Euro 2016 Qualifiers - The Road to France

[Lycan]

Scotland far better than England FFS, as soon as you lot don't get shafted your world beaters. It's typical Scottish Mince, Forster was the best team in Britain, toll he moved to Southampton, now it's Gordon.

Pure rubbish, you may well beat us, it's possible, does not mean your a better team, your still fucking Shite you will always be fucking Shite. Germany, Poland, and Republic will all finish above you in the table

I meant that Germany were a far better team than England, not Scotland.

I'm not Scottish btw.

 

[Lycan]

Didn't the referendum take place in September? Those articles are from February 2014 and March 2013 respectively.

:icon_lol:

That's spectacular.

 

[Kenny]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29604464

Serbia v Albania game abandoned after clashes between players and fans.

Albania charged for refusing to play (and for acting like violent knobheads). Serbia charged for poor organising of the game and allowing the crowd to act like knobheads

 

[YoungWolf]

if you watched them you would see some entertainment coming through, we have some real good young players

I see enough of England to know that they are not entertaining to watch

 

[Alan]

England are about as exciting as Honduras to watch. Minus the hacking.

 

[Del Woppio]

Yup, turgid. No pace to the passing, no bravery on the ball. It's just like watching a moyes / lambert managed side.

 

[Lycan]

It's like watching Wolves under Hoddle just with fewer 1-1 draws.

 

[Carrotdude]

I still watch the England games when I can, it's not the most enjoyable thing ever but it's ok, I've seen far worse, trying to play good football without being very good at pulling it off

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

So hard to draw conclusions from games where the opposition have no intent to attack at all - three of the post-World Cup games fit into that category, the one which didn't saw us beating a Swiss team ranked in the top 10 in the world away from home, and it should have been more than 2-0 really.

I think we're ok, especially given that we've lost 300+ caps of experience in Gerrard, Lampard and Cole - three players who the England support seemingly had little time for, yet all of them have had careers unmatched by many across Europe. The whole 'too cool for school' attitude where people try to make a big deal of how they don't care is pretty tiresome. If you don't care then fine, don't comment. You don't see me banging on about Doctor Who or Downton Abbey when I couldn't give a shit about those programmes.

 

[Lycan]

The whole 'too cool for school' attitude where people try to make a big deal of how they don't care is pretty tiresome. If you don't care then fine, don't comment.

The point is that I'd like to care but I've just been beaten into submission by years of boring football. It's a bit like Wolves in the cups. I love Wolves and I want them to win but years of early exits have taught me that the players don't care about the cup so it means less.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Unfortunately qualifying campaigns are rarely thrill a minute affairs. They only tend to become any more than moderately interesting if an oddly tough group is drawn out (largely negated now by UEFA expanding the tournament) or if a team really fucks it up early on and has to spend the rest of the group clawing the ground back (like us in qualification for the 2002 World Cup, Holland might face this prospect this time). Frequently though it's a background buzz of fairly routine victories over modest opposition.

I wouldn't say the Switzerland game was boring, nor were the Italy/Uruguay games in the World Cup. Not a go at you personally but I think there's a section of fans - if we are going to call them that - who revel in England doing badly these days (or not winning well enough, as is the case at the moment), "Oh it was so boring I switched over to the Bake Off", I find it perverse to have that kind of attitude. They do treat it as a competition as to who 'cares' the least as well, pantomime bullshit, like the nonsense you see on Twitter every time Wolves don't win.

 

[Templeton Peck]

So hard to draw conclusions from games where the opposition have no intent to attack at all - three of the post-World Cup games fit into that category, the one which didn't saw us beating a Swiss team ranked in the top 10 in the world away from home, and it should have been more than 2-0 really.

I think we're ok, especially given that we've lost 300+ caps of experience in Gerrard, Lampard and Cole - three players who the England support seemingly had little time for, yet all of them have had careers unmatched by many across Europe. The whole 'too cool for school' attitude where people try to make a big deal of how they don't care is pretty tiresome. If you don't care then fine, don't comment. You don't see me banging on about Doctor Who or Downton Abbey when I couldn't give a $#@! about those programmes.

I'll always be interested in England and in many ways I prefer international football as its the last bit of football you can't manipulate with money. Totally agree re the too cool for school stuff.

