England v Iceland 8pm

****BREAKING NEWS****

Roy Hodgson has been offered a position in Cameron's working party as he has showed outstanding success in getting out of Europe.

The question is.... How many sets of numpty away fans will we have at the Amex copying the Iceland 'Clap' chant?

Captain Sensible said:

The question is.... How many sets of numpty away fans will we have at the Amex copying the Iceland 'Clap' chant?

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Some of us were doing it at the Elephant and Castle in Lewes tonight.

Thunder Bolt said:

Hodgson said himself he would go after the Euros. He is 68, after all.

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Thunder Bolt said:

At 68 years old, most people have retired. He always said he would go after the Euros, whether it was group stage, last 16 or whenever.

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WHERE did he say he would go after the Euro's ? I have not seen a single quote from Hodgson stating that.

He said he wouldn't "beg for his job" whatever the outcome this summer, but at no point did Roy say he was off after this tournament. An "honourable" defeat to France at the weekend and he'd be the one taking us into the WC qualifiers. Thankfully, that ship has sailed tonight for the 1950's bus driver.

Ernest said:

6 wins in knockout stages since we won the World Cup , disgraceful statistic

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Please don’t quality for Russia
I don’t want to see an England fan die whilst supporting his/her team in a volatile Country, when your team seem to think it’s not important to turn up

Thunder Bolt said:

No it isn't. It's just a rough patch, but we'll get over it.

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ManOfSussex is right. This country is crap at the moment.

Robot Chicken said:

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That is quite lovely

Is anyone still prepared to argue, with me, the fact that drugs are rife in English football?



Ok sure the national team are yet to a supply of the Performance Enhancing kind, but you can't tell me they weren't on drugs.

https://vine.co/v/5uPO9QlWeAY

Lol

The Andy Naylor Fan Club said:

Yeah. But do you still love me?

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Deffo.

DavePage said:

Please don’t quality for Russia
I don’t want to see an England fan die whilst supporting his/her team in a volatile Country, when your team seem to think it’s not important to turn up

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Then Roy was the right man to take us forward, he should have stayed.
Just think, this England squad going to a World Cup in a country that nobody wants to go to in case they die.
A country that hates us, is racist and all the rest of it and should never have been given it in the first place.
What with all the deaths, referendum and the state of this country politically and divided and now our performance, 2016 is turning out to be a monumental year for all the wrong reasons and we are only 6 months into it, I shudder to think what the rest of this year is going to bring, maybe the end of the world is nigh.

Watching the ITV post match debate showed something that has infiltrated current modern footballers.

Both Dixon and Wright were despairing at the lack of leadership and passion, whilst Crouch countered that he didnt agree as all players, 'care' and 'want to do well'.

But 'wanting to win' and 'caring for the outcome of the game' isnt passion, that is just an aspiration of what you want to happen, passion is the nature of a player or group of players that can then influence that outcome.

essbee said:

Usual FA bollox - time and time again they sit in their semi-detached states wondering why we don;t do well.

I'll tell you why FA - because you're a clueless, hopeless, inept, out-out-touch bunch of wanke*s

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They are the constant in this ongoing débâcle. I have thought this ever since the nonsense around Sven. I know Dick Van Dyke is there at the moment and at least he knows what shape a ball is but I reckon that a good as it gets. There are deep rooted problems with football in this country and it starts with the FA. They couldn't even mange to start the FA Cup on time this year, seriously inept. They are an amateur organisation in a professional world.

I am quite happy to give the FA a kickin' as well as ridicule the manager we are very good at it.

But firstly the players may be rich but in the grand scheme of things they are not as good as we are told they are, the manager doesnt have enough players to pick from, you can have half a dozen games in the Premiership and you very quickly become a likely England player, that has to deliver poor outcomes.

If you want to improve the genuine England talent pool you need to find a way of getting more English, not British but English players playing in the Premier League.

The conundrum is that with the advent of foreign owners, foreign managers and coaches there is little incentive to deliver opportunity to a broader English young player and until someone finds a way of delivering that we cannot possible succeed.

