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Scratching my head today about two things.

1st how long has it been since I cared about international football. I honestly don't know what's on this off season if anything, outside the world cup they've bastardised it beyond beleif and now I and many ithers just don't care. Why and when did this happen and will it ever change?

2nd when the fuck are england gonna do a germany and rip it up and start over? Even the Aussies have the right idea here, upskilling coaches, picking a direction and sticking to it, not all of the curriculum here is to my fancy, but it's a great start. What will it take to get England to sort themselves out? Can it even be done?

Pretty Boy Lee wrote:Scratching my head today about two things.

1st how long has it been since I cared about international football. I honestly don't know what's on this off season if anything, outside the world cup they've bastardised it beyond beleif and now I and many ithers just don't care. Why and when did this happen and will it ever change?

2nd when the fuck are england gonna do a germany and rip it up and start over? Even the Aussies have the right idea here, upskilling coaches, picking a direction and sticking to it, not all of the curriculum here is to my fancy, but it's a great start. What will it take to get England to sort themselves out? Can it even be done?

based on this roughly half an hour

In Hodgson we twust

Pretty Boy Lee wrote:Scratching my head today about two things.

1st how long has it been since I cared about international football. I honestly don't know what's on this off season if anything, outside the world cup they've bastardised it beyond beleif and now I and many ithers just don't care. Why and when did this happen and will it ever change?

For me it was at/after SA 2010, i was pretty disillusioned along time before this, but this was the tipping point for me. Until we have a team of players who see it as the pinnacle of their achievement to play for the their country rather than it being an inconvenience ( i see Rooney as a prime example of this). I see Harry Kane as being one who thinks it is an absolute honour to play for England.

Pretty Boy Lee wrote:2nd when the fuck are england gonna do a germany and rip it up and start over? Even the Aussies have the right idea here, upskilling coaches, picking a direction and sticking to it, not all of the curriculum here is to my fancy, but it's a great start. What will it take to get England to sort themselves out? Can it even be done?

Once Dyke has decided to stop giving us (&others) shit about foreign player levels & look in his own back yard.

Couldn't care less about International football. Full of players who couldn't give a shit and who are only in the team because of the club they play for, or not in some cases. How Shrek can captain my country is beyond me. Starfish before him.

City is my club and to me, the International breaks are a nuisance and an inconvenience. I for one can't see the situation changing for myself. Unless the majority of players were from City and it would be an extension of watching my team.

CTID Hants wrote:For me it was at/after SA 2010, i was pretty disillusioned along time before this, but this was the tipping point for me. Until we have a team of players who see it as the pinnacle of their achievement to play for the their country rather than it being an inconvenience ( i see Rooney as a prime example of this). I see Harry Kane as being one who thinks it is an absolute honour to play for England.

But I'm not sure it even is the pinnacle anymore? Times have changed and the club game is bigger. Kane looks excited now but he'll be the same as the rest after ten games. I don't think kids dream of playing for England now - when I wanted to be a footballer when I was a kid (as we all dreamed) I wanted to play for City, not England. That was in the 90s too and there is even more of a focus on club competition now.

Not sure it'll ever be seen as important again really. Then again I'm not a particularly patriotic person - I'm more proud of my hometown Manchester than I am of England.

I bloody idolized England as a kid. Had some serious hero worship for shearer, England number 9 was my childhood dream.

I remember being gutted we missed 94, loved every minute of 98 and spent all my teenage pocket money on merchandise, video games etc. 2002 is a bit of a blur as I was 19, 2006 I was skiving off work near every morning to finish whatever match was on.

2010 might be right actually. I was so pumped for game 1, but what a shit World Cup. I've watched the last two euros intently, but the endless qualifiers and the rows over the next few world cups have really soured me. Not to mention all the mentioned issues with England. We are just never going to be serious threat of we don't change the system.

Pretty Boy Lee wrote:I bloody idolized England as a kid. Had some serious hero worship for shearer, England number 9 was my childhood dream.

I remember being gutted we missed 94, loved every minute of 98 and spent all my teenage pocket money on merchandise, video games etc. 2002 is a bit of a blur as I was 19, 2006 I was skiving off work near every morning to finish whatever match was on.

2010 might be right actually. I was so pumped for game 1, but what a shit World Cup. I've watched the last two euros intently, but the endless qualifiers and the rows over the next few world cups have really soured me. Not to mention all the mentioned issues with England. We are just never going to be serious threat of we don't change the system.

shouldn't this be in the things you miss thread?

Nigels Tackle wrote:

Pretty Boy Lee wrote:I bloody idolized England as a kid. Had some serious hero worship for shearer, England number 9 was my childhood dream.

I remember being gutted we missed 94, loved every minute of 98 and spent all my teenage pocket money on merchandise, video games etc. 2002 is a bit of a blur as I was 19, 2006 I was skiving off work near every morning to finish whatever match was on.

2010 might be right actually. I was so pumped for game 1, but what a shit World Cup. I've watched the last two euros intently, but the endless qualifiers and the rows over the next few world cups have really soured me. Not to mention all the mentioned issues with England. We are just never going to be serious threat of we don't change the system.

shouldn't this be in the things you miss thread?

Touché.

I wanted to start some talk about fixing the England setup and got emotional. Forget childhood memories, how and when will it get fixed?

I stopped watching after Rooney's outburst into the camera in South Africa. It showed everything that is wrong with football that he could even think that he had a right to criticise fans who had travelled half way across the world to endure that turgid, half arsed shit from him and his mates.

Looking objectively, in most eras, we have had the talent to compete, but not the right approach. More recently though it has come across as an attitudinal thing amongst players.

I read a book recently where a recent ex-England player was trying to weigh up the pros and cons of international football, and I understood from his perspective that after the first 10-15 games the gloss wears off and the international breaks become a chore.

