The England thread

[Matt]

I could've sworn this was discussed about 3 days ago :/

[Colly]

It was.

[Lineker]

Was it?

Been out the loop for a bit - sorry!

[Sam]

Aren't Umbro owned by Nike anyway?

[Summers]

Yeah. Nike bought Umbro. So can switch the best contracts to their flagship brand.

[Starvinho]

England remain 3rd in the recent FIFA rankings.

        Rnk	Team	             Pts	+/-  	

	 1	Spain	             1617	 0

	 2	Germany	             1437	 0	

	 3	England	             1274	 0

	 4	Portugal             1232	 1	

	 5	Uruguay	             1217	-1	

	 6	Italy	             1174	 0	 

	 7	Argentina	     1121	 0

	 8	Netherlands	     1044	 0	

	 9	Croatia	             1020	 0

	10	Denmark	             1006	 0	

	11	Greece	             1001	 1	

	12	Brazil	              996	 1	

	13	Russia	              990	-2	

	14	Chile	              984	 1	

	15	France	              965	-1	

	16	Cote dIvoire	      912	 0	

	17	Ecuador	              890	 3	

	18	Sweden	              875	-1	

	19	Czech Republic	      869	 0

	20	Switzerland	      847	 3

[MDK]

Seriously, are there alternative world rankings? Being third is a joke. Top ten at a push.

[brenchill]

Seriously, we have been rubbish at tournaments for years. How are we third?

[stokeriño]

You would think that a basic requirement of being ranked 3rd would be to have reached the last four (semi-finals) of Any Competition at least once within the last 15 years...but no.

[brenchill]

I take it as long as we keep qualifying for major tournaments that will be enough to remain in the top 3?

[Berober]

Seriously, are there alternative world rankings? Being third is a joke. Top ten at a push.

The ELO world rankings have England 4th, or you could use the glorious and completely accurate Unofficial World Championship:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unofficial_Football_World_Championships

[Plubby]

There's nothing glorious about that, it's stupid

[brenchill]

Aren't Scotland ranked as the best team on that?

[Starvinho]

Just looking back over the last 4 years of results for England and our record is really quite good. We've only lost 2 competitive games in that time, one qualifier against Ukraine and the 4-1 vs Germany at the World Cup. Yeah I know we went out to Italy at the Euro's but that result is considered a draw in the FIFA rankings. The only other losses in the last 4 years were friendly games against Spain, Brazil, France and Holland. Overall record is P45 W30 D9 L6, I'm not sure how that compares to other teams in the Top 10 but I think it's a pretty good record whichever way you look at it. People are dumbfounded that England are 3rd and it's probably because our performances are generally shite, but when you sit down and look at the results we just don't lose too many games, and that's why we're currently so high in the rankings.

[Colly]

Are the rankings affected by the level of competition though? It's madness for a team who do well at qualifying to be above the two teams who made the last two major tournament finals that England competed in.

[EddieG]

Shocked that England are so high when they failed to qualify for a major tournament in the last 4 years. ¬_¬

[Starvinho]

Adam Johnson has pulled out of the England squad due to injury.

[Lineker]

Minor thigh injury, apparently.

[Lineker]

England under-21s beat Azerbaijan under-21s 2-0 in their Euro 2013 qualifier, Steven Caulker and Jonjo Shelvey scoring the goals. England are top of Group 8 with 18 points from seven games and their final group game is on Monday against Norway.

[Lineker]

So, Stevie G has said that England CAN win the World Cup, insisting that 'miracles can happen'!!