Cole is a big loss no question of that and Lampard has his moments but Gerrard's good England games were few and far between. One of many ex-internationals who simply didn't replicate club form at international level.

 

[Law's Bus]

Unfortunately qualifying campaigns are rarely thrill a minute affairs. They only tend to become any more than moderately interesting if an oddly tough group is drawn out (largely negated now by UEFA expanding the tournament) or if a team really $#@!s it up early on and has to spend the rest of the group clawing the ground back (like us in qualification for the 2002 World Cup, Holland might face this prospect this time). Frequently though it's a background buzz of fairly routine victories over modest opposition.

Maybe if you're English, or one of the other "big" nations.

For us Welsh, it's ALWAYS exciting - there's the hope of qualification followed by realisations that we're not going to do it yet again, followed by the return of hope, followed by losing to Luxembourg. It's like being a Wolves fan, but on an international level.

This qualifying is bloody AMAZING so far for us.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Well, quite. In the 26 or so years I've been watching England, we've failed to qualify for 2 out of 13 tournaments, that will almost certainly become 2 out of 14 inside the next 12 months. We generally get through without too much of a fuss. Mundane victories that are neither fortunate nor emphatic, and relatively serene progress is the order of the day. If you want thrills and spills, you're not going to get them in a standard England qualification campaign.

I'd liken it to an extent to watching the first half of Wolves' League One campaign, for all that the football wasn't quite right and there were clear issues in the team to be solved, you knew we were going to win most weeks regardless, generally without conceding, because the natural level of the opposition was poor. The hope is that like Wolves, we develop our style of play to the point where even if the result is likely to be a formality, it's enjoyable to watch us play and you fancy us making the step up to the next level without too much trouble.

 

[Lycan]

Which is never going to happen under the current management.

 

[Bit on the shaggies]

I'd happily watch any of Woy's last six games 20 times in a row rather than sit though any one of Postman Pat's final six snorefests. That game against Algeria made my fucking eyes bleed.

 

[lemonjelly]

Capello was ridiculous. I genuinely believed he was going to move the international team to the next level. & to my mind, right up to announcing the squad for the 2010 world cup, he did everything right. His comments & selections were pretty spot on.

Then with the world cup he completely contradicted himself & undid all his good work, by selecting names, & not balancing the squad. Only having 2 left footed players in the whole squad, & one of them was unlikely to be fit for any group games. Plus taking an injured player - something he'd said he wouldn't do.
The performances in the finals was dismal. What happened there, god knows, but up until he selected his squad I really thought progress was happening.

 

[lemonjelly]

Capello was ridiculous. I genuinely believed he was going to move the international team to the next level. & to my mind, right up to announcing the squad for the 2010 world cup, he did everything right. His comments & selections were pretty spot on.

Then with the world cup he completely contradicted himself & undid all his good work, by selecting names, & not balancing the squad. Only having 2 left footed players in the whole squad, & one of them was unlikely to be fit for any group games. Plus taking an injured player - something he'd said he wouldn't do.
The performances in the finals was dismal. What happened there, god knows, but up until he selected his squad I really thought progress was happening.

 

[YoungWolf]

Capello began to unravel about six months beforehand. It all seemed to start with the Terry and Bridge situation. He should never have sacked him as captain to be honest. Funny because he was doing an excellent job, he had a system (even with Gerrard on the left) where England were playing high tempo stuff and beating some decent teams.

Then he picked Joe Cole and SWP, dropped Walcott, dropped Green after one game and put in the wrong keeper, played Barry when he clearly wasn't fit, got sucked in to the players/ media complaining about his methods and started pandering to that.

There's more I. Can't think of at the moment prior to all that I'm sure. And he acted strangely after too

 

[GLASGOWOLF]

I like how he waits until the free higher education course is finished before he relocates. Real strong standpoint.

I do wonder what he hates more though, it's hard to pick a winner between grammar and Scotland from that last rant, both receive so much abuse.

Given my Step Daughter is Scottish and her mum has paid taxes for 20 years, and my step Daughter is in her 3rd year we have every right to wait, plus the fact my Wife will not move until she has finished because we want her to have the security of living at home, not having to worry about working to pay the bills