World Cup Thread

[bpoolrover]

We're just too slow in our build up play, we need to learn how to counter like the Belgians do

while your right mate not many teams can break like they did, we need play to our strengths get more balls in box and as you say speed up on our build up play

[Cantley Rover]

It was just like watching Rovers last season.

[GazLaz]

Played very well second half. Plenty to build on.

I agree, until we get around the box and then we struggle, Kane for the most part in the last two games has gine missing, not just him either, there just not enough movement in and around the box

Kane is either not fully fit or just knackered.

[RedJ]

Apparently been carrying an injury since the Colombia game.

[Alan Southstand]

Well why play him in a meaningless game? Gave us nothing going forwards.

Did someone say Sterling was quality? He was quality at giving Belgium the ball back! Much better second half with Sterling in the dressing room.

[PDX_Rover]

Enjoyed that game. Two teams playing progressive football. England a work in progress, missing that element of guile and creativity that Belgium have in Hazard and De Bruyne. The spoke of the team is fairly young as well. Like the look of Loftus Cheek. Big lad but great control and prepared to run at players. Augers well for the future.

[hoolahoop]

We're just too slow in our build up play, we need to learn how to counter like the Belgians do

It would be nice but I don't think I've seen a team in my lifetime ( apart maybe from that cruyff Dutch team ) with quite so much talent as the Belgians have now . Yes there have been sparkling Italian, German and of  course Brazilian/ Argentinian teams in the past but none with the 1-11 talent of this team.

It's a tragedy that they won't be contesting the final  tomorrow with a full team , we of course have some work to do but I'm nevertheless proud of our players and manager, especially as  many others have said , how well they have conducted themselves

[dickos1]

We’re about 6 years behind Belgium its not fair to compare. If you go back to 2012 when the majority of their players were the same as England’s are now, you will see that they were performing worse than we have here.

[Filo]

With all the junior teams doing well we have some exiting talent coming through, the problem now is they need game time in the PL, something English talent seems to be starved of

[BillyStubbsTears]

Thing is, it’s all very well saying we’re x years behind Belgium or we just lack a deBruyne and a Hazard.

We have NEVER produced players of that quality. We have never produced players with the combination of technical ability, drive and tactical nous/discipline that those two have.

There’s something about the way our game is structured that stops us from producing players like that. There’s no sign that any of the current crop of young players are going to mature to become players of that standard.

[darren61]

Thing is, it’s all very well saying we’re x years behind Belgium or we just lack a deBruyne and a Hazard.

We have NEVER produced players of that quality. We have never produced players with the combination of technical ability, drive and tactical nous/discipline that those two have.

There’s something about the way our game is structured that stops us from producing players like that. There’s no sign that any of the current crop of young players are going to mature to become players of that standard.

Billy i dont know how long you have managed the urge to open your veins, but reading your comments on most things from football to brexit,i think you should call a help line before the deep dark abyss claims you. Bless you my  son   

[drfchound]

Paul Gascogne for one, would be a player to match either of the two Belgians mentioned in BSTs post.
A genuine World class player.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yes he was. He was an utter genius. But he lacked the discipline that so many other geniuses have had. So his career didn’t achieve what it ought to have done.

You’re kind of making my point for me. That’s the one, deeply flawed genius that we have produced in 40 years.

Meantime:

France: Zidane, Platini, Henry, Tigana, Giresse and a group of top players in the current crop that may well match them. 

Spain: A whole generation of whom Iniesta and Xavi stand out.

Italy: Baggio, Pirlo and a bagful of superb defenders.

Argentina: Maradona and Messi who are streets ahead of any we have produced.

Brazil: Zico, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo.

Germany: A conveyor belt of disciplined sub-geniuses. Matthäus, Klinsmann, Moeller, Rummenigge, Lahm, etc, etc, etc.

Portugal: Figo, Ronaldo.

Belgium: Scifo, DeBruyne, Hazard

Holland: Bergkamp, Gullitt, vanBasten, Rijkaard, Robben.

Even Croatia: Smaller than Yorkshire but they produced  Suker, Boban, Prosinecki, Modric. All of them as good as any we have produced in that timescale.

Then even what we think of as lower-level football countries have produced equally talented players in small numbers.

Romania: Hagi

Bulgaria: Stoichkov

Yugoslavia/Montenegro: Savicevic.

Denmark: Michael Laudrup.

You see the point? Every top footballing nation has produced several Gascoigne-level or better players in the past 40 years. Or, in Germany’s case, not many geniuses but a conveyor belt of technically strong, highly disciplined winners.  Many other countries have produced one or two On a par with Gascoigne. There’s something about our game that doesn’t produce a sufficient number players of that ability on a regular basis to justify our belief that we’re a major football power. We won’t be regular contenders until we do the same.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Thing is, it’s all very well saying we’re x years behind Belgium or we just lack a deBruyne and a Hazard.

