This thread is for you to vent about what do you think is halting your national team to reach its full potential, why is it not performing as it would be supposed to. My problem is named Carlos Alberto "Woodface" Parreira. It's frustrating for us Brazil fans that the current world champs, with players of the likes of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaká, Rivaldo, Diego, Roberto Carlos, Adriano, Robinho, Juninho Pernambucano, Zé Roberto, etc., a much better roster than the World Cup winning one if I may say so, is failing to deliver convincing results after the WC title. Since this guy took over it's been a bunch of dull 0-0s and other major embarassments. How long will people buy this talk that Brazil is yet in a transitional stage from the WC2002 and these results are expected for a team with short training time and tired/injuried/unreleased players? Our problem is that we don't have a real world class coach in command, a so praised "strategist" but in fact a overzealous coward that is denying our team what they're known best for: attacking, foward-minded beautiful football. Rant over. Your turn now.
For Venezuela: 1. Corruption 2. Media's (TV and newspapers) obsession with baseball 3. Political situation (Looks like a TV station sabotaged the transmission of a Copa Libertadores game, might have been a political move) 4. And I guess the fact that Venezuelan soccer sucks
I think Scotland truly is in a transition period. You want embaressing friendly results, we got beat 4-0 by Wales for ******** sake! WALES!! Our last manager, Craig Brown, stuck with the same old players for too long although he did get us to a World Cup and European Championship. And now we're having to try out promising young players (McFadden, Fletcher, Perason) and older players who were not considered good enough under Brown (Pressley, Dickov). There are two encoursging things for Scots at the moment, one is our young players. The u-21 team is actually quite good at the moment uder the mangement of Rainher Bonhof. We won our EC qualifying group, beating Germany in Germany along the way. This is without players like James McFadden and Darren Fletcher, who are in the full team. This is due to clubs hitting finacial difficulties and starting to concentrate on youth. Motherwell and Hibs each have a host of promising players. Also, our home record under Berti Vogts is surprisingly good. Competitive wins over Faroe Islands, Lithuania, Iceland and Holland and a draw against Germany is very promising. Hampden is, once again, becoming an atmospheric and intimidating place to come for opposition teams. The fans are finally getting behind the boys the way they used to. We've got a tricky WC qualifying group but we start off at home to Slovenia and a nice wee win would get the ball rolling nicely.
For Portugal: Not enough Portistas! LOL J/K Actually, several things have bugged me about the NT. For starters: 1. The fact that we haven't been close to winning since 1966 has led, IMO, in an inferiority complex among many people. It's as if it's been settled in the minds of many that we're destined to fail no matter what. That really pisses me off. The 3-2 loss against the U.S. should be a wake-up call for those who think that we could, somehow, sneak through some teams to get ready for the "real" competition like Italy. 2. Related to #1: Attitudes. In a way, I admire the English attitude (or is it delusion) of being able to win anything and everything, no matter how crappy the team really is. Here, it's the opposite. Much of that stems from the fact we're a small country in terms of size; many still act like it's a fluke that we're in the big tournaments. Then they turn on the players when the results go expectingly negative. Now that's F'd up! 3. Interclub politics. Very unfortunate but what can you do. There's this unwritten rule that says that whoever's the coach has to make sure that there's a balance of players related to which club he's employed in, foreign and domestic. Too many foreign-based players and some think start bitching about how the domestic players are overlooked. Too many Portistas and Benfiquistas start complaining. Too many from the "Big 3" and people start saying how several other players were overlooked. You can't win everyone over anything, so why get involved in that? FCP are champions and CL participants. There's nothing wrong with getting as many players from my club as possible to play in the Selecçao, unless someone doesn't want to go. 4. Players having off games when they counted the most. See: Figo, Baia, Couto, Petit and few others I don't want to remember in the last WC. Euro 2000 was another sore spot. 5. Chaos in the organization at the club and national level. It's an old problem that won't go away anytime soon. Club presidents going to the media to bitch about other club presidents. Coaches threatening referees. Referees being incompetent as usual. Clubs not accomodating the claques, or groups of diehard supporters (See: The Super Dragões boycotting home matches because of ticketing problems). Poor marketing to the expat community. I'll stop there.
Selecao Brasileira: CAP and the corrupt Ricardo Texeira. The Oranje: Whiny players like Seedorf, questionable coaching, lack of team spirit Btw, I like your sn, Filho do Dragao. It is intimidating!
Well, there are tons of different opinions about America, but I'll give it a shot. The single biggest factor is that there are no reserve teams. Our youth clubs do a decent job at developing talent as you can tell by the results of when the elite youth teams travel abroad. Keep in mind I'm saying they get decent result so don't go dig up a 2-0 loss to an Ajax youth team as a retort. The area where we fall behind is when players reach college. The best don't go, and play professionally and generally are alright (Convey). The rest aren't playing at an elite level like the rest of the world. Basically we need more money in our pro system.
