I Agree...remember Brazil 90 world champion. One of the worst teams I ever saw playingGarethDavies wrote:There's nothing like a football debate. I can honestly say all the points you mention apart from a few are very realistic….. You only need to look at Greece to prove that you don't need the best players in the world to win a major trophy but you need a good coach and a bloody good squad. Maybe I’m contradicting myself now.
but then we had Romario near its peakI Agree...remember Brazil 94 world champion. One of the worst teams I ever saw playingsuperedge wrote:GarethDavies wrote:There's nothing like a football debate. I can honestly say all the points you mention apart from a few are very realistic….. You only need to look at Greece to prove that you don't need the best players in the world to win a major trophy but you need a good coach and a bloody good squad. Maybe I’m contradicting myself now.
but then we had Romario near his peakYou corrected the mistake already I see, but of course 1990 showed the Germans to become World Champions in the World Cup at Italy.Eric from the Netherlands wrote: I Agree...remember Brazil 90 world champion. One of the worst teams I ever saw playing
If the press ask any top player in the Dutch International side "Can you win the world cup next year" what does he say? Exactly the same thing Beckham said "Yes, but we have to improve and anything can happen in football" .... do the Dutch press rip into the national side in the press the following day.... no. But the English press will because it sells papers.Eric from the Netherlands wrote:Confidence, arrogance or plain stupidness?
EricOct 11, 2005
SOCCER
World Cup can be ours: Beckham
Captain upbeat after England qualify, but British media unimpressed
LONDON - NOW that England have qualified for the World Cup Finals, captain David Beckham thinks they can go on to collect the trophy.
DOES NOT MATTER MUCH: With England already through to Germany 2006, David Beckham's suspension for the match against Poland now becomes less significant. -- REUTERS
England beat Austria 1-0 on Saturday, despite Beckham being sent off for getting two yellow cards in a minute.
Hours later, the 1966 World Cup champions qualified for the Finals in Germany because the Netherlands beat the Czech Republic in a different group.
That guaranteed England at least one of Europe's two best runners-up spots, and they can win Group Six tomorrow by defeating Poland, who also advanced.
England fans are now spared a possible rerun of the 1973 scenario against Poland, when the team needed to win to reach the 1974 Finals but drew as visiting goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski gave a man-of-the-match performance.
'Qualifying means an awful lot to everyone in the team,' Beckham said. 'We are all overjoyed. I'd like to think this side is going to improve next summer and I'm very proud to be playing among these players - they've shown a lot of character and we deserve to be there.
'Can we win the World Cup? Definitely, because anything can happen in football.
'There's a lot of hard work to be done before that, but we have the quality to go a long way in Germany.'
His coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson, who led the team to the quarter-finals at the 2002 World Cup and the 2004 European Championship, agreed.
Said the Swede: 'We have an extremely good team and we are one of four or five nations that can win it.'
But the response in Sunday's British newspapers was markedly less enthusiastic.
'To hell and Beck', said a corner of The Sunday Mirror's front page with a photo of Beckham. 'Thank you very Dutch', was the headline at the back.
'Thank God for that man Barry Opdam!' the News of the World added, referring to the player who scored one of the Netherlands' two goals.
'It might have needed someone who plays for AZ Alkmaar to do it for us - but we are there. So let's just be happy...'
Former Liverpool and Scotland defender Alan Hansen, an analyst for the BBC, was also unimpressed.
'It's sad to see so many great players playing so badly,' he said. 'You can't go to Germany next year and play anything like that and expect to win the World Cup.'
Alan Shearer, who led England at the 1998 World Cup, said there was 'no spark' in the performance against Austria, though the return of the 19-year-old Wayne Rooney should boost the team.
'They've now got world-class players to go on to another level,' Shearer said. 'But they're going to have to improve. There has to be a massive improvement if we're going to go on and win it.'
Former England striker Gary Lineker said England risked relying too much on Rooney, who was suspended for the match against Austria.
'We were lethargic and lacklustre, as we have been in each of our last four games and we have no hope of winning the World Cup if we play that like,' Lineker wrote in his Sunday Telegraph newspaper column.
'What this performance told us, and which we already knew from last year's European Championship, is that England are nothing without Wayne Rooney...but it's saying something when England have to rely on someone so young and relatively inexperienced at international level.'
England will play Argentina in a friendly in Geneva on Nov 12.
Bookmaker William Hill rates England the 8-1 fourth favourite to win the World Cup, behind 3-1 favourite Brazil, 6-1 shot Argentina and hosts Germany, a 13-2 chance. Other qualifiers include Italy, the Netherlands, the United States and South Korea.
Norman Hunter, whose mistimed tackle led to Poland's goal in 1973, cautioned against writing off England.
'It's not as gloomy as people make out,' he told the Sunday Mirror. 'I think this team can do well in Germany. I'm not saying they're going to win it but they've got players with genuine quality.'
I agree wholeheartedly with the article, though much of what was said isn't new nor surprising. That England somehow manages to make it even halfway through never fails to astonish me... I'm not discrediting their skills as players but their gung-ho facade never really hides their on-pitch politics.Eric from the Netherlands wrote:I can subscribe to the content below...
EricOct 11, 2005
WILD WEEKEND
No way will England be world champions
By Wilfred Yeo
Deputy Sports Editor
SUDDENLY, England fancy themselves as World Cup champions.