We have NEVER produced players of that quality. We have never produced players with the combination of technical ability, drive and tactical nous/discipline that those two have.

There’s something about the way our game is structured that stops us from producing players like that. There’s no sign that any of the current crop of young players are going to mature to become players of that standard.

Billy i dont know how long you have managed the urge to open your veins, but reading your comments on most things from football to brexit,i think you should call a help line before the deep dark abyss claims you. Bless you my  son   

You misread me Darren. I’m a hopeless optimist. I want the very best for my country. It hurts to see us settling for something way, way less than the best, whether in football or Brexit, and convincing ourselves that we are doing ok. We should have much higher ambitions.

[Tarkovsky_Mikluzhkin]

Davor Suker better than any player England have produced in the last 40 years? There's quite a few ballon dor voters who disagree with you on that one. Good striker no doubt but where you get the idea he was a skillful genius I don't know(surprised Marco Matarazzi didn't get a mention).

Also according to your list Belgium produced 1 player All-time of the required standard before this current crop. So hardly a signifier of a deep routed problem that stretches back decades - especially since most of those players talents have been cultivated at a young age in the EPL (Along with Ronaldo, Bale, Fabregas and others who all qualify as 'Home grown')
How many of those Belgians play in their own country? In fact how many on that list spent their teens and 20s playing in their own country?
It would be a very low percentage. So why should English players only play and learn about English football that's probably the problem rather than eugenics or whatever your getting at.

[dickos1]

Nobody is suggesting we’re going to have players of the quality of de Bruyne and hazard.
But when they were the same age as rashford, Ali, Loftus-Cheek cheek. Nobody would’ve been suggesting they would be the players they are now.
Lineker, Shearer and Owen were better than some players on your list, add to that Robson, Gazza, sheringham, these were all amongst the worlds best players

[Tarkovsky_Mikluzhkin]

Gazza DID lack discipline and that's something that should be hammered home to every England fan. He didn't care about the England team he only cared about himself. 90 He cried when HE would miss the final not the team, 94 he missed a load of qualifiers with minor niggles and was a disruptive influence in 98 before and after being dropped (and he also had loads of inappropriate tattoos probably)

However at the end of Hazard and De Bruynes careers you could say "they were good but they were chokers when it came to the big international games" that's what we say about England's "Golden Generation" and if Baggio was English his name would be a swear word. So Gazza, Hoddle,Waddle and even Rooney would not look at of place on your list.

[NickDRFC]

Gazza DID lack discipline and that's something that should be hammered home to every England fan. He didn't care about the England team he only cared about himself. 90 He cried when HE would miss the final not the team, 94 he missed a load of qualifiers with minor niggles and was a disruptive influence in 98 before and after being dropped (and he also had loads of inappropriate tattoos probably)

However at the end of Hazard and De Bruynes careers you could say "they were good but they were chokers when it came to the big international games" that's what we say about England's "Golden Generation" and if Baggio was English his name would be a swear word. So Gazza, Hoddle,Waddle and even Rooney would not look at of place on your list.

Bit early to be writing off Hazard & De Bruyne as chokers given they are both only 27.

[Tarkovsky_Mikluzhkin]

I did put "at the end of their careers" but point taken I should have qualified it with if they don't win anything.
People seem to be giving Belgium a lot more credit than they deserve at this point. Yesterday on the telly Keane,
Neville, Dixon and Wright all agreed it was a shame Belgium weren't in the final against France because "they would give em a real game" and would be "worthy" champions FRANCE BEAT THEM IN THE SEMI - what more do you want?

It would be like me saying Portugal would have beaten England in the 1966 Final if they hadn't been unfortunate enough to be in the tough side of the draw the meant they played and got beat by England in the SF. It's disrepectful to Croatia and it's massively disrepectful to France.

10 DNQ 12 DNQ 14 QF 16 QF 18 SF - if this is Sterling and Alli''s tournament record at 27 everybody would be saying drop the F*ckers - not calling them world class geniuses who've won even if they don't actually win.

[selby]

  We come away with the ranking of fourth, realistically I would put us about seven or eight in that competition, and teams not there, like Italy and Holland who if they had got there, may have done well,
   That is an improvement  in the last four years that most people would have taken after Brazil, so good on them, the bar is now set higher, we need to carry on improving at the same rate, not easy.
   If we do in four years we may be a big problem to the rest of the world.
   And well done Russia, for putting on such a good show.

[RedJ]

Italy and Holland didn't get there because they were and are currently shit. What about that is so difficult for the people of the world to actually grasp?

[RoversAlias]

I thought that RedJ. Italy and Holland had their chance at this World Cup and got nowhere near. The current Dutch side in particular is atrocious compared to what we're used to from them.