We can all sit here and say that they are spoiled rich fuckers who don't know they are born, but i can kind of sympathise with why people wouldn't want to play for England, or why they may do so half arsed.

Firstly, we have shit, negative managers, have had since venables, it's dull, uninspiring football where we try to play like shit Italians.

Secondly, I wouldn't want to travel for 3 days to find myself on the bench so that a new kid can be tried out or a rag player is picked solely because he is a rag (eg cleverly, Richardson, the list is long)

Scholes was one of the honest ones, who saw the bullshit for what it was and fucked it off, and I respect him a lot for that.

The basic problem is that it's not just England, it's international football in general that is badly organised, badly administered, clearly the players are used to earn revenue for the FAs and the players don't get to share in that revenue either, which regardless what you think of their pay, I agree with them.....why the fuck should anybody make money out of me without compensating me for that.

Finally is the corruption, Trinidad vs England - I would have retired from international football in protest there and then!

When Michael Owen etc first appeared, I looked upon England as a potential great team, which they should have been, but as usual it was run & picked by football idiots & media idiots.

That's about the last time I felt any enthusiasm for it. The rebuilding of Wembley & London claiming the team as their property was probably the final straw.

I actually feel that, if Dyke, Howard Wilkinson, Camelgob etc can be kept out of it, & we find a quality modern manager, England will have a very very strong team within the next decade or so. Or at least potentially. It will possibly be led by players from City & Chelsea, & there lies the problem. That would bring huge resentment & the need to pick various 6ft sprinting gingers, from rags, Liverpool etc.

City & Chelsea could be for England, what Real & Barca have been for Spain. But it's very difficult to imagine politics not preventing that.

Ted Hughes wrote:The rebuilding of Wembley & London claiming the team as their property was probably the final straw

this is something that pisses me off, I have ZERO enthusiasm for International games, I do watch them if they are on, but that doesnt mean anything, I watch any sport.

I can honestly say, I will NEVER EVER go and watch another international game live, unless its at the Etihad and tickets are cheap, we know thats not going to happen for a LONG time, at least until Wembley is paid for twice over and I will be in a wooden box by then.

Wonderwall wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:The rebuilding of Wembley & London claiming the team as their property was probably the final straw

this is something that pisses me off, I have ZERO enthusiasm for International games, I do watch them if they are on, but that doesnt mean anything, I watch any sport.

I can honestly say, I will NEVER EVER go and watch another international game live, unless its at the Etihad and tickets are cheap, we know thats not going to happen for a LONG time, at least until Wembley is paid for twice over and I will be in a wooden box by then.

I did that for the Japan game at the Etihad, never, ever again.

England can go fuck themselves as far as I care, in terms of quality of football, I'd rather watch any other hard working international team working for their mates because it means something all day long.

Way back in the eighties I was on a training course with a load of Sheffield Wednesday fans. One night we had a few beers, well we had the beers every night, but this night we had beer and started talking football. They were all saying their biggest wish, even more than SWFC winning the league, was a great England team. I couldn't understand it then and can't now. Silly beggars are probably in the 'England Band'.

Hutch's Shoulder wrote:Way back in the eighties I was on a training course with a load of Sheffield Wednesday fans. One night we had a few beers, well we had the beers every night, but this night we had beer and started talking football. They were all saying their biggest wish, even more than SWFC winning the league, was a great England team. I couldn't understand it then and can't now. Silly beggars are probably in the 'England Band'.

How old were they back then? If they were like 18-20, they'd have grown up with Wednesday being a lower second to mid third tier club, which might have been an influencing factor. Have a look at the flags put up by England fans, and they're all from supporters of League One, League Two and Conference clubs. I guess it's due to their clubs never having a sniff at challenging for anything, and I doubt a Wednesday fan born in the late 1970s to mid 1980s would feel the same way as your colleagues.

Really curious, why do english people do not follow their nation the way they did?

I remember World Cup 98 and Euro 2000 when England played Romania and everyone was talking about the pressure of the fans and if the romanian squad is ready to face something like that. Then from the outside, it changed, it changed after England failed to qualify to Euro 2008.

For me is actually simple, our national team in the past 13 years was a disgrace. Full of overpriced players that were heavy drinkers and poor professionals. It was hard to feel any passion or support them, even if they were playing Hungary or Bulgaria, local rivals.

I often muse that if I played for City and was picked for England, I would flatly refuse to turn out for the national team.

After the way that City have been treated by the media, the football world in this country and all and sundry to boot, there's no way I would want to degrade myself by playing for the muppets who run the England side.

At the end of the day, I only care about City.

Tom Cleverly: 13 caps
david beckham: 115 caps

Matthew Le Tissier: 8 caps

PeterParker wrote:Really curious, why do english people do not follow their nation the way they did?

I remember World Cup 98 and Euro 2000 when England played Romania and everyone was talking about the pressure of the fans and if the romanian squad is ready to face something like that. Then from the outside, it changed, it changed after England failed to qualify to Euro 2008.

For me is actually simple, our national team in the past 13 years was a disgrace. Full of overpriced players that were heavy drinkers and poor professionals. It was hard to feel any passion or support them, even if they were playing Hungary or Bulgaria, local rivals.

I don't think so many people identify with the players, or coaches, or respect them the way they may have once done.

Also a lot of the people who used to follow England were psychopathic drunkards who enjoyed beating up 'foreigners' & smashing the fuck out of everywhere. Many of them are now banned from watching England & banned from leaving the country when England are playing away.

Also, I will not watch England again whilst Shrek is captain. He is the epitome of what is wrong with football today. Greed, contempt for fans and club alike, extremely questionable morals and these are his good points