That's quite a quantum leap of faith for a team who just last month lost 0-1 to Northern Ireland, ranked 116 in the world (Singapore are 99), and were in danger of not qualifying for next year's Finals in Germany.
The renewed surge in confidence came last Saturday after they struggled past Austria 1-0.
Even so, they needed a favour from the Netherlands, whose 2-0 win over the Czech Republic guaranteed England at least one of Europe's two best runners-up spots.
They can still go through as Group Six champions, and perhaps be seeded for the Finals, if they overcome visiting Poland in their final qualifying match tomorrow.
England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, who was watching the live telecast of the Czech-Holland proceedings with decidedly less worry than his team's match, immediately declared after the Dutch victory that England are one of four or five favourites to lift the trophy.
For good measure, he added: 'We have 10 players who could be among the 50 best in the world.'
On Sunday, his captain David Beckham took it one step further and proclaimed: 'We believe we can go all the way and win the World Cup.'
Really?
Not on the evidence provided last Saturday or in the last two months.
Against a mediocre Austria, whose coach Hans Krankl was sacked and were missing a few key players, England looked equally mediocre.
They played decently in parts but, as a whole, lacked cohesion and confidence.
The uncertainty at times seemed a continuation of pathetic displays: that 1-4 friendly defeat by Denmark in August, another 1-0 struggle against Wales and the 0-1 embarrassing loss to Northern Ireland in the qualifiers last month.
The ill-conceived 4-5-1 formation was blamed for the chaos in those two games.
But what about the 1-4 defeat - when they were at their customary 4-4-2?
And it was 4-4-2 again last Saturday - though it was reshuffled to 4-4-1 following Beckham's 59th-minute dismissal.
Despite that, at least there was some semblance of organisation in the 4-4-2 they started with.
The problem, as with any system, was in the application - especially in the middle of the park.
With their clubs, Chelsea's Frank Lampard, Liverpool's Steven Gerrard and Real Madrid's Beckham are outstanding.
Individually, they can match the engine rooms of Brazil, Argentina and the Netherlands - surely three of the favourites to clinch the World Cup next year.
But, with their country, Lampard and Gerrard - who has admitted as much - hardly inspire the same admiration and passion as they do for their clubs.
One suspects it has much to do with Beckham's presence.
Both are used to having their way at their clubs.
As though having to accommodate each other wasn't enough, they also had to make room for Beckham when he famously fancied himself as another dancing, holding Zinedine Zidane in the centre of midfield in that 4-5-1.
It was reported that they had told Eriksson as much at the infamous meeting before the games against Wales and Northern Ireland, but the manager stubbornly supported his captain's desires.
There can be no doubt that Beckham was behind that foolhardy experiment which had Gerrard and Lampard playing out of character and purpose.
The 4-5-1 shape also made Wayne Rooney a castaway on the left flank and the frustrated Manchester United striker foolishly applauded the referee for booking him against Northern Ireland.
The red card followed and, when Beckham tried to calm the teenager, Rooney let loose a barrage of abuse.
Beckham could not have pleased his other teammates either last Saturday, somehow managing to get himself sent off after two quick bookings by Spanish referee Luis Medina Cantalejo.
While both decisions appeared harsh, Beckham did invite trouble when he made that ill-timed tackle that launched Andreas Ibertsberger into orbit.
Perhaps that 1998 attempt at checking Argentina's Diego Simeone - which resulted in an expulsion - was deleted from his memory.
But surely the yellow card and a warning from Cantalejo, for fouling the same opponent less than a minute before the upending incident, would still be fresh on his mind?
Just as importantly, what was he doing there on the edge of the penalty box? Less than a metre inside, and it would have been a penalty.
Where was the right-back and the other defenders?
The skipper is obviously unaware of his limitations and the discord and resentment that he is spreading.
Thankfully, Eriksson is slowly and sensibly realising that his players are working against each other instead of for each other.
He dropped that silly 4-5-1 idea and then installed Lampard as penalty-taker in place of Beckham, who had squandered his last three kicks.
As it turned out, Lampard dispatched his match-winning penalty with supreme confidence against Austria.
There have been calls for Beckham to step down as captain and Eriksson has stood by him, but the manager will have a good chance to see how vice-captain Michael Owen and the team fare without him tomorrow.
Poland are just about the only decent opponents in a weak group that fortune favoured England with and should provide the kind of test that they can expect next year.
They will also be without Sol Campbell and Steven Gerrard, but Rooney's return from suspension will be welcomed by a team who found little beyond lighthouse services from the lanky Peter Crouch last Saturday.
The Liverpool man is the latest in a line of English-media contributions to exaggerated talent, and his presence underlines the fact there aren't enough good players in England.
Our historical links and familiarity with the English Premier League and its television tentacles have blinded us to England's true standards.
Sure, there was that 1966 World Cup triumph but, apart from that, they have essentially flattered to deceive.
The truth is that, whatever the personnel or configuration, England are in the top 10 of footballing countries. But not the top three.
Yes, they will be in Germany - but not right to the end as Beckham would have us believe.
What a nice feeling, Eric, I can tell you! I still remember 1998...Eric from the Netherlands wrote:If we would get to beat Brazil, I will die happy on a heart attack, I guess...
Eric
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