Inspired by the insipid post in the USMNT forum where the predictable answer of 'England' was most often given I thought I'd ask the same question in here. Why? Well why not? My vote goes to Wales. I've never seen England play Wales and although I'd liked to have played them when they were crap I'll take playing them while they're mildly better than crap
Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing England play Wales at the Millenium Stadium. But since Sven fields two teams in every friendly game, why not play ourselves?
Guess playing us isn't very high on your list, eh Prenn? I'd like to see you play Korea - England prides themselves on their workrate, and no one runs the field like the Koreans. Should make for a wide open game...
I would like to see us play a team in south america. A trip to somewhere like Paraguay or ecuador would be interesting.
hey, if you can be inspired by something you view as insipid, where does that leave you? I'd like to see England play Wales, too. Actually, a British Isles Cup - round robin tournament - would be very entertaining.
"But since Sven fields two teams in every friendly game, why not play ourselves?" Lol! True that, but they'd never get round to kicking off, too busy arguing in the tunnel over who has to have Phil Neville Anyway, my answer would be Spain. We hardly ever seem to play them, and I think it would make for an interesting game, even with dozens of subs.
I really couldn't give two craps about a friendly match against anyone. Perhaps the ol' faithful Germany or Argentina game could arouse mild interest - but even that's a push. The only way to get worked up about a match is if it matters.
I view friendly matches in almost the same way as competetive matches. There are no friendly matches at international level due to the fact that they're so few and far between, each one means something. Take the recent friendlies with S&M and South Africa, useless? Only if you don't care about the Slovakia game, those two matches were vital to keep the team ticking over. We should really have played three. If you don't care about the friendlies you shouldn't care about the competetive games IMHO.
Depends a bit on the quality of opposition though don't you think? I mean a friendly against San Marino ain't quite the same as one against Brazil. Some friendlies are simply a joke.
Re: Re: Re: Who would you like to see England play in a friendly? I'm not either - it's why I tend to lurk more than post. (Didn't even sign up for a few months)
I'd love to see a Korea-England matchup. My two favorite national teams. Didn't Korea and England tie in a WC matchup last year?
How about a World XI, in a 10 match home and home series, played the weekend of the FA Cup Final, in Kuala Lumpur - and Landon Donovan would play in every game! Oh ... oh .. and there'd be no offsides!! And definitely no penalty kicks. We would make one player every 15 minutes of extra time play on a unicycle. Blindfolded! Gosh, that would be so, like, amazing, I think I'd ... I'd ... wee. I really would.
Friendlies under Sven have become especially meaningless. At least in the good old days we could take some sort of pseudo-pride from the fact that we'd beaten Romania 5-0, but these days none of the players even bother trying. The last home friendly I went to was the Holland game at White Hart Lane (went to the return in Amsterdam as well - made an exception for that one ). To be quite honest, I'm not prepared to waste £30-odd watching a training exercise which means nothing. But to answer the original question, I'd like to see us play away in South America somewhere. I guess Brazil would be a pretty good match-up and the players might at least look interested.
Always Dodging the US Not only is the actual English national team avoiding a showdown with the US at all costs, so too are its fans on bigsoccer. I love the England national team (my 2nd fav), I have two really good friends that are from Newcastle (Whitley Bay), who coincidently have inspired me to become a soccer fan and now I can't stop playing Championship Manager or reading 6 hours a day on soccernet/bigsoccer/mlsnet/etc....but im sick of the crap, saddle up and get your butts on the pitch and play us. You know our 20 year olds aren't going to shy away.
Considering you seem unable to grasp the fact that we're not really bothered either way, can I just ask why we should care so much?
Sure they're useful, but they aren't something to get worked up about. And Mobile made a good point. Friendlies have been further cheapened by the antics of a certain Swede of late. Well, they'd been going down the silly route for a bit - but eleven on for eleven takes the p*ss somewhat. When the players start acting like it matters, then I will.