Intermission, Not quite but close. AUS has a reasonable second tier team if all the players in the European Leagues can ever be brought together AND they stop throwing their teddy-bears & dummies out of their prams. Unfortunately their mommies & daddies (at their clubs) have taught them to do this too well, so when they get to big school they don't know how to play with the big kids. Cheers. Andy T.
Agree The top strength Aussie side isn't bad - not world champs but able to mix it up with anyone on their day. Problem is they NEVER play together. Forget the mess that local soccer is in, because that doesn't really effect the national team - anyone who is any good is playing in Europe. The hard thing for local fans is the concept of "friendlies". These are completely alien to people who haven't grown up with soccer. Aussies expect a national team in any sport, in any contest, to be at completely full strength, and to play as hard as possible for a win - and expect the same from their opponent. So, when players cry off with broken fingernails, the fans lose interest.
Both those statements are utter rubbish. Sven-Goran Eriksson a crap manager? Look at his record for god's sake. One - one! - loss in competitive matches under his reign. Pretty much every other team in the world would kill to have a record like that and if you think that a 'crap manager' could achieve those results then you're absolutely clueless. Our main problem is that our players are usually knackered after a long season and so often lack energy for tournaments, coupled with the fact that we have in the past had players and managers who were tactically incompetent and unsuited to winning international tournaments.
Bear in mind that it was Wildman262 - with his long history of anti-English anything - who posted that. Eriksson, although i don't like his tactics, has got the results fro us.However, he will always be remembered for that godawful second half performance against Brazil. Our biggest failing over the past few seasons has been a declining Seaman in the net.One of the best in the world in his day, but his days were up long before the World Cup. A quality left midfielder to get something going down the flank has hindered us to no end as well, often leading to "hoof ball" tactics from the back to try and compensate for the lack of decent crosses from that side, trying to utilise the speed up front. I don't have to mention Heskey do i? Problem is there wasn't really anyone else to play there that could hold their own at the top level now was there?Besides he suited the high ball into the box idea. There are others, but these have really hampered us in the past 5 seasons.
Mobile, Clanblue I've noticed this as well. Given the seeming lack of options, shouldn't they consider moving Ashley Cole to the left midfield/flanker spot for the NT? This would allow him to utilize his offensive strengths, and open a spot for a more traditional (in the English tradition) left back to secure the back-line during his forrays upfield. Just a thought..interested in your perspectives.
This option has been discussed quite often in the media and by fans as far as I'm aware. Gary Lineker mentioned it on the BBC highlights programme for the Portugal game in February. Personally I think it has to be worth a try and it is pretty baffling why Sven hasn't tried it out in a friendly. I seem to remember that Bridge played on the left of midfield in the home game against Macedonia in the Euro 2004 qualifiers (although I might be mistaken). It surely must have occurred to Sven - and therefore, logically, he must have considered and subsequently dismissed the idea. The trouble is, nobody knows why. Perhaps he feels that the genuine midfielders we have are of a high enough quality to play at that level even when they're not in the correct position. I think most England fans would like to see the idea given a chance, but we're running out of friendlies.
I dunno, these are the same criticisms that Scolari had, negative football and poor results, yet he still won the World Cup and was practically flawless in his coaching and tactics when it mattered.
Are you a complete ********ing moron? I'm not Wildman262, you idiot. You're a moderator, take the five bloody seconds it takes and look at my IP. It doesn't change, I don't have dialup. Why would I be anti-English when I WAS BORN THERE? I've heard of stupid, but you're on your own. And as for me saying Sven is crap: okay, he isn't crap. But he's not brilliant either. England could do with a better manager than Sven but I really can't think of anyone else at the moment. And the talent comment isn't completely untrue. Yes, England has some very talented world class players (Beckham, Gerrard, Cole, ecetra) ... so why don't they win anything, then? Intermission
Canada: - A shallow player pool. - Losing talent to other countries. - Lack of regular friendlies, especially at home. - Not being able to play matches with a best team in many cases. - Lack of a national league. - Lack of gov't support. - "Old Guard" ideals within the governing body. - High expectations from fans and media. I'm sure I could come up with even more points. These come off the top of my head.
for the USA: Lack of confident, outside shooting.. Lack of a holding midfielder that can pace our game effectively (becomes evident against better teams)...
USA: Small player pool No reserve teams for MLS teams Lack of interest in the general public, which means less people are playing, which means a small player pool in the future, but the sport is growing
Republic of Ireland - Small talent pool. - Roy Keane retiring. - Lack of good domestic league (but our EPL presence makes up for a good bit of that). - The FAI (seriously, English posters moaning about the FA honestly need to look at this lot).
No. It was a gross exaggeration. Read upwards a few posts. What I meant by 'lack of talent', I meant 'lack of good talent'.