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Did we actually play that badly in the World Cup? Nope. Nowhere near as badly as 2010 considering opposition. It was moments of individual brilliance from Balotelli and Suarez that saw us not get through a very tough group, a group that swallowed up Italy too.

I thought the way we played perfectly suited the formation and players we use and it worked pretty darn well, didn't it?

It's not even just that though. The SAME teams we would more often than not beat very comfortably in qualifying/friendlies, we will struggle against in a tournament situation. See: Algeria, Slovenia, Trinidad & Tobago, Ecuador. You take the exact same teams from last night and drop them into a...

But we've performed like this before leading into tournaments. We looked fantastic going into 2010, with a much better squad than we have now.

It was a different sport. Horrific pitches and footwear and footballs etc.

You're nice. X

He's referring to the standard of football. Some people do wear rose tinteds when it comes to "old football", as evidenced earlier in the thread. See Mo Gosfield's post, hard to believe but it does seem to making out that footballers were generally better in the 60s than now.

Uh oh...

Frustratingly meaningless how good we can look in friendlies and qualifiers. This same fixture in Euro 2016 would probably see us nervously drawing 1-1 at the moment.

The most notable deficiencies are the defending and positional sense. In the clip I saw, roughly every 10-20 seconds someone would do something that would be considered close to a "howler" nowadays by Championship standards, let alone top level.

I get that people have fond memories of the sport they grew up with but I'm fully prepared that in 50 years time people will look back and laugh at the football we see now. It's a game that's constantly evolving and improving, footballers have become proper athletes now.

Sorry, are you GENUINELY trying to suggest that the players you've listed above are better than modern top level footballers? Glen Johnson has scored better goals than anyone on your list. That's GLEN JOHNSON, a very average prem player nowadays. Football is lightyears ahead of 40 years ago...

If it's played anything like last season's there will definitely be goals.

Agree largely but as a one off, it's a laugh. Also, looking like we could definitely see one or two home nations at Euro 16...

Have you been talking to my wife?

Last years game was a cracking game of football, mostly because Scotland were well up for it which then woke us up. Felt like old times.