QUOTE (kurtsimonw @ Aug 15 2012, 04:28 PM)
I think the Team GB criticism was a little harsh. Let's be honest, we picked a half strength team. Giggs, Bellamy and Richards as the over-23s says as much. We were missing players like Bale, Carroll, Ox and Walcott - could you imagine if we had Rooney and 2 other real over-23 stars as well? The GB team was just a novelty that wasn't taken seriously.
Reasonable points - but it was taken seriously. It was just messed up hugely. Because Pearce was the manager. But it doesn't weaken the point that with the likes of Ramsey, Bellamy, Giggs, Richards, Sturridge and Cleverley you might have expected a bit more than what it achieved.
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As an England fan I will always have the hope that we can overacheive and win something in the future. Just look at Euro 96, we arguably weren't even in the top 20 in the World at the time - yet we were a penalty kick away from the Final. It does seem the FA is finally waking up, removing the reserve league and replacing it with an Under-23 league will help at least a little and more input at trying to bring through younger players properly.
I could be wrong, but I think some people get a little greedy. I know a few who always get pissed off with England and say they don't support them - these people happen to be fans of United and Liverpool. They are used to winning on some level and the same could be said of you and Rangers. As a Villa fan who can barely reember seeing us lift a single trophy, I don't care that England don't win. I'm happy with QFs just like I'm happy with Europa League with Villa - to me that's both acheiving at a high level.
I think the issue with England is less what they achieve, and more what players like Lampard, Terry, Rooney, Gerrard etc
should achieve. That's some pretty good players there but they looked out of their depth against the supposedly weaker-league Serie-A based Italians.
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One thing I do agree with is that club football here seems to be far bigger than International football. I think if we did stop playing Internationally, a large number wouldn't even notice or care.
Club football is pretty much the life of about 99% of Brits.