The England thread

[Liam]

But at the end of the day, so could several other teams, and only one team can win it in the end.

That's profound big man.

I do it just for you, Dan.

[MDK]

Can we win it? No. Will we win it? No.

But what is the point of supporting your team if you don't think or believe you can win it? Isn't that part of the whole thing? I support Orient and when it comes to every game I fucking cheer them on 100% and believe they are gonna win the FA cup or whatever, I do the same with England. Ahh, I dunno, I can't quite think how to make my point, but hopefully you get what I am aiming for.

[NobBe Nobbs]

Can we win it? No. Will we win it? No.

But what is the point of supporting your team if you don't think or believe you can win it? Isn't that part of the whole thing? I support Orient and when it comes to every game I fucking cheer them on 100% and believe they are gonna win the FA cup or whatever, I do the same with England.

[Dan]

But at the end of the day, so could several other teams, and only one team can win it in the end.

That's profound big man.

I do it just for you, Dan.

Huh?

[MDK]

Quoted for emphasis that happens to be bitchin'. Seriously, you can't get a better point than that - to be a proper fan, you have to stick with your team through the good and the bad, and cheer on every game like it was their biggest. You can't say 'I'm an England fan' and not have at least a little optimism that we COULD win the World Cup this time round.

Thank fuck someone got what I was going for. Everytime the world or euros come around, I blindly support England. I love to scream my lungs out at every goal, close chance etc.

[NobBe Nobbs]

Charlton fan. I know about bad times, believe me.

But at the end of the day, so could several other teams, and only one team can win it in the end.

That's profound big man.

I do it just for you, Dan.

[MDK]

Oh, and fineintent is called Dan in the real world

[Liam]

Myke gets 50 points.

[fineintent]

Can we win it? No. Will we win it? No.

But what is the point of supporting your team if you don't think or believe you can win it? Isn't that part of the whole thing? I support Orient and when it comes to every game I fucking cheer them on 100% and believe they are gonna win the FA cup or whatever, I do the same with England.

[Liam]

Yeah, but then the media are quick enough to jump on the team when we have one or two bad performances, so it works both ways.

[fineintent]

If you lose against Northern Ireland, you deserve to be hounded. Beating Argentina doesn't mean we're worldbeaters.

[Liam]

Yeah, but before losing to Northern Ireland, we've barely lost any qualifying matches in the past 3 major events. Every team is allowed a slip-up here or there, and losing to Northern Ireland makes us no less likely to win the World Cup on the day, in my eyes.

[Guest Ringo Masterson]

Losing to Northern Ireland should be a wake up call, so far it's impossible to know if it was one. England lost to Northern Ireland because of long-ball, the Irish used tight marking, 9 times out of 10, using tight marking when your opponent uses long ball makes it impossible for them to score. It's the reason England lost against Brazil in 'O2, it's the reason for France's come back at the Euro and it's the reason they had to defend for roughly 70 minutes against Portugal. Long ball is a safe (boring) tactic, but when it’s becoming apparent that tight marking makes it near impossible to make it function, England would need to change its tactics. If Eriksson had any form of logic, he'd develop another non-longball tactic to make his players use whenever he notices tight marking. Every time I watch England and the opponent tight marks, I always expect England to shift to something other than long ball, but Eriksson persists.

So far, after the whole NI thing, England have only played teams that were either attack minded or had crap defenses, so it’s not clear whether or not Eriksson has or will fix the tight marking/long ball problem. If he manages to find a new form of attack against some teams, and if he manages to find a good starting formation (which either requires him to magically find a holding midfielder that can handle 2-3 players on his own or to stick to a midfield stand off formation) then England could be unstoppable. It’s a big if though.

[Lineker]

Thread re-named

I'm happy the Aussies got through... I hope we get a chance to play them.

[Lineker]

Just thought I'd post them:

Saturday, June 10 v Paraguay (2pm, Frankfurt)

Thursday, June 15 v Trinidad & Tobago (5pm, Nuremberg)

Tuesday, June 20 v Sweden (8pm, Cologne)

So this means we won't miss matches due to school/work commitments, like last time round.

[Herr Matzat]

So this means we won't miss matches due to school/work commitments, like last time round.

[alldaws1]

Damn, I wish they did clash with school because our school gave us time off to watch the games last time around. It was awesome.

[Lineker]

So this means we won't miss matches due to school/work commitments, like last time round.

that might be conected to this WC not being held on the other site of the world 5 timezones away

You never know. I never trusted German organisers.

[NobBe Nobbs]

Damn, I wish they did clash with school because our school gave us time off to watch the games last time around. It was awesome.

[therockbox]

We weren't given the day off, but I remember going in after the Brazil game along with at least half of the rest of the school going in at the same time.