The biggest urban myth is the quote 'if your good enough', that isnt actually nearly true, if you cared to look at the paper trail of most foreign imports that arrive perhaps 26 years old, you will likely find a chequered journey to Premiership riches, but they at least had an opportunity to compete more likely in their domestic league probably surviving a season or two indifferent performances to then somehow hit a two or three season vein of form that then catapulted them into their minds of a Premiership scout, coach or manager, most likely to be of the same nationality, by the way.

Without an environment where this can happen to hundreds of talented English footballers rather than the current small numbers it is nearly impossible to find a squad of players that can withstand injury crisis, loss of form crisis or big club favouritism, I dunno how it might be achieved but without it nothing will change.

Now dont get me started on Academy's, great buildings poor practice by its staff ....................................

North Stand Nutter said:

That and the piss taking you'll be facing at work tomorrow!

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As it goes mate it was fine, one of the guys I work with is an ex youth coach with Swansea, he coached Joe Allen etc, he knows his football, he was sensible about it, the only one who tried his best to take the piss knows absolutely nothing about football anyway so he failed miserably!!

Hope you and the family are well

hitony said:

As it goes mate it was fine, one of the guys I work with is an ex youth coach with Swansea, he coached Joe Allen etc, he knows his football, he was sensible about it, the only one who tried his best to take the piss knows absolutely nothing about football anyway so he failed miserably!!

Hope you and the family are well

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Nice clip of the Welch team dancing on chairs and hugging each other at full time...come on Belgium...I'm not bitter

I agree, positively disgusting! then even worse they go on TV, lying and saying it was for the underdogs winning!

El Presidente said:

Spain won the European Championships in 2008 and 2012, and the World Cup in 2010.

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And went out in a whimper against Italy a couple of days ago.

El Presidente said:

I looked up the Faroe Island results, they lost 8 out of 10 in Euro 2016 qualifying, 9 out of 10 WC 2014, 8 out of 10 Euro 2012, 8 out of 10 in WC 2010, and 12 out of 12 in Euro 2008.

So your team first mentality in last ten years delivered 45 defeats in 52 games.

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You need to look harder

Faroes Islands has a population equivalent to that of Lancaster who play in Northern Premier League Division One North, or Horsham who play in the Isthmian League South Division, or Sittingbourne who play in the same division as Horsham.

The Faroe Islands has 20 soccer teams playing in two divisions. So when you think of Lancaster or Horsham you are looking a 20 pub teams loaning players to the tier 8 non-league team to play international matches. Of their current squad one of the players plays for Banks O'Dee in the SJFA North Superleague in Aberdeen.

So in that context - let's look at the results since they were allowed play international matches

1992 Euros qualifiers
In their very first game they defeated Austria 1-0 at home
The subsequently drew 1-1 away with N. Ireland
and finished with a record of W1 D1 L6

1994 World Cup was not a particularly good campaign - they lost all 8 games and their best result was probably a 0-3 defeat to Belgium

1996 Euros
Defeated San Marino twice 3-0 home and 3-1 away - Scotland beat San Marino 1-0 away as did Finland and Greece only managed a 2-0 win at home against them

1998 World Cup
Defeated Malta twice 2-1 on both occasions and finished fifth in the group. They scored 10 goals in 10 group games (conceding 31) and scored 3 times against Spain (2-6 and 1-3). They scored at least one goal in 8 of their 10 games

2000 Euros
The Faroes drew three games - 0-0 away to Lithuania, 1-1 at home to Scotland and 2-2 at home to Bosnia. Scotland managed a 2-1 over the Faroes in Glasgow and the Czech Republic only managed 1-0 and 2-1 wins (the Czechs had Nedved, Poborsky, Koller, Srnicek, Repka, Smicer, Nemec, Rosicky, in their team)

2002 World Cup
Beat Luxembourg twice 2-0 away and 1-0 at home and drew 2-2 with Slovenia. In the group they lost 0-1 away to Russia and 0-1 at home to Switzerland. They finished the group in fifth place.

2004 Euros
Drew 2-2 with Scotland at home (Scotland scored with 5 minutes to go) and lost 1-2 away and 0-2 at home to Germany. At home to Germany the game was 0-0 until the 88th minute.

