement 'if it's effective it works' is a tautology - you're either too pissed to think logically or you're just as irrational sober as the disabled majority here).

Out of the seven WC winning nations England's record is the poorest. And only their HOME victory in a short tournament prevents them being ranked lower in the international record than countries like Holland, Hungary, former Czechoslovakia, former Yugoslavia, Spain, Russia and even Greece. And the reason why they are so abysmal is because they can't learn and they can't adapt.

This means that countries with scant resources and small populations (like Serbia) who play the correct way can ride a favourable demographic wave every decade or so and embarrass England. And, conversely, because England play the wrong way even with its enormous resources (more than any other footballing nation on earth) and its relatively large population it cannot take advantage when the right individuals come along.

And that Finners isn't flat out bile - it's a scientific Benitez FACT.

[BoneDog]

I laughed at the Eeeeh aswell after the eh's and read it in Partridges squeak style Eeeeh (think it was when Lyn spilt Sunny Delight on hisBond vids)

[Webbo]

Nobody will ever fully understand my position and I get that, but I'm comfortable with what I feel and my reasoning, and I know that won't change regardless.

I get your position perfectly. It's a bit like being born in Leicester and supporting Man U.

[BlueSi13]

So the Rafa FACT that England use the long speculative punt more than any other team, the FACT that they can't pass first time, the FACT they have only ever won ONE penalty shoot out of SIX (and don't realise it's their keepers that lose them -not the takers) the FACT that their idiotic high defensive lines get caught out time and time again is 'flat out bile' is it?

These deficiencies plus a number of others (indiscipline and low fitness levels amongst them) have all been cited by sports scientists as reasons why England do so poorly in major tournaments. So, hoofball isn't effective and trundling around in possession doesn't work (your statement 'if it's effective it works' is a tautology - you're either too pissed to think logically or you're just as irrational sober as the disabled majority here).

Out of the seven WC winning nations England's record is the poorest. And only their HOME victory in a short tournament prevents them being ranked lower in the international record than countries like Holland, Hungary, former Czechoslovakia, former Yugoslavia, Spain, Russia and even Greece. And the reason why they are so abysmal is because they can't learn and they can't adapt.

This means that countries with scant resources and small populations (like Serbia) who play the correct way can ride a favourable demographic wave every decade or so and embarrass England. And, conversely, because England play the wrong way even with its enormous resources (more than any other footballing nation on earth) and its relatively large population it cannot take advantage when the right individuals come along.

And that Finners isn't flat out bile - it's a scientific Benitez FACT.

Oh here he is the worthless serb arsehole is back fresh after getting a hard on after our patch work quilt of a second string lost in a friendly to the clear favourites for the World Cup, truly laughable

A really don't know what your trying to achieve mate but is clearly isn't working, do expect us to all agree with your ignorant bile and not laugh at it instead? Do you all expect us put down tools and go support somebody else who have won more World Cups then us, don't think so pal, come back again when we lose. It's a good laugh!

Either way talking to some of my German friends out here last night who watched the game and they honestly believe that this could be the final next year in South Africa, though they loathed to admit it! (btw RC the last time we played Germany we won 2-1 in Berlin, so much for your "fact")

It is wildly optimistic and ill be delighted if we get anywhere past the second round, its just a sign of how far we've come under Capello especially as we are back playing "glamour" friendlies as it was called in Qatar!

PS excellent result for Wales last night, i did enjoy that one and certainly still hope for Ireland

[lcfc_jme]

I get your position perfectly. It's a bit like being born in Leicester and supporting Man U.

Somehow, no.

[BlueSi13]

Somehow, no.

Must suck to hate your own country?