World Cup Qualifiers

[Bailey]

He was in the championship team of the season. Non have them have played consistently at club level. Lallana has played double the games. Welbeck scores 1 in 4. Jones is gash, even at B'burn. Cleverley has played 13 games in the last 2 years. AOC played more games for Soton than Arsenal. Henderson was average at Sunderland, like Jones he got a good media review. I don't see how any of them deserve a place on that basis? Like you have said it's too early for Sterling, it is for the rest of them as well.

 

Please dont base his England selection on being a part of the Championship team of the season! Otherwise we Kelvin Davies, Clyne, Tomkins, C Davies, Harte, Whittingham, Noble, Phillips, Lambert and Rodriguez should all be in the squad and guess what, the majority of them are distinctly average!

 

Welbeck has showed himself to be a quality Premiership striker, which he showed us at Goodison for one thing. 1-4 in the Prem isnt to be sniffed at as there are a lot of strikers who could only dream of such a thing, especially at his age!

 

Jones is a good CB, he has just been fucked about by playing down the right & by trying to run the ball out. He didnt deserve to be in the England team when he was though.

 

Cleverley and AOC will be at the heart of the England team for years to come. The former played really well for a struggling Wigan side, and looked a prospect before he got injured for Utd last year. He has played throughout the summer so fitness wasnt an issue. AOC has showed numerous times that he has buckets of quality, even if it is accompanied by the naiveness of youth. He has accomplished far more at the highest levels than Lallana has.

 

Henderson was doing a decent job at Sunderland, but again no idea why he was selected for England.

 

Lallana is a decent player, but thats it. He isnt international quality and I am yet to be convinced that he is good enough to play in the Premiership on a regular basis. He has accomplished far less in the top flight than any of the players above, and whilst I agree with you that some of them shouldnt have been anywhere near an England Squad, its laughable to suggest that Lallana is just as worthy of playing for England as the likes of Welbeck, Cleverley & Sturridge.

 

Anyway Pete, lets just agree to disagree because we wont be getting anywhere on this and I imagine that will also be the case in the F1 thread! lol

[Guest blueboy122]

Anybody see Gerrard getting sent off.... Shambles. He tries a hollywood pass and it doesnt come off as usual so he tries a to get the ball back with a wreckless tackle through the back of a ukrainian player. Just reaffirms to me what we have all said before about him and also that peice in the gurdian/times. He isnt in the same league as some of the midfeild masters like Pirlo,Zidane,Figo etc.

[Matt]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24701131

[Guest Nikica]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24701131

 

I've seen worse ideas, but it does lengthen the tournament more than he realises. As long as only two teams still qualify it's not so bad. The biggest issue is that in a five team section one team has to sit out the final games, which is a distinct disadvantage and completely unfair.

 

The big issue is that FIFA have to balance quality of the competition with making the tournament a truly global affair which unites fans around the world. CONCACAF and AFC in particular have too many places, but you can't start giving their spots to Europe and South America because it's not just about the quality of the teams, it's about making it the WORLD Cup.In saying that, until Africa, Asia and North American can perform as well as Europe and South America, they shouldn't be awarded more spots, imo. The quality of the group stage is generally average as it is.

 

This is the same reason why the Euros will be worse in 2016. Having 24 teams is great in the sense of there being more games and the fact that I might finally see Scotland make a tournament for the first time in my adult life, but in terms of quality of football and logistics (a la Italia 90 and USA 94 where some third place teams advance from the sections which means groups who finish their game early are at a disadvantage as teams won't know how many points they need to advance and hence whether to play for a draw or a win) it's a poor decision.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Nikica

[Matt]

Thought you might be for it mate, Scotland might get a chance!

[Guest Nikica]

Thought you might be for it mate, Scotland might get a chance!

 

Ha. Well, I do reference that above for the Euros. But it's not about my interests or those of middling nations, it's about the spectacle as a whole. If Scotland can't qualify until the numbers go up then that's our problem. Still, if we make it it will be nice to see.

 

As for any World Cup 'increase', the idea behind it is to give more spots to other continents without taking any from Europe. Europe won't gain any spots from it so it would make no difference to Scotland's chances of qualifying anyway. It's the likes of Africa and Asia who will benefit.

 

I know my post has a bit of 'old football snobbery' in the sense that how can newer football markets such as Asia and Africa improve if not given more spots? It's also totally against my views on colonialism, capitalism in football etc, so I am torn over it. I guess it all comes down to me thinking the quality of the tournament would be compromised too much if other continents were more heavily represented. As I said, there needs to be a balance between quality of the tournament and representation.

 

As for any potential arguments about removing spots from Europe and South America, people might look at the stats and say "50% of CONMEBOL generally qualifies, and with Brazil hosting this year 6/10 of their nations will be there if Uruguay eliminate Jordan. On the other hand, a tiny percentage of African and Asian teams qualify". This is a fair point, however what people must realise is 90% of CONCACAF, OFC, CAF and AFC are tiny nations on the level of poor European teams, they're cannon fodder anyway. Every team in South America is probably better than 90% of all of these confederations, ditto UEFA (even though we have teams like San Marino and Andorra, even our middling nations would beat many teams in the above confederations). It's a weighting system, similar to why PL, La Liga etc receive four CL spots whereas other nations with similar size leagues receive one or two. The strength of the particular confederation must be taken into account. As I said though, how can the lesser countries improve if not given the chance? That's why I like Platini's 'Champions route' which is now a part of the CL qualifiers and lets minnows from small nations have a shot at the group stage.

 

Going back to five team groups, by the way, teams who don't play last actually have an advantage for a potential last 16 game as they would have far more rest, so it works both ways. In the group itself someone's always going to be coming off a blank gameday and therefore have a freshness advantage over their opponent who didn't have a blank day last time round. It's too much of a logistical clusterfuck.

 

I'm going offline now but just wanted to discuss this a bit. Maybe talk about it again soon.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Nikica