England failing to qualify for The European Cup!

[crackerjack]

From The Times, just now.

Martin O’Neill will rule himself out of the running to be the next England head coach in another huge blow to the Football Association. The Aston Villa manager, widely tipped to succeed Steve McClaren, will confirm today that he wants to stay in the Midlands, which will leave the governing body to see whether there is interest from potential foreign candidates such as Jürgen Klinsmann, José Mourinho or perhaps even Rafael BenÍtez.

Good. I've always thought M O'N overrated. Winning with Celtic in Scotland is like winning the toss of a coin and my Celtic-supporting mate says his team were just as boring as his Leicester.

 

[Slothrop]

Interesting to hear about all the effects on the economy; pubs, replica shirt makers, bookies and other merchandisers were banking on a bumper summer that isn't going to arrive - they reckon it represents more than a billion pound hit to the UK.

Hang on, so now we're screwed because not enough people are gambling and drinking?

The England job seems to be a really harsh one though - expectations of what England should be doing are well ahead of what even a perfect manager could hope to get out of the players but the manager gets pilloried when they don't do as well as they 'should'. With a bit of luck the FA will look at this situation and decide to divert some of the TV money to grass roots stuff that might throw up some decent players rather than deciding that the problem is clearly that they've got the wrong manager for the nth time running and if they could just pick the right guy everything would be peachy.

 

[mos dan]

my mate has started a facebook group where people can sign up to register their support for the country of their ancestors/childhood family holidays/tenuous connections etc, as a proxy for the predictably woeful, yet still heartbreaking england team.

come on you czechs!!!

(i am actually a bit czech)

 

[crackerjack]

my mate has started a facebook group where people can sign up to register their support for the country of their ancestors/childhood family holidays/tenuous connections etc, as a proxy for the predictably woeful, yet still heartbreaking england team.

come on you czechs!!!

(i am actually a bit czech)

er, come on you irish. oh.

welsh? oh again

germans? can't be doing that

french? that''ll have to do

 

[boombox]

I am half Romanian, so I have a ready-made replacement.

The Romanian team seems to be a prouder and more modest group. They are much easier to support. The delusion here in England is too much sometimes (yesterday Harry Redknapp said we have the best players in the world).

 

[tom pr]

I've always liked the Italians, but after them cheating to do Scotland - where I've studied for three years - I'm cutting ties. I've always liked the Czechs, like Spain they're proper underachievers given the players. I'd like to see them do well I reckon.

 

[IdleRich]

"I've always liked the Italians, but after them cheating to do Scotland - where I've studied for three years - I'm cutting ties. I've always liked the Czechs, like Spain they're proper underachievers given the players. I'd like to see them do well I reckon."

No-one else find it slightly galling that in the year that Italian football is revealed as totally corrupt from top to bottom they walk off with the World Cup and the Champions' League? I found it particularly strange when the Milan chairman claimed that wining the Champions' League somehow exhonerated them for being found guilty of match fixing. "It's alright, we're a good team so we're allowed to cheat"?
Plus my girlfriend's flatmate is Italian - he'll get way too big for his boots if they win this as well.
I'm gonna go for Austria I reckon, should be pretty much like watching England.

 

[tom pr]

Last year's Champions League offered up such a moral dilemma for me with Milan playing my two most loathed Premiership teams back to back: morally I wanted Milan to go out as they should never have been there in the first place, but I was relieved that they didn't...

 

[IdleRich]

"Last year's Champions League offered up such a moral dilemma for me with Milan playing my two most loathed Premiership teams back to back: morally I wanted Milan to go out as they should never have been there in the first place, but I was relieved that they didn't..."

I thought that Milan winning the CL must have been FIFA's nightmare result as it fully exposed their lack of backbone in not punishing them. By the end though no-one seemed to give a fuck about a little thing about match-fixing so I guess they were right to just sit around on their holes and do dick.

 

[zhao]

do you think England is more nationalistic than other countries?

what do you think accounts for some countries being more jingoist than others? (if indeed they are)

discuss.

 

[Gabba Flamenco Crossover]

do you think England is more nationalistic than other countries?

what do you think accounts for some countries being more jingoist than others? (if indeed they are)

discuss.

I was in Sorrento when Italy beat Germany in the 06 world cup, and you have never seen anything like it. The whole town was on the street at 5am, kids, granny, the lot. There were scooters with 6 people on and Fiat 500s driving round with a dozen girls in bikini tops sticking out of the roof.

Someone had brought a coffin with a german flag draped over it and the crowd were passing it around over their heads.

 

[IdleRich]

"do you think England is more nationalistic than other countries?"

My totally unscientific, off the top of the head, gut feeling answer to this would be no.
I mean, we get worked up about the national football team but that's because we like football and you have to support someone to make it fun. In general I don't give a toss about England as an entity. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like living here and everything but I haven't got a flag and I'm not planning to buy one or do anything else nationalistic in the near future.
Do you think that the English are more nationalistic? You're probably better placed to venture an opinion than me.

 

[vimothy]

do you think England is more nationalistic than other countries?

I think England is less nationalistic than other countries in the UK. It's less nationalistic than Ireland and less nationalistic than places I've been to in Europe (NL, D, F, etc).

 

[swears]

carmody droppin science

http://robincarmody.livejournal.com/76153.html

 

[crackerjack]

http://robincarmody.livejournal.com/76153.html

That piece is absolute garbage.

(and there was no need for a new Wembley anyway - it was yet more post-post-*post*-imperial delusion -

The old Wembley had been a bad joke for years.

The England players, far more than those of any other UEFA nation, do not know what their country is, or what it stands for.

Far more than Spain?

As they have filched their "culture" entirely, absolutely, 100% from a foreign (and, crucially, non-European) power, how can they?

Idiotic delusions of lost power, worship of one foreign country at the expense of all others, utter refusal to realise that your fellow Europeans may possibly have things to teach you,

English football has suffered from an inferiority complex (justifiably) for decades, one reason why there are so many foreign players and managers in the top slots. If we're so in awe of the Americans (which I assume is his point) why the fuck are we so obsessed with football anyway?

 

[crackerjack]

Ha ha ha ha

2010 World Cup qualifying draw

Group 6 Croatia, ENGLAND, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Andorra

Prediction: England will top this group.

 

[Itchy & Scratchy]

Oxo have brought out a red and white cube to celebrate England's Euro 2008 campaign.

It's called the Laughing Stock.