'All changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born'

M

Mountain Climber

Well-known member
To use one of my favourite quotes by W B Yeats about the Easter Uprising in Ireland, but to give it a World Cup focus if I may? I never imagined years ago I would ever see a tournament without the great Italians qualifying, or Germany not progressing twice in four years from the group stages, or Brazil losing a game in the group stages. These are changing times as far as international football. Spain, Germany, and Belgium are not the forces they once were.

Even Argentina, France and Brazil to some degree. Has there ever been a better time for England to capitalise? Japan, Senegal and some others who have qualified must not be underestimated. There may be a new order now in world football and England may be in a strong position as the last of the old order to finally win the cup again.
 
It is a bit like those domestic seasons when some teams 'sneak' towards the top positions, like we did during our 2000s European finishes.

You can't control 'better' teams underperforming, so just focus on yourselves. Someone was telling me last night about how it might not be such a good win without Germany, Italy etc to beat in the knockout stages... So what? That's their fault, like when England got beat by Iceland or failed to qualify.

Nobody would have been too fussed about the opposition if we got to that FA Cup final after the Cardiff debacle and actually won the thing.
 
jeff_potato said:
It is a bit like those domestic seasons when some teams 'sneak' towards the top positions, like we did during our 2000s European finishes.

You can't control 'better' teams underperforming, so just focus on yourselves. Someone was telling me last night about how it might not be such a good win without Germany, Italy etc to beat in the knockout stages... So what? That's their fault, like when England got beat by Iceland or failed to qualify.

Nobody would have been too fussed about the opposition if we got to that FA Cup final after the Cardiff debacle and actually won the thing.
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There was only one European finish, and that was 7th.
The rest of the 2000s we finished 11th - 14th. The only thing we sneaked towards was relegation.
Just saying.
 
Mountain Climber said:
To use one of my favourite quotes by W B Yeats about the Easter Uprising in Ireland, but to give it a World Cup focus if I may? I never imagined years ago I would ever see a tournament without the great Italians qualifying, or Germany not progressing twice in four years from the group stages, or Brazil losing a game in the group stages. These are changing times as far as international football. Spain, Germany, and Belgium are not the forces they once were.

Even Argentina, France and Brazil to some degree. Has there ever been a better time for England to capitalise? Japan, Senegal and some others who have qualified must not be underestimated. There may be a new order now in world football and England may be in a strong position as the last of the old order to finally win the cup again.
Click to expand...
Such poetry an prose - thats what you get being in Logistics ;)
 
Mountain Climber said:
To use one of my favourite quotes by W B Yeats about the Easter Uprising in Ireland, but to give it a World Cup focus if I may? I never imagined years ago I would ever see a tournament without the great Italians qualifying, or Germany not progressing twice in four years from the group stages, or Brazil losing a game in the group stages. These are changing times as far as international football. Spain, Germany, and Belgium are not the forces they once were.

Even Argentina, France and Brazil to some degree. Has there ever been a better time for England to capitalise? Japan, Senegal and some others who have qualified must not be underestimated. There may be a new order now in world football and England may be in a strong position as the last of the old order to finally win the cup again.
Click to expand...
Spain and Belgium are more of a force now than in the majority of my time watching football. The Italians and Germans are going through temporary blips.

The international movement of players is certainly levelling the playing field but we're not getting the contrast in styles we once had with the globalisation of tactics.
 
jeff_potato said:
Someone was telling me last night about how it might not be such a good win without Germany, Italy etc to beat in the knockout stages... So what? That's their fault, like when England got beat by Iceland or failed to qualify.

Nobody would have been too fussed about the opposition if we got to that FA Cup final after the Cardiff debacle and actually won the thing.
Click to expand...

What a strange view from them.

I wouldn't care who we'd played if we won the thing, we'd still be world champions.

But regardless, Italy and Germany aren't in the knockouts because they weren't good enough.
 
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