One of the most honest assessments of England's problems

[DMnumber4]

Just throwing it out there but, with just 1 Champions League winner in the last ten years coming from this country (admittedly very few of the players were English), could that suggest that the Premier League isn't as strong as we're led to believe?

For a lot of the 2000's, English sides seemed to habitually dominate the latter stages of European competition and this coincided with 'strong' WC / Euro performance (see 02, 04, 06).

[Copps is Magic]

The peak seemingly came from 2004 to 2009 where there was one English team in each of the finals, and often more than one in the semis. In that period, the premier league really was strong (and featured a decreasing but not insignificant number of English players]

Internationally in that period its hard to see how we put in one 'strong' showing, we lost in the 1/4 final of Euro 2004 to Portugal on penalties (Rooney injured). Again, lost in the 2006 world cup in the 1/4 finals on penalties to Portugal (Rooney sent off). 2008 Euro, didn't qualify after losing to Croatia with a team featuring Lampard, Gerrard and Beckham. In 2010 we got trounced by Germany in the 1/4 final.

Give or take, there was nothing between the Portugal and England sides in that period but we lacked that added something, added coherence and composure - individually players like Rooney were busting a gut to prove themselves and it spilled over. Both midfields (Portugal and England) were comfortably 'world-class' at this time. Croatia had a plucky midfield at this time but certainly not beyond the realms of England's capabilities. Germany were clearly better than England in every department but it came from an almost telepathic coherence between the players.

[Copps is Magic]

Of course public expectations matter. The economics of English football is predicated on it. If we ever faced up to the fact that our cherubs are actually not THAT good, the whole Murdoch-built edifice would come crashing down.

Its quite simple really, in the period from 2004-2009 the premier league WAS the best league in the world and it featured a sufficient number of English players who were broadly in the world class bracket. Whether they were slightly worse or slightly better than Skysports and the sun newspaper told us they were is irrelevant. They under performed against that general standard.

Again, I really don't know what direct relevance public expectation has on how those broadly individual world class players could not perform coherently as a team.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I think we were well matched vs Portugal. I'd have taken their best midfielders (Ronaldo, Figo) over ours, but I think we had better strength in depth. We lost on penalties - it's a lottery. There was very little between the two sides.

Thing is, neither midfield were the best in the world man-for-man. In 2006, the French had the best three midfielders in the world for me, in  Zidane, Viera, Makalele, with superb support from Ribery and Malouda. That was significantly stronger than either England or Portugal's, and Italy's midfield of Camoranesi, Pirlo, Perotta, Gattuso and Totti in the hole was probably better too.

The point I was making is that the comment from Ferdinand about us having "one paper, THE best midfield players in the world" is just silly (but was taken as fact in that interview). By no objective measure have we EVER had THE best midfield players in the world. We've had pretty good sets of players. We've had one or two who, have occasionally (for clubs) looked like they stand comparison with the best. But so has every other nation.
France: Zidane, Viera, Makalele, Ribery,
Germany: Schweinstiger, Kroos, Mueller, Podolski
Spain: Iniesta, Busquets, Xavi, Xabi Alonso
Brazil: Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Kaka, Gilberto Silva, with Cafu & Roberto Carlos as more wing than back
Argentina: Mascherano, Riquelme, Zanetti
Italy: Pirlo, Gattuso, Camoranesi, Simone.

Or best don't stand-out as clearly better than any of that list.

You can look at each and every tournament and there's at least one, usually several countries whose players were clearly better when compared one-to-one. It comes from this decades old, lazy assumption  that we would match the world if it weren't for mangers, hot weather, bad decisions, the width of the post, bad luck with injuries or friction between different clubs.

I'm fed up of hearing it. We don't win tournaments because we don't produce enough players who are a) talented and b) flexible enough to do so.

[DMnumber4]

CiM, do you reckon the FA is taking a blind bit of notice of these three European Cup winners (and the others e.g. G. Neville)?

They'd be foolish not to...

[BillyStubbsTears]

Again, I really don't know what direct relevance public expectation has on how those broadly individual world class players could not perform coherently as a team.

