World Cup: SF: Croatia vs. England, 7/11/2018

[cgf]

Maybe Germany has the luxury to do that but if a relatively bigger team finds themselves in the same situation as Holland did the last Euro qualifiers and has a second lifeline to Euro 2020 via this tournament, you don’t think they’re going to to take it seriously at that point?

For now, there are more than one season planned. If it’s not given some importance at this point, I think that when we see bigger nations and maybe even a giant get relegated into the B league, it won’t get good press in that nation and could be looked at as an embarrassment.

Oh absolutely, that's why I think we'll see such wonky results as most of the "biggest" teams will treat these matches like friendlies, while 1 or 2 teams who get desperate, turn to this to get them into the Euros.

And I do think there might some embarrassment to being "relegated" in this...if the main qualifying campaign isn't going well or the team is under siege from the local press...but there won't be much drive to actually win the league unless your main qualifying campaign has gone tits up.

 

[hatterson]

Someone posted this Henderson highlight video. It’s obviously cherry picked, but I still laughed.

 

[koyvoo]

Lol

I think hooferson is unfair tag. He does play the ball on the ground laterally..on occasion.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

It’ll be interesting to see how seriously it’s taken.

Seeing as how it’s the alternate route to the Euro’s, I can see if a big nation slips during the group qualifying phase and finds themselves eliminated, they’ll definitely turn up to play here. Also, there may be a pride thing at stake as the nations currently in the A league for the inaugural season probably won’t look to good being relegated to and then playing in the B leagues the next season.

I don’t expect it to be a World Cup or a Euro in prestige, but it would not be the Confederations Cup either. It’ll definitely be better than the useless friendlies it’s mostly doing away with.

Except that the games will take place before Euro 2020 qualifying even starts, in other words, none of the teams will know yet if they're going to be in trouble during the qualifying. And the first games will take place just a few weeks after the start of the domestic club seasons i.e. a time when most players have zero interest in playing for the national team and risking injury.

 

[koyvoo]

Except that the games will take place before Euro 2020 qualifying even starts, in other words, none of the teams will know yet if they're going to be in trouble during the qualifying. And the first games will take place just a few weeks after the start of the domestic club seasons i.e. a time when most players have zero interest in playing for the national team and risking injury.

Much of the games will be played, but the actual playoffs to claim the final spots for Euro 2020 will be played after the entire group qualifying phase is over and done with it.

 

[Chloraflora]

Well, congratulations to Croatia, clearly a better team than us. The quote by Vrsaljko pretty much sums it up, that despite all the claims and protestations and years of "progress", English players still don't know how to actually play football.

No preference on who wins the final, I like France as neighbours and friends and have friends there, but it would also be nice to see a new name on the trophy.

 

[kihei]

I will probably end up rooting for Croatia to win its first Cup, but I won't be angry if France wins. They play very attractive football, and Mbappe is exciting to watch.

 

[Eisen]

It gets even better with the proper view of it... even if it had been a legal play, they still managed to go offside

I have no clue where this stupid idea even came from. That was never, ever a legal play. Utterly braindead, and performed by more than one team.

 

[philip]

It's club over country every time for me. Not even moving to London has changed my attitude on that score.

This is it. My club is what I've been intrinsically involved in from such an early age I can't even remember how old I was. My dad used to take me every week. Then I went with my mates every week, and in a year or two I will start taking my young son every week. It's only the last year or two I haven't had a season ticket. I've invested untold money into tickets, travel, beer etc following my team all these years and the rivalries over those years will stay with me forever. What's funny is that my team is absolute dog poo and have just fallen out of the professional leagues into the conference. But there's been highs, lows, laughs, tears, league wins, promotions, relegations, Wembley trips, all week on week. There's been a time where we didn't even know if we'd have a club or not due to financial troubles, so the fans all clubbed together to buy the club to stop it disappearing.

So forgive me but a few players slung together every few years to play a tourney will never get remotely close to the same importance as my club. Never in a million years. It doesn't help that the majority of games we see from England are mind-numbingly boring friendly games that serve only to get players injured for the truly important stuff; club football. There's no wonder clubs and players have a history of feigning a niggling injury when international call ups come rolling round - they can't be bothered with it.

 

[Evilo]

Lots of players are however dreaming of playing for their nation. And there are many more examples of that than those who want to avoid NT callups.
I think it's very much an english thing.

 

[Stray Wasp]

This is it. My club is what I've been intrinsically involved in from such an early age I can't even remember how old I was. My dad used to take me every week. Then I went with my mates every week, and in a year or two I will start taking my young son every week. It's only the last year or two I haven't had a season ticket. I've invested untold money into tickets, travel, beer etc following my team all these years and the rivalries over those years will stay with me forever. What's funny is that my team is absolute dog poo and have just fallen out of the professional leagues into the conference. But there's been highs, lows, laughs, tears, league wins, promotions, relegations, Wembley trips, all week on week. There's been a time where we didn't even know if we'd have a club or not due to financial troubles, so the fans all clubbed together to buy the club to stop it disappearing.

So forgive me but a few players slung together every few years to play a tourney will never get remotely close to the same importance as my club. Never in a million years. It doesn't help that the majority of games we see from England are mind-numbingly boring friendly games that serve only to get players injured for the truly important stuff; club football. There's no wonder clubs and players have a history of feigning a niggling injury when international call ups come rolling round - they can't be bothered with it.

I think one of the FA's biggest mistakes has been that just as club football has gone into a tailspin of corporatism, they've sent the national team down the exact same path. One factor in that has been playing the overwhelming majority of the games at Wembley- for which there is an obvious commercial rationale, but a counter-argument that you're making it harder for so many fans to see their country live. You could argue that friendlies themselves could easily be abolished given their fundamental irrelevance to tournament football. Again, however, we know why they will continue to exist.

With regards to your bolded point, I was weeks short of my 18th birthday before England took the step of playing a home game somewhere other than the old Wembley for the first time in decades. Until then, there had been times when competitive games let alone friendlies had been played in front of crowds below the 30,000 mark. So it would have been a 560-mile round trip had I wanted to see my country play live as a child (remember North Americans, distances are relative to the mental landscape in which you're raised). Whereas Newcastle United, for all its flaws, was a 35 minute bus trip from my front door.

The end result is that the national team has always felt rather remote. And the idea that it represents a higher ideal is usually utter tripe. (One area in which Gareth Southgate excelled this summer was in his line about the team representing the nation's diversity, which seems to have struck a genuine chord).

 

[cgf]

That corporatization is one aspect of the German NT that irks the shit out of me with out NT as well & prevents my relationship with the mannschaft to ever truly match my relationship with my Eiserne.

On the positive side, I often wonder if that desire to avoid controversy & maximize profitability is behind why the NT embraced it's multi-cultural makeup & leaned into that communal spirit created from diverse backgrounds as their key marketing point...as well as putting so much money into the german academy system & coaching education...so I hesitate about throwing too much revulsion at some behaviors that irk me at club level.

But my endless frustration with the arrogance & complacency they demonstrate, especially with regards to Jogi & his staff, creates a constant conflict within myself with regards to the NT. Which is probably part of why my standards for the football they play are so high, to valid such smug self-satisfaction we need to be innovating...or at least being on the cutting edge of adopting innovations...constantly trying to improve & never being content to trust the heroes of our recent past.

...the other major factor being that it's the one football team that I cheer for genuinely that has the kind of talent that abandons clubs like Union before even reaching the final academy levels