[Oscar Tone]

SalvadorDarley, on 14 February 2012 - 03:37 PM, said:

England have never won a knockout match against a major football nation in either a WC or EC outside Wembley. The idea that we can suddenly string 2 or 3 of these results together to win a tournament is fanciful.

To address this we need a totally different football culture which invests in the long term infrastructure of the game to enable us to produce enough young lads who can play football properly. As long as the Premier League hoovers up all the cash whilst schoolkids play on dire pitches without proper facilities and coaching nothing will get better.

If you go to even the smallest town in places like Germany and Holland you will see publicly available sporting facilities that are far superior to what many professional clubs in the UK have.

And to follow up re coaching, countries like Germany and Spain have 8-10 times more Uefa qualified coaches than we have. This is being addressed but progress is slow.

I think the knock out one is a bit dubious, we've beaten the likes of France, Germany & Argentina away from home. Four years after they played Argentina in a semi-final we knocked Belgium out of Italia 90 as well. If the major nations are Germany, Spain, Holland, Argentina, Brasil & France; then only Brasil & Germany have beaten us in knock out games i think.

Agree with you about some facilities though. Locally they have been appalling; a couple of very good teams that i came up against back in the day were Ashover & Whaley Bridge. Their pitches were rubbish, as were so many others in North Derbyshire. Dont think i;ve ever met anyone with coaching qualifications. Interesesting to know if Prem clubs invested in coaching courses for their community.

[Johnnyspireite7]

Oscar Tone, on 14 February 2012 - 04:57 PM, said:

I think the knock out one is a bit dubious, we've beaten the likes of France, Germany & Argentina away from home. Four years after they played Argentina in a semi-final we knocked Belgium out of Italia 90 as well. If the major nations are Germany, Spain, Holland, Argentina, Brasil & France; then only Brasil & Germany have beaten us in knock out games i think.

Agree with you about some facilities though. Locally they have been appalling; a couple of very good teams that i came up against back in the day were Ashover & Whaley Bridge. Their pitches were rubbish, as were so many others in North Derbyshire. Dont think i;ve ever met anyone with coaching qualifications. Interesesting to know if Prem clubs invested in coaching courses for their community.

But he is quite right about the knock out phase issue, the three matches you site were all group stage games. Belgium will never be a major footballing nation.

Oh and it's Brazil in this country, if you are going to use the local spelling of a country's name then you have to do it for all of them! so that'll be Deutschland, Espana & der Nederlands then!

This post has been edited by Johnnyspireite7: 14 February 2012 - 05:19 PM

[Oh Wade Falana]

Will be out in Ukraine (and possibly Poland if we get to the Warsaw Semi)for the duration on the tournament. Won't be going out of any blind faith or expectations, would've jacked it all in a long time ago if that were the case, but more for the fun of seeing pastures new, the laughs and the overall experience. Got tickets for all England group games, and all the possible k.o. games, as well as a few random games to tie in - looking forward to it - though an expensive trip to Oslo just before it certainly hit the wallet hard!

Following England aint everyones bag, and that's fair enough, but neither is following town - i enjoy both even though success is a rare, rare thing for both.