Get your excuses in early! (may contain football)

tim_wand

Ever since last nights draw in Brazil, The British media has been full of more excuses for our predicted failure in the World cup than a bunch of hung over mamils (I am qualified to talk on this) on a Sunday Morning club run.

Unfortunately I haven't got access to the Gazzetta dello sporte this Morning, but I doubt very much that the Italian media are whinging about "Having to go up the Amazon" to play the Inglese in 30 degree heat for their World cup opener? (and they are meant to be the ultimate surrender monkeys)

The British press are making it out to be mission impossible 4. or should that be Carry on up the Amazon?
We have only got to beat Bitey Suarez's lot, the Azzuri and a bunch of Coffee Growers (okay we're buggered)



Uploaded with ImageShack.us England squad arrive in Manaus

c40nl12

That'll be the "English" press, as the rest of the UK don't give a s*** how England do in the world cup. That's not exactly true, they'll probably hope they get humped. I'm hoping for a penalty shoot out at some point, always an entertaining option with England.

tim_wand

c40nl12 wrote:

That'll be the "English" press, as the rest of the UK don't give a s*** how England do in the world cup. That's not exactly true, they'll probably hope they get humped. I'm hoping for a penalty shoot out at some point, always an entertaining option with England.

Bit like the World cup mate, You ll probably have to wait until 2014 Until being British doesn't mean being Scottish too. Just ask Andy Murray he won Wimbledon for us

And lets face it either way be a long time until the Scottish team are in another World cup finals.

bernithebiker

There is talk of French backhanders so that they got a nice easy group. Honduras and Ecuador anyone?

daviesee

tim wand wrote:

c40nl12 wrote:

That'll be the "English" press, as the rest of the UK don't give a s*** how England do in the world cup. That's not exactly true, they'll probably hope they get humped. I'm hoping for a penalty shoot out at some point, always an entertaining option with England.

Bit like the World cup mate, You ll probably have to wait until 2014 Until being British doesn't mean being Scottish too. Just ask Andy Murray he won Wimbledon for us

And lets face it either way be a long time until the Scottish team are in another World cup finals.

In other news, the Titanic has sunk.
We are pish, and we know we are, so thats a dead end.

OT - Heat, humidity, long season, injuries, tiredness.

Real reason - Lack of basic technique.

tim_wand

.
We are pish, and we know we are, so thats a dead end

Pish , Aye. But still British at the moment.

meursault

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5YpUsDsHmk

There is no hope, not anything to do with who we were drawn against or location, but because England are not good enough, and the manager and organisation are not intelligent enough or brave enough to build a team for the future.

Research the German model for how it should be done.

Mikey23

Of marginal interest here....

joelsim

The group could have been a lot worse.

We won't get anywhere near winning the WC whoever we have in our group.

We will flummox Italy by allowing them 100% possession throughout the 90 minutes, excepting goal kicks and interceptions.

But alas we will go to the pub and get sh*tfaced, there will be one decent performance and all the papers will have us down as champions-elect.

Bring it on.

finchy

meursault wrote:

the manager and organisation are not intelligent enough or brave enough to build a team for the future.

It's a bit unfair on Hodgson. If he takes a team full of youngsters and they get slaughtered, the tabloid press will be all over them. It's probably best not to expose 20 year olds to that.

joelsim

I think Hodgson is doing that for all his faults. That's the best thing about him.

RDW

If you can think of some generic, all-purpose excuses, they might also be useful in 2015, when England are drawn against Wales and Australia in the group stage of the Rugby World Cup.

verylonglegs

tim wand wrote:

Unfortunately I haven't got access to the Gazzetta dello sporte this Morning, but I doubt very much that the Italian media are whinging about "Having to go up the Amazon" to play the Inglese in 30 degree heat for their World cup opener? (and they are meant to be the ultimate surrender monkeys)

It's not often I agree with the media at large but I feel they might have a point. Football is better to play in winter conditions and also better to watch. Watching a game played at walking pace because it's too hot is zzzzz, it's more of a spectacle when it's played at pace. Listening to it being discussed on the radio just now apparently the Italians are really quite unhappy with the situation as all 3 of their group games are in the heat of the Amazon rather than just the 1 like England.

Having said that the weather won't have much of a bearing on our success, the fact is we just aren't very good.

mamba80

the "national game" should be banned, anyone playing it, shot and their families deported to fukushima.
I think you ll find England hasn't done well in international tournaments (since '66) as they ve all been taking back handers to deliberately lose

DavidBelcher

RDW wrote:

If you can think of some generic, all-purpose excuses, they might also be useful in 2015.

David Moyes might be in need of some a heck of a lot sooner than that....

David

secretsam

c40nl12 wrote:

That'll be the "English" press, as the rest of the UK don't give a s*** how England do in the world cup. That's not exactly true, they'll probably hope they get humped. I'm hoping for a penalty shoot out at some point, always an entertaining option with England.

I actually quite like watching the games that don't involve my own country playing, they are somehow more entertaining without all that tension.

I guess you get that feeling at most world cups?

DavidBelcher

SecretSam wrote:

I actually quite like watching the games that don't involve my own country playing, they are somehow more entertaining without all that tension.

Fair point, as long as the standard of football's decent (let's face it, the World Cup has had the odd bad-tempered and/or dull final down the years). My parents were lucky enough to witness the Dutch "total football" era of the 70s on telly and suitably impressed by it. I hadn't arrived in the world to witness it, however.

David

secretsam

DavidBelcher wrote:

SecretSam wrote:

I actually quite like watching the games that don't involve my own country playing, they are somehow more entertaining without all that tension.

Fair point, as long as the standard of football's decent (let's face it, the World Cup has had the odd bad-tempered and/or dull final down the years). My parents were lucky enough to witness the Dutch "total football" era of the 70s on telly and suitably impressed by it. I hadn't arrived in the world to witness it, however.

David

Last truly awesome game I recall was Argentina vs Mexico (I think), ended up in extra time being decided by an absolute screamer from, er, some Argentinian fella. Think that was '06.

Teams that are usually a pleasure to watch: Germany, Spain (although can be a bit dull), Argentina, one or two of the mid-African states. Brazil these days pretty dull.

debeli

One of the best games I saw was England-Argentina in 1998 (on the telly). I missed the first goal, hearing it on the radio while stuck in traffic. Watched the rest of it at the home of an Italian friend who couldn't believe I enjoyed the game.

Football has moved on since my boyhood. In the early 1970s I could turn up at Stamford bridge or Highbury and buy a ticket on the day for a little saved pocket money. Now it is £100+ to take one of my chldren to a game. Different crowd, different social cross-section, different level of animosity (despite reduced violence, the implicit venom is more hateful).

Nonetheless, we have a thriving top division (pretty much only on TV for me now) and strong lower leagues. One consequence of all our (excellent) imported players is that we have a relatively poor national side (or national sides). I'll take the excellent domestic leagues and you can keep the World Cup. It's once every four years and is as much about theatre and TV income as it is about football. A November saturday at Edgar Street brings more joy than 80% on the televised World Cup games, but we get slightly sucked into thinking that we're about to see another Van Basten or Bergkamp.... Usually, we're not.

For me, soccer (as we called it before decreeng it a US term) is still immensely enjoyable and one of the finest spectator sports. But winning the World Cup? Really... why does it matter?