Wembley is empty.

As is everyone's enthusiasm for international football.

Danny's right. The sad thing is, when you look at the WCQ attendances, 40,000 would still be very good. Only Germany (52k), France (68k) and England (77k) broke an average of 50k - pretty shokcing really. You had Italy and Spain, top countries, get as low as 18k for a competitive game - I've been to Championship games with better attendances!

Italy's probable line-up today: Sirigu; Ranocchia, Bonucci, Astori; Candreva, Parolo, De Rossi, Marchisio, De Sciglio; Immobile, Zaza.

Hm...

Seriously strange

I wouldn't look much into it. He's clearly experimenting. Obviously he'll go with a 3-man defense á la Juventus. Funny in the Mediaset article it stated that Parolo will be the Vidal of the situation. Hahaha, yeah right! Super lame player, showed it against us last week.

He also left behind some big names, I'm thinking that he's mostly going through various names to really see how they train/perform on the pitch/etc

Where exactly is De Sciglio going to play?

Wingback?

Conte is showing that he understands what friendlies are for. You're meant to experiment. So many clubs put out the same old teams.

Yeah, LWB, with Candreva as RWB.

Seems to have worked

FWIW, I have been impressed by what Conte has done for Juve, and I a mildly optimistic about the NT.

Holland without Vlaar is no Holland at all.

Well I don't doubt Conte's skills as a coach, he's obviously the best Italian tactician around atm along with Carlo

The line-up seemed strange also because of where he played some players, but yeah, it seemingly all worked out.

Still I think he's mostly just going through the names right now seeing how each player trains/performs. He probably feels he can do that and still easily qualify for the Euros

Portugal 0-1 Albania

Yay!

Congrats Who knows, maybe you'll qualify for a major tournament for the first time...

Haha, thanks, but I don't see it happening. All we did is defend for the whole 90 minutes and hit them on the counter once every blue moon. We were just lucky, on top of Portugal being awful.

That goal though! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_26Y5OSkiOw

Nice defending by Pepe

I remember when people were telling me Portugal had a really good team. lol.

Congrats X-Off, though, a win away against most teams in Europe is no easy task.

I just saw that one team that finished 3rd (in a group of 6!) will qualify atuomatically? What a joke of a tournament this will be.

So many England-whiners on twitter and various forums before the game saying their players are so much better than ours. A reason they're above us in the rankings.

Easy. Really easy. Should've been 3/4-0 as well.

Joke? Why? I think it will be interesting.

I just think there's too many teams overall, lack of quality will be bad.

DO NOT TOUCH ZLATAN

Hmh. I'm not sure. Does quality really depend on the number of teams involved in a tournament? Because I know numerous World Cups that were full of quality and great matches, while many Euro-tournaments with less teams and more quality on paper lacked the same.

I generally find Euros much better than WCs personally.

I agree. The old formula of 16 teams/4 groups worked fine. Platini and his usual BS...

The best!

Switzerland are far too high in the rankings, they're never a top 30 team never mind a top 10 team, but that said they have better players than England.

Behrami, Inler, Xhaka, Shaqiri, Seferovic, Mehmedi and Lichsteiner are very, VERY good players while the only players in England's team I genuinely rate are Sturridge and Sterling, one of whom wasn't playing. Rooney is ghastly these days, while Welbeck admittedly saves his best form for his country - 10 in 28 isn't TOO bad a goalscoring return at that level.

But it was a good win for England, going to Basel and getting the 3 points is impressive.

Last 3 world cups have been nothing short of abysmal. The group stage this time was lively in places but from last 16 onwards it was utterly dreadful.

Euro 2020 cities

FINAL AND SEMI-FINALS
Wembley Stadium, England

THREE GROUP GAMES AND ONE QUARTER-FINAL
Baku, Azerbaijan
Munich, Germany
Rome, Italy
St Petersburg, Russia

THREE GROUP GAMES AND ONE LAST 16 MATCH
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Glasgow, Scotland
Copenhagen, Denmark
Bucharest, Romania
Amsterdam, Holland
Bilbao, Spain
Budapest, Hungary
Brussels, Belgium

I'm pleased that we've got the Final, but not having a single group game is a bit ****. I'm hoping that UEFA won't give other nations home games in the groups to make it fair!

