Thinking back...

I don't want this to come over as criticising the effect of foreign players in our league system, but have we actually put in a decent tournament performance since the Premier League started in 1992?

In 1990, England were world cup semi-finalists based largely on a team that consisted of players like Parker, Wright, Lineker and Gascoigne who had played for teams other than the established top two or three of the time (Liverpool, Everton and Arsenal back then). They'd come from different backgrounds and formed a cohesive team, perhaps because they'd had to in their careers to that date. They hadn't been signed as teenagers for one of the big four and then play in meaningless games for youth academies with other privileged teenagers from all over the world (though in some respects that ought to teach them exactly how to play together). They also hadn't had European football for the five previous seasons, for what it's worth. I suppose you could argue that we struggled past Cameroon and Belgium, and only really lifted our game for Germany, but we still got there playing reasonable football.

Then we can compare 1990 with USA 1994 - didn't qualify. Euro 96 we did OK with home advantage but were lucky to get through against Spain. 1998 in France wasn't great, the highlight being Owen's goal against Argentina then what seemed like an eternity of hand-wringing after Beckham's red card. Euro 2000 we were unmitigated s**t under Keegan and I was glad to see us knocked out. 2002 in Japan / Korea was pretty poor and we struggled, but we did give Brazil a game I suppose. Euro 2004 we were beaten by Portugal but without convincing, 2006 in Germany likewise. in 2008 we failed to qualify for the Euros - enough said.

Yet even with this (fairly recent) history in mind we are still somehow ranked high enough that we are considered likely to get to the quarter-finals and English football is widely respected around the world. People mention Rooney in the same breath as Messi, Ronaldo and the likes.

Compare them with our relegation team of two seasons ago - lots of loan players, playing as if they weren't that bothered, somehow making a total of less than the sum of the parts. Ability was there, at least according to some (Wolves 5-2, Croatia 4-1 etc) - then take account of Charlton, Reading, USA, Algeria and so on.

I'll be happy to be wrong, but I honestly think Slovenia will put us out unless something changes drastically.

Posted By: APB, Jun 19, 10:15:11