Euro 2008

Spain play as a team?! Spain's main problem has always been that they never play well as a team, hence their constant underachieving at tournaments. And they hardly look in stellar form at the moment either - though admittedly qualifying form is no real barometer of what will happen at the tournament itself.

I can't see an underdog like Greece winning next year, but it should be said that Greece weren't the first to be surprise winners - Denmark in 1992 as well, and there was teams like Belgium, who reached the final in 1980 and Czech Republic in 1996. So it's not out of the question that there'll be more upsets in the future.
 
Pooley said:
Euro 08? Judging by recent performances it's go to go to Spain. They have loads of good players who can all play well as a team, and they have a very god coach who can take them al the way.
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They have a very RACIST coach, you mean!

I still think the Spanish players play better for their individual clubs than for the national team. Players like Francesc Fabregas and Carles Puyol are vital for Arsenal and Barcelona, but I just don't see them all gelling like they should when they wear the red and yellow. And blue.
 
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Todays Qualifying Matches

Scotland 2 - 1 Georgia - Yay!
Ireland 1 - 0 Wales
Israel 0 - 0 England - lol
Liechtenstein 1 - 4 Northern Ireland
 
That's it rub it in :sad:
I still think we can make it though. 4 of our last 5 games are at home (woot for Wembley :D ) which shouldn't be too hard. Plus we still have to play Russia twice and Croatia again
I can see Scotland throwing all of this away though. I'd like to see them make it, and I think they probably will, but I just have a feeling they're going to screw up >_<
 
I'm a Scotsman, rubbing it into England's face comes with it. The English media and general public like nothing more than to rub it our faces when we lose badly so I have to reply in kind. And I don't mind if we don't make it, as long as we can at least be in the running and competing then anything else for us is a bonus.

You're 5 points behind second-placed Russia and if they and Croatia keep getting the results against the other teams then England will really struggle, they really should have got someone more ruthless to be manager. It was the same players again that failed.
 
England dont stand a chance! id be gutted if they won tho, wed never hear the end of it:rolleyes: i know we (scotland) havent got much of a chance even tho wer top of the tables this now for qualifiers. Having Eck as coach has made a huge difference on scotland as a team.

My money will be on germany.
 
There was just no heart in the performance tonight. No one seemed to care really, and we lacked the killer instinct. I think Sam Allardyce would have made the perfect manager for us. He always gets the best out of players so that they play well as a team
 
I'm not an England fan you may guess but I would have loved to have Big Sam as England coach, he wouldn't stand any crap from his players and would have went fucking mental no matter who it was. He would care about the team, no matter where the players came from he would have dropped them without a second thought.
 
That's what makes the man the perfect manager. He doesn't care about the name, he cares about the result the team gets. He's not afraid to drop a big name player if needs be, and that's the sort of man we need. Steve McClaren has tried it with Beckham, and I think he was right to do so. Beckham's past his best and it was time for a change
 
Beckham has cared more about his off-field career since he left United, Fergie would have kept him if he still concentrated on his game. Right now though it's the Lampard and Gerrard partnership that's being a real problem. Two World Cups and a European Championship and it's not worked and they still insist on using them both at the same time?

That's the sort of thing that the manager has to fix and drop one of them, Lampard being the most likely candidate. BUt of course they play for Liverpool and Chelsea so pretty much untouchable.
 
I think I know of a way to let them both play
Robinson
Carragher Terry Dawson
Carrick
Lennon Gerarrd Lampard *Some random left winger*

Rooney Owen​

It would work because Carrick would be the anchor of midfield, allowing both Gerarrd and Lampard to go forward
 
Firstly - England seem content to make me lose the will to live whenever I see them play, another dull game today. I still think they'll qualify with the home games to come, though it may all hinge now on how they do in both games against Russia. Though wouldn't it be ironic if Russia, with their manager Guus Hiddink who would have been perfect for England but was barely even considered, qualified ahead of England. However I think England will get there. How they do ay Euro 2008 is another matter.

As for this idea that Sam Allardyce would have been good as an England manager, you guys are joking right? The thought of England playing like Bolton do sometimes is too horrible to contemplate. Hiddink or Scolari would have been great for England, but the FA arsed up with the latter big-time.