Casillas needs to retire. He's been awful in 90% of his games over the past 3 years. Had about 3 good games in the CL and still nearly managed to cost Madrid the final.

Spain

LOL. De Bosque should have resigned after the WC.

He's got Hodgson-itis.

Two old farts who have a comfy cushy well-paid job controlled by their FAs.

Whereas Prandelli did the right thing pronto.

Actually, I found it quite brave from both Hodgson and Del Bosque to stay on board. Showing they're confident they can do better with the team and correct the mistakes they've made. Especially Del Bosque who's won everything with them.

Your posts these days never fail to astound and bewilder me

So you don't think Del Bosque could have found himself a lucrative new job with less demand and stress? With Hodgson I understand, but it's not like England has much better options anyway - unless you'd like to see Redknapp there.

No thank you!

I don't mind Hodgson. First manager in a while that's had the balls to drop the big names and go with kids. Plus this whole changing your coach after every tournament thing is pretty pointless.

Agreed. NT coaches nowadays lack experience. To correct your mistakes you have to gain first some knowledge. We idolize some managers of the past but forget that a fundamental part of their success was the FA had them backed for years, even decades.

So, just say I humour you: you're implying Prandelli is a coward for resigning?

He has no balls at all! He doesn't drop big names, he does what the FA tell him. All the big names he didn't 'drop' retired!

If he had true 'balls' he'd drop Rooney - who's diabolical. Instead he makes him captain!

Rodgson is a truly weak, pathetic drip of a manager.

No-one would drop Rooney. He's the best player they have.

Lampard barely played at the World Cup, I think that takes balls to put Jordan Henderson in front of him. He didn't even take Ashley Cole.

As for Rooney. His effort is second to none to any, nobody puts a shift in like him. Even if that's irrelevant, his goal scoring record for England is phenomenal. Considering Lampard and Gerrard have been the penalty takers for England during his career, it makes his record even better.

But it's the cool thing to be critical of Rooney now. Like it was with Lampard, bizarrely, circa 2008. He's our best player. He's soon to be our all-time top scorer. He puts in amazing effort (too much I'd argue), though it shows he leads by example. If a coach dropped him, he should be sacked on the spot.

And this ladies in gentleman at this stage is why we are an ordinary National team.

I've never seen the country so dis-interested in the National team, the attendances at Wembley have been horrendous since the pitiful WC campaign.

First thing our NT needs to do is get full of that bunch of drips that refer to themselves as the England Band, it's embarrassing. Freshen things up, the English League in the main has awesome atmosphere throughout we don't need the rejected Salvation Army guys there making that hideous monotonous noise. They had the cheek to complain about not getting free passes to the WC, pay like the rest of us you bores.

Problem with England fans is that we've set the bar so high, anything less is "horrendous". Yesterday was nearly 60,000. In World Cup Qualifying, only 2 teams had higher than 60,000 average. England (78k) and France (65k).

The last 2 games have been bad in comparison to what we're used to. But still roughly double what Argentina get, 10k more than Germany/Holland, 15k/20k more than Italy/Spain.

But it's typical media stuff. Things can seemingly only be a problem for England. When the "problem" for us, is still in a better state than anywhere else.

I do agree re: the England band though. It's annoying and they shouldn't see themselves above anyone else.

Yeah, how did all that work out?



Well, it would get you a good coach.

Just like no one would drop Balotelli?

Italy & England are comparible. Yet Rooney is invulnerable to being dropped while Conte has the balls to do what few coaches have - drop Balotelli.

It takes guts to drop your 'best player' - but it's often for the best. Look how much better Milan are without Balo. Sure, we're not exactly Sacchi's Milan but we're 5th with 3 wins, 2 draws and an honourable defeat.

And he was 'our best player'.

Incomparable. Rooney has been a true champion for many years. He's having a rough patch, just like Pirlo in his last couple of years with us. Balotelli hasn't proved anything in his career. The matter is, we know how good Rooney can be, the same cannot be said about Balo.

Chiellini with two goals and an own goal tonight.

He dropped big names, which you said he doesn't. The fact it went badly is more reason now not to drop one of the best scorers in the nations history.