Where you ACTUALLY see England finishing in the WC?

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A prediction I knocked up after the draw, seeing as it's relevant to the discussion ;)

With an imperfect Brazil and an England firing on all cylinders, I could see us getting to the finals, that depends on Brazil not performing as they could though, or doing so and England being ****ing amazing.

We should reach the semis at least though.
 
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Spawn said:
This...although maybe with a bit of luck...sorry i mean a lot of luck they might get to the semi finals but honestly i dont think they have the quality to get any further than the quarters...there are a few teams out there that are far stronger ie Italy, Spain, Dutch, Brazil, Germany and ARgentina even.
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A LOT!

Italy? They are absolutely dreadful. Personally, I see us getting to the semis but it all depends on if Rooney stays fit. As a Chelsea fan JT needs to sort it out as well.
 
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Gustov said:
Italy? They are absolutely dreadful.
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I think the trouble with Italy (and other teams like Germany and France for example) is that they really up their game for major tournaments.

How many times do we see teams playing like cack who during a major tournament seem to find an extra gear and end up in the final or winning it. Just recently in the last world cup I thought that Germany, Italy and France were all very average, yet as the tournament progressed they seemed to step up and ended up doing very well.

I think part of our problem is that we just dont do that, we seem to have just the one gear and we play pretty much the same in major tournaments as we do outside of them, dont seem to have that extra notch to rise to.
 
Mr_White said:
worldcup.png


A prediction I knocked up after the draw, seeing as it's relevant to the discussion ;)

With an imperfect Brazil and an England firing on all cylinders, I could see us getting to the finals, that depends on Brazil not performing as they could though, or doing so and England being ****ing amazing.

We should reach the semis at least though.
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Interesting. Although even you have admitted that it would take something special for England to beat Brazil.

Also interesting to see Ivory Coast ahead of Portugal. Serbia are on form and will also beat Ghana to the second spot I think.
 
I think it was clear from the other night, that if rooney does not get the service he needs (that valencia supplys for him at utd) he will come very deep to get the ball. He needs to be in the box, ready to score goals.
 
Depends on where England face either Spain or Brazil. IMO England will be beaten if they face either side but they stand an ok chance against other teams. Saying that England aren't known to raise their game in World Cups like Italy and Germany have done even with average teams, if anything seem to get worse!
 
I've two thoughts..

First, I've always thought due to the format change of the Champion's League in the 90s a similar set of clubs (roughly speaking) compete each year. The standard is very high and more often than not those teams (or say e.g. the old G14 sides) are better than the national side representing their country, but that's beside the point.

It's my opinion that it's important the national squad takes a very clear majority of players from those few sides and only if that can happen will I reckon there'll be a better chance.

For me therefore, England's "best" time was in 2004 (in terms of the first team at least). Looking at the current team, players from our traditional top 4 in no way number a majority. No disrespect to those sides, but we have a few from e.g. Man City, Villa, Spurs and even W Ham. I just don't think as a unit they'll have enough collective nous required to go all the way. Also take for example Spain's recent team.

Tombstone said:
I think the trouble with Italy (and other teams like Germany and France for example) is that they really up their game for major tournaments.

How many times do we see teams playing like cack who during a major tournament seem to find an extra gear and end up in the final or winning it. Just recently in the last world cup I thought that Germany, Italy and France were all very average, yet as the tournament progressed they seemed to step up and ended up doing very well.

I think part of our problem is that we just dont do that, we seem to have just the one gear and we play pretty much the same in major tournaments as we do outside of them, dont seem to have that extra notch to rise to.
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..That's the other half of my thinking.
 
We will scrape through the groups and lose to the first decent team we face. We only have 1 striker capable of causing problems to good defences and thats Rooney (but he needs to score more goals for England to be classed as world class).

We would do better if Lampard was dropped (misses so many sitters for England) and Gerard played in the centre.
 
cjbagnall said:
We would do better if Lampard was dropped (misses so many sitters for England) and Gerard played in the centre.
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I think recently, Lampard has being better for England then Gerrard.

I don't think England should be playing Gerrard out wide, he doesn't stay there he drifts in to the center and even with Lampard, Gerrard, Barry in the middle against Egypt they couldn't do anything.

Play two natural wide men.
 
My Head says Semi's but Heart says we'll make it to the final.

Without Rooney I dont think we'll make either, when he's not playing up front we lack creativity. Terry needs to get back to his previous form as well
 
Greenlizard0 said:
For me therefore, England's "best" time was in 2004 (in terms of the first team at least). Looking at the current team, players from our traditional top 4 in no way number a majority. No disrespect to those sides, but we have a few from e.g. Man City, Villa, Spurs
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Well, if you look at the first match in Euro2004, we started with players from the likes of Man City (17th), Everton (16th) and Spurs (14th), with subs being used from Birmingham (10th) and Villa (6th). Man City, Villa and Spurs are currently all very good sides challenging for european places (all in the top 6 in terms of average points per game), there is no shame in fielding players from those sides if you were happy to have players playing in tournaments from sides who could at best be very generously described as 'mediocre midtable' back in 2004.
 
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