www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/artic...brolly-headline.html

The last time that England played Croatia in a major tournament England lost 3-2 to Croatia and failed to qualify for the 2008 European Championships. After the match the manager Steve McClaran was derided and pilloried andbecame a national figure of derision, with the headline "The Wally with the Brolly" following around to this day. Fast forward 10 years and we have the same result England lose to Croatia, this time 2-1. However the losing manager is hailed as a hero (based on victories over lowly football Nations, Sweden, Columbia, Panama, and Tunisia). It just goes to show that the media are very selective about who they choose to demonise and the media has the power to persuade people how they feel.

The principal difference is the players.

SM had Lampard, Beckham, Terry, Ferdinand, Neville x2, Cole, Foster, Woodgate etc. - all seasoned professionals.

GS didn't.

Barney wrote:
The principal difference is the players.

SM had Lampard, Beckham, Terry, Ferdinand, Neville x2, Cole, Foster, Woodgate etc. - all seasoned professionals.

GS didn't.

If you read the article, Beckham was dropped as he was considered past his best by this time. These players were bigger names yes, but maybe they were coming to the end of their careers which is probably worse than those at the beginning of their careers. Like the current team they had no previous success in the world cup or euros. It was mainly the same team that had reached the quarter finals in 2006 and lost out to Portugal on penalties. England got to the semis mainly because they had an easy draw

You may well be right - and happy.

As you said - 'I'll be glad when they're knocked out'.


That is a somewhat perverse aspiration - for us English people though...

Barney wrote:
You may well be right - and happy.

As you said - 'I'll be glad when they're knocked out'.


That is a somewhat perverse aspiration - for us English people though...

How do you know that I'm English? There are a lot of assumptions here.

Barney wrote:
You may well be right - and happy.

As you said - 'I'll be glad when they're knocked out'.


That is a somewhat perverse aspiration - for us English people though...

Tell the blighter about the National Debt

Which 'blighter' and what debt?

This thread is about the World Cup.

On in Russia at present.

robbiex wrote:
Barney wrote:
You may well be right - and happy.

As you said - 'I'll be glad when they're knocked out'.


That is a somewhat perverse aspiration - for us English people though...

How do you know that I'm English? There are a lot of assumptions here.

You are British though? Aren't you?
You have a really good knowledge about British pop stars and top of the pops, so I would think you were British, if not English?

robbiex wrote:
Barney wrote:
You may well be right - and happy.

As you said - 'I'll be glad when they're knocked out'.


That is a somewhat perverse aspiration - for us English people though...

How do you know that I'm English? There are a lot of assumptions here.


Read my words. I don't know, don't care and never typed that you are of any nationality, species, shoe size - or anything else.

Your aspiration was perverse - for us English, that's all. Most of us just like to our sports teams to be successful.

Its the media hype and inflated coverage that I object to more than anything else. Also they have promoted the fallacy that England have exceeded expectations. In terms of how far they have gone then agreed few would expect them to have got to the semi-finals. However most people would expect them to get out of their group and place higher than the lowly Tunisia and Panama. Then in the next two rounds most people would expect them to beat Colombia and Sweden, two teams who have never won a major tournament and are ranked much lower than England. Then in the semi-final, they played 20th ranked Croatia, a country of 4 million people, you would expect a country of 55 million people ranked 12 in the world, would beat Croatia, but they lost 2-1, so therefore they performed below expectations, hold onto those Knighthoods and OBEs which seem to be given out like Smarties these days. All the Ashes team of 2005 got OBEs, even those average batting scores of less than 10 runs.

Very few - including me - thought they'd finish third or fourth in the competition.

Did you - or did they not exceed your expectations?