[RedJ]

I wonder if people said the things people currently say about the Netherlands about the likes of Hungary when they started to turn to shit?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Nobody is suggesting we’re going to have players of the quality of de Bruyne and hazard.
But when they were the same age as rashford, Ali, Loftus-Cheek cheek. Nobody would’ve been suggesting they would be the players they are now.
Lineker, Shearer and Owen were better than some players on your list, add to that Robson, Gazza, sheringham, these were all amongst the worlds best players

Dickos

1) You make a fair point about age. That’s the challenge for that crop of players then. Can they mature from being the best that WE have, to bring the best that the world has.

2) You putting that list of players forward, depressingly makes my point for me again.

You’re right. Those were AMONG the best players in the world. But EVERY country of any football pedigree produces players who are AMONG the best players in the world. My point is that the ones we produce do not hit the heights that the very, very best do.

You list was mainly of goalscorers. I deliberately tried to steer clear of players who were predominantly goalscoring strikers because, frankly, they are very common at the highest level.

So I didn’t mention Butrageno, Raul, Battistuta, Rossi, Papin, Klose, Suárez, Sánchez, Lewandowski, Larsson, Romario, Salas.  All of those and many, many more, could be ranked alongside the ones you quote and most of them wouldn’t be considered to be in the top 20-30 of all time.

Similarly you mention Robson who was a fine player. But in that mound, so we’re Viera, Keane, Gattuso and others, none of whom would be considered in the very top pantheon.

But I can see I’m pushing water up hill. I’m asking why we don’t produce a Ronaldo or a Messi or a Zidane or a Maradona, or a Ronaldinho. And you suggest Sheringham.

It’s what I was talking about in another post. Convincing yourself that what we have is the very best when it clearly isn’t.

[dickos1]

Not suggesting sheringham was as good as Zidane, look at Scholes people like Zidane and iniesta have stated that he was the best player they ever played against.

This World Cup we’ve equalled our best ever major tournament outside of England, yet people are still looking for excuses as to why.
Just be happy it happened and look forward, I just think it’s hard for people to accept it when we have a successful national team as they’ve spent so many years being happy slagging them off.

[Donnywolf]

Barely bet these days but gone a fiver on 3-0 and 3-1 France ! Probably a waste of one of the fivers !

[Cantley Rover]

Just watching the closing ceremony on itv. What a miserable t**t Roy Keane is.

[RedJ]

Nobody is suggesting we’re going to have players of the quality of de Bruyne and hazard.
But when they were the same age as rashford, Ali, Loftus-Cheek cheek. Nobody would’ve been suggesting they would be the players they are now.
Lineker, Shearer and Owen were better than some players on your list, add to that Robson, Gazza, sheringham, these were all amongst the worlds best players

Dickos

1) You make a fair point about age. That’s the challenge for that crop of players then. Can they mature from being the best that WE have, to bring the best that the world has.

2) You putting that list of players forward, depressingly makes my point for me again.

You’re right. Those were AMONG the best players in the world. But EVERY country of any football pedigree produces players who are AMONG the best players in the world. My point is that the ones we produce do not hit the heights that the very, very best do.

You list was mainly of goalscorers. I deliberately tried to steer clear of players who were predominantly goalscoring strikers because, frankly, they are very common at the highest level.

So I didn’t mention Butrageno, Raul, Battistuta, Rossi, Papin, Klose, Suárez, Sánchez, Lewandowski, Larsson, Romario, Salas.  All of those and many, many more, could be ranked alongside the ones you quote and most of them wouldn’t be considered to be in the top 20-30 of all time.

Similarly you mention Robson who was a fine player. But in that mound, so we’re Viera, Keane, Gattuso and others, none of whom would be considered in the very top pantheon.

But I can see I’m pushing water up hill. I’m asking why we don’t produce a Ronaldo or a Messi or a Zidane or a Maradona, or a Ronaldinho. And you suggest Sheringham.

It’s what I was talking about in another post. Convincing yourself that what we have is the very best when it clearly isn’t.

It's all very subjective though.

Look at Claude Makelele and how highly Real Madrid's crop, including Zinedine Zidane, rated him.

He wasn't a top player in terms of flair or quality, but he was the most important player in three club teams that he represented and absolutely outstanding in his role.

Yet, shockingly, he was never considered as a superstar.

He was never considered a superstar because he did the dirty stuff. Like most defenders are never considered superstars or rarely get anywhere near major awards, because they don't tend to be the ones doing the skill moves or scoring/assisting goals week in week out.

[Colemans Left Hook]

Barely bet these days but gone a fiver on 3-0 and 3-1 France ! Probably a waste of one of the fivers !

i expect the froggies who by the way drew 0-0 at home to mighty Luxembourg in the world cup qualifiers to beat the "thugs" by 3 goals  (someone might even monopolise the scoring) let's see if the croats DARE damage the french in the first half  with their fouls like they did England

[Cantley Rover]

Cheating French t**ts.