they're no worse than France and Ukraine either ... and with the bench problems England currently have looking like Pearce getting the seat its still quite even
Just to say, when Sweden came to Wembley in November they looked awful.. and that was against an England C team - half of them will not even make our Euro squad. I doubt Pearce will get the job (thank god) The FA are stupid but not that stupid. It is most likely that Redknapp will get the job, he hasn't come out and said he doesn't want it, and in the past has always said what an honour it would be, so it's pretty obvious he's waiting for it. I also think that some people might be underestimating us a bit, you are forgetting that there is hardly any pressure on us to perform at this tournament after the recent stories, added to the fact that we will probably be taking a very youthful squad.. it could go either way
Swedes are certainly worse than France and England, in my opinion. Sweden is at the same level as Ukraine, except Ukraine are playing at home with all the home support, so I would put Ukraine's chances against Sweden at about 51%. But, of course, this is why they play the games.
you know ... France and Sweden are neck to neck in the latest FIFA ranking, with i believe 6 points between them ... France haven't been playing that well since ... well ... some point before Korea/Japan, where they managed to get run down in group play, while being reigning champions you could of cause debate how fair those rankings is, but they're hardly pulled randomly from a hat. England is way better player by player than all but very few teams, but their organization (both on the team and the FA) is shitty beyond belief
FIFA rankings are certainly not fair. NTs not participating in official competitions are needlessly penalized by these rankings. so, Ukraine, and, to even a greater degree - Poland, had been totally destroyed by the FIFA ranking system.
Didn't even remotely touch Poland and Ukarine in that post, so thank for indirectly argeeing with me about France
I did not realize I was agreeing with you. What's more, what success can you point me to achieved by the Swedish team that would suggest they are even in the same league as France?
Well, for one thing, France had won their qualifying group, Sweden finished second. Secondly, France qualified for WC2010, Sweden didn't.
Sweden finished as best second in group with Netherlands who's largely hailed as one of the biggest teams on the current scene France completely imploded WC2010, managing to look bad every single time (and i'm not just talking about off the field)
Netherlands lost 3-0 to the Germans and were outplayed recently, let's see how France will fair against the Germans on the 29th though.
Sweden didn't even make it to the WC2010. Sweden actually did worse in WC2010 qualification than did Ukraine.
The France team of 2010 is an old story by now. Blanc has completely rebuilt the team with new players AND with players that should have been at WC 2010 but weren't chosen. Since August of 2010,France are unbeaten in 18 matches, including wins over Brazil, Germany and England. And by the way, FIFA rankings are a joke if you read how they are calculated.
It will be a very interesting summer. I would say France should be the favourites since they done a lot of progress and rebuilding since WC 2010 and if their development continues in the same way they should have that extra to win the group. For the other teams it is a lot of Pros and Cons. England has several quality players but how rarely do they actually deliver and they always seems to suffer incredible from the expectations. I don't think they are helped by the manager question (I guess all 3 other teams hope they assign Redknapp to the job) and Rooney being suspended 2 first games. Sweden is still in progress of building a new team so for the moment very dependent on the form/health of some key players and specially Ibrahimovic. If he is in form and is being a team player we can do miracles but if not it will be like playing with 10 men on the pitch. Ukraine is the team I have least knowledge about but as I understand quite strong home but not always so good away. But when I hear rumours you might play with Shevchenko it indicates you might have some problem. But playing home is a big plus unless you start badly, then it can be a big disadvantage. So as I said, France wins the group and after that any of the 3 other teams can take the second place. A very open group in my opinion. @RobTheFool. A friendly is a friendly, you try new ideas, new players to develop the team in a "safe" situation. I agree it is better to win a friendly compared to lose it but you should never make too many conclusions from the result in a friendly.
It isn't really nonsense. Bar probably 6 other teams, we have better players than other teams. That doesn't mean that we are any good though.
Well, Shevchenko is still our best player. Possibly, when he's 50 he might still be our best player. Sadly. P.S. The only player Ukraine has better than Shevchenko is actually coaching Ukraine. Except he's 60. P.S.II Aren't we lucky we ARE at home?
Ukraine looks like they're going to have massive keeper issues ... first choice Shovkovskiy is out with a shoulder injury, Rybka, who's the secondmost used keeper (2 matches(!)) is out due to a positive doping test, and third, Dikan, is also out with an injury, although he could be physically fit for fight before then, he'll be out of form not having played much if any other than a wee bit of training
You're saying that out of 18 teams in this competition, 'only' 6 have better players than England. I'd say that is more than the 'very few teams' mentioned by Sian. Being 7th out of 18 (looking purely at a player-by-player comparison) would make England a very, very average team. In fact, I think it's even worse than that. England has big names, yes, but only one big player. Rooney is the only world-class player, the rest of the 'stars' are all overrated. Not just in the NT, but on club level too.
What are you trying to prove other than just trolling? No one on here has said anything about England being better than average. On another note, If you are talking about world class, then Ashley Cole and Joe Hart are in that category. Please go ahead and name all the world class players that other teams have apart from Spain, Germany and Holland? I'm sure that will be easy for you.
How does one define "world class"? Does it include Ibragimovic? Shevchenko? Arshavin? Cronaldo? Ribery? Cech?