As for Scotland, great start by them so far, but one problem is they're going to have to try and qualify ahead of Italy at this rate (not to mention Ukraine), and though they have a lead at the moment, not sure they can keep it the whole way through. A shame they've gotten such a tough group really.
 
charliepanayi said:
=As for this idea that Sam Allardyce would have been good as an England manager, you guys are joking right? The thought of England playing like Bolton do sometimes is too horrible to contemplate. Hiddink or Scolari would have been great for England, but the FA arsed up with the latter big-time.
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Yeah I mean he's only gotten Bolton up to 5th in the League, he has to be shit. The one thing he always tries to do is make sure that his teams are difficult to beat, look at how many times he's done what even Man United struggle with and make Arsenal look average in comparison. He's twice the manager McClaren is imo.

Secondly he'll have a better pool of talent to play around with so he'll have to change his way of playing to suit whoever he uses but his greatest strength is the team comes first and he won't use a player unless he would work in the team. And as for Scolari or one of those other foreign coaches then look at how successful Sven was before thinking of going for that option again.

I would rather have someone who would actually care to be in the position and actually know how the national game works rather than go for a big-name foreigner just because it looks good to be linked with them.
 
Well let's look over what Hiddink has done - made the World Cup semis with Holland and South Korea, won the European Cup with PSV Eindhoven. Scolari has won the World Cup (and reached a semi-final) and made the European Championship final. These aren't just big name foreigners, they're excellent managers who have done well with other teams. Scolari in particular had to deal with a lot of egos in the Brazil side, but got them to win a World Cup even when they went into it in pretty bad shape. And Sven was nothing to do with him being a foreigner and everything to do with him being a wally. His predecessors including Keegan, Hoddle and Taylor were all English and they stunk by and large.

As for Allardyce, taking Bolton to 5th in the league is good, but managing England and getting them to do well is something else entirely. The fact he's amongst the best English candidates says it all really - Pearce, Curbishley, and the others too.
 
charliepanayi said:
Well let's look over what Hiddink has done - made the World Cup semis with Holland and South Korea, won the European Cup with PSV Eindhoven. Scolari has won the World Cup (and reached a semi-final) and made the European Championship final.
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Never said they were bad managers so don't know why you had to bring that up, Sven was a very successful manager when he joined and was a failure. Going for another big-name just because of their track record alone is a risk, especially if they play teams the way England aren't best at.

charliepanayi said:
Scolari in particular had to deal with a lot of egos in the Brazil side, but got them to win a World Cup even when they went into it in pretty bad shape.
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Brazil are well known for always struggling in qualifying, and that Brazil squad didn't have problems in terms of fitness and rarely do, Ronaldo's fitness at the last World Cup is the only thing that springs into my mind Brazil wise that comes close. And as long as you play them in the correct positions then Brazil can only lose to a better team on the day.

charliepanayi said:
And Sven was nothing to do with him being a foreigner and everything to do with him being a wally.
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It bloody well had everything to do with that he was a foreigner since he never understood how the English teams work and how to use his players, he spent the majority of his managerial time in Italy and so had a defensive mentality almost all the time he was there. How many times when England had to go forward Sven kept the careful approach like an Italian team would have? He was an idiot in some respects, bringing Theo Walcott to the World Cup for one, but he was just the wrong manager for the job.

charliepanayi said:
As for Allardyce, taking Bolton to 5th in the league is good, but managing England and getting them to do well is something else entirely. The fact he's amongst the best English candidates says it all really - Pearce, Curbishley, and the others too.
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Read the reasons why we think that Sam as coach could be a good thing, then you'll see why we think that. England desperately need a change and bringing up the second-in-charge from a failed regime isn't that. Sam would shake it up and has the balls to drop the big-name players if they don't bother their arses to actually play.

And really, could he do a worse job anyway?
 
Allardyce for England dude :P
Do you actually know what Bolton's odds for winning the title the year they became so good (the 03-04 season)? They were 2000-1! Favourites to go down, and if memory serves well (which it proably doesn't) they qualified for Europe. Now tell me that that isn't a good manager. He doesn't rely on a player being famous, he goes for players with heart and talent. As said above, he's made it difficult for teams with some of the best players in tht world (Arsenal namely) to play against
 
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