Again. It doesn't. My point is that the public expectation is out of line with the objective reality and is deliberately kept there for financial reasons.

The term "world class" is a lazy one by the way. It's meaningless. Of course our best players are "world class". they play competitively at the highest levels. The real question is, are they actually on a par with the "world class" players that other nations produce. Barring brief and notably few exceptions, I'd argue that they are not.

Now onto the Champions league finals. In the decade between 2004-05 and 2013-14[1], 8 English teams got to finals. 23 English players made the starting XIs of those 8 sides. An average of 2.88 per final appearance.

Compare that with:

Spanish sides: 5 club appearances, 25 player appearances - 5.00 per final appearance
German sides: 4 club appearances, 25 player appearances - 6.25 per final appearance
Italian sides: 3 club appearances, 11 player appearances - 3.66 per final appearance (Granted, Inter in 2009-10 didn't field a single Italian, but by then the national side was starting its own long, slow decline). 

I think we're getting close to the nub of the problem.

We don't have many really top class English players playing at the top level. And it's not because foreigners keep good English players out. It's because we don't produce enough really top quality players for the PL to be competitive and satisfy public expectations (see...we're there again). But each time a tournament comes around, we can't admit to that failing. So we overhype the players that we do have. And then find reasons to explain their failure.

[1] I've taken that extended period so there are enough examples of other countries' teams in finals to make a reasonable comparison.

[DMnumber4]

How many Greek (04) or Portuguese (16) players were playing at the top level?

Yet those countries won the European Championships...

[BillyStubbsTears]

DM

Yep. Agreed. And Denmark in 1992. Sometimes relatively random events happen. But not very often.

I'm struggling to think of another example in the past 50 years where the tournament winners didn't have a group of players who most people would place in the top 4-6 pre-tournament. Maybe Italy in 06, who I didn't really rate pre-tournament. Usually, the winner are identifiable as being in the top 3 pre-tournament (I'd say that the WC winners were identifiable as top 3 contenders pre-tournament in 1970, 74, 78, 90, 94, 98, 02, 10 and EC winners in 72, 80, 84, 88, 96, 00, 08 and 12.

It's been rare that we've gone into a tournament and I've thought "Yeah - this bunch of players are in the top 5-6 squads here." WC 70 was before my time but I guess it's generally accepted that our squad was a match for most. 82 definitely, maybe 98 and 02 at a very, very wide stretch. EC 80, 96 with home advantage, just possibly 04 although that was more a case of thinking that Rooney might be a phenomenon than that we had a good squad. Apart from that, if you've looked at our squads dispassionately, they've been underwhelming. Occasionally they've exceeded expectations (86, 90). Maybe, with a bit of luck, one of those might have been our Greece or Portugal moment. But most sides don't over-perform by much and more often England have performed at about the level you'd realistically expect.

[RedJ]

Even Italy wouldn't have won had Zidane not hit self destruct.

[Filo]

The England footballers should look at the England Rugby League team this morning when it comes to giving everything for your Country. Yes we lost but what an effort

[BillyStubbsTears]

Only saw the second half but sweet Jesus that was brutal. Another 10mins and England would have won. Australia had nothing left. Reminded me of the Thrilla in Manila.

[Filo]

Only saw the second half but sweet Jesus that was brutal. Another 10mins and England would have won. Australia had nothing left. Reminded me of the Thrilla in Manila.

For a 6-0 scoreline it was a cracking game, a last gasp Ankle tap prevented England scoring and a bit more composure in front of the Aussie line and England would have won it

[anne honemous]

Even Italy wouldn't have won had Zidane not hit self destruct.

I'm not sure that's quite correct.

The game was early in the second period of extra time when Zidane went and headbutted Materazzi and created the main talking point - everyone remembers that incident before Grosso's celebration, Trezeguet's miss or how well Italy actually performed in that game.

In the previous 110 minutes, Zidane and his team-mates hadn't done anywhere near enough to be ahead and Italy were more than holding their own.

So the whole 'Italy won the World Cup because Zidane got sent off' is a complete myth.

The game would have most likely still gone to penalties if he had stayed on the pitch, the only difference being that he would have almost certainly taken one in the shoot-out.