2006 World Cup
Drew 2-2 away to Cyprus. They lost 1-2 away to Israel with the Israelis scoring in injury time.

2008 Euros
Lost 0-1 at home to Lithuania who scored in the 89th minute, lost 1-2 at home to Italy (the Faroes scored with 15 minutes to go and laid siege to the Italian goal for the rest of the game almost equalising twice only for Buffon to save the Italians)

2010 World Cup
Won 2-1 at home to Lithuania and drew 1-1 at home to Austria. Their best game was probably at home against the French (I watched the game live) They lost 0-1 from a Gignac goal but ran the French ragged for most of the second half. The French just couldn't handle them. The Faroes also lost 0-1 at home to Romania in front of 805 supporters. Their home record was W1 D1 L3 GF 3 GA 6.

2012 Euros
Won 2-0 at home to Estonia (Estonia finished second in this group behind Italy before losing the play-off to Rep of Ireland) and drew 1-1 at home to N. Ireland. They lost 0-1 to Italy, hitting the post and crossbar and forcing a string of saves from Buffon.

2014 World Cup
Drew 1-1 at home to Kazakhstan They lost 1-2 at home to Sweden with a bit of Ibrahimovic magic winning the game late for the Swedes.

2016 Euros
Beat Greece twice 2-1 at home and 1-0 away finishing fifth in the group. N. Ireland, Romania and Hungary all qualified from this group for the recent Finals.


Now - a minnow will always pull off a shock result - but let me ask you this question - do you think that the likes of Lancaster or Horsham or Sittingbourne could put together a team over a 25 year period that consistently year-in-year out will play five games a year against teams from the Premier League, Championship and League 1 and pull out wins, draws and narrow defeats on a regular basis.

You can have all the skill you want - but if you are a part-time/amateur footballer who approaches the game with a fire in your belly, is committed to a team first approach and are willing to work your socks off in an organised fashion with the rest of your team mates, then you can put one over on a bunch of overpriced and over paid prima donnas no matter how much skill they have.

Last season Man United paid what is now £50million (and it could end up costing £60million) for a kid who is barely old enough to shave and they are paying him £3.5million a year for five years (he will possibly earn more in those five years than the entire Faroes Islands squad will earn collectively in their entire working lives). I grew up in an era when the likes of Ipswich, Derby, Leeds, Nottm Forest, Everton could win the League, when a dozen or more teams had a chance of winning every year, when the gap between the highest paid player in the top division was not that much greater than the lowest paid player in the bottom division and when the players and the fans were more important than the money. Now you need a billionaire willing to trow money around like confetti to win anything (and Leicester's success was an aberration) and you have Sky conning everyone with a marketing ploy that the Premier League is the best league in the world so people will fork out for pay per view.

I now find part-time football and international football far, far, more entertaining than the Premier League or La Liga - because the little guy still has a chance and those with heart, and guts and a fire in their belly can show up the guys who get more money in a year than they would need in a lifetime.

I can't find it now - but someone asked earlier why the Germans can consistently produce good teams - this is the reason.

Bundesliga clubs are required to be majority-owned by German club members (known as the 50+1 rule (de) to discourage control by a single entity) and operate under tight restrictions on the use of debt for acquisitions (a team only receives an operating license if it has solid financials).

Bundesliga clubs paid less than 50% of revenue in players wages, the lowest percentage out of the European leagues. The Bundesliga has the lowest ticket prices and the highest average attendance out of Europe's five major leagues.

The Germans operate an unofficial salary cap and strict financial rules and invest major resources into the development of their youth programme. In other countries you have the likes of Abramovich who doesn't care about fostering a culture of football, doesn't care about young players and doesn't care how much it costs because he can just go out an buy any player he wants.

The Premier League and other European leagues are actually facing a major challenge in the future despite all the money Sky, the oligarchs and the sheikhs are tossing around. The new money billionaires in China are going to throw even more money at players. Sven Goran Eriksson (remember him - another spoofer) - well he is now a manager in Shanghai and has just paid close to £50million for Hulk who is going to be paid £20million a year / £400,000 a week (and you can be sure he is paying shag-all tax on that).