Second Round (Last 16) Discussion

[Eddie]

That's because we play too many players out of position and in unfamiliar roles. Capello has simply tried to force them to play 4-4-2 and stick the players in and it just didn't work.

[Rover Down Under]

Australia is the best place for you by the sound of things, as far away from us as possible.

If the UK has got to the point where you cannot express a point of view or be critical of your national team or where loving your club more than your country is frowned upon then I am definitely in a better place.

[Rovermatt]

Wasn't that just the likes of Zanetti and Cambiasso? Hardly star players in that team, just good squad players.

Zanetti is one of European football's finest players of the past twenty years. He's the Champions League-winning captain of Inter Milan and, at 36, is still one of leading fullbacks in Europe. Cambiasso is the anchor of that Inter team. Hardly squad players.

Having said that Argentina have looked good so far and don't appear to be missing the players that Maradona was so scorned for leaving behind.

[LeChuck]

Zanetti is one of European football's finest players of the past twenty years. He's the Champions League-winning captain of Inter Milan and, at 36, is still one of leading fullbacks in Europe. Cambiasso is the anchor of that Inter team. Hardly squad players.

I know how good they are/were, but they're still not key Argentinian players, their key players are the likes of Messi, Tevez etc.

[Amo]

Easy. England the footy team do not represent England the country anymore. I definitely fall into the category of club over country and have supported the Socceroos and All Whites this campaign because of where I now live and for the Rovers representation. England, the FA, the press and certain fans are so corrupt, arrogant and deluded that for the first time ever I was subconsciously referring to England in the third-person plural rather than the collective "we". England are like Liverpool, Newcastle and Spurs/Arse/Chelski rolled into one, delusions of grandeur + unreasonable sense of entitlement (with the "best" fans) + a serving of too much money and too little sense. Why support a collection of all the things I despise?

Right on! This is exactly how I feel about the "England" squad. Can someone explain how I'm supposed to support the backbone of the team when Rooney, Gerrard, Terry, and Ashley Cole et al are such obnoxious warts? Players who have had every superlative exhausted on them by the overbearing media, but continue to disgrace themselves on and off the pitch? These players aren't anywhere close to being "world class", because none of them have achieved anything on the world stage. It's just another cheap term banded around by the media without any significance. This country has a swollen estimation of England's ability, formed from Sky Sport's broadcasts and not a genuine knowledge of our football climate. These players are supposedly born from the greatest league in the world. Nah, not on your life. It's just the richest league in the world, why else do so many foreign players come here when they could play a cultured game on the continent? This is why England has a problem controlling its expectation - because the players are overhyped and overpaid. I heard something today that Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard and Terry earn more together than the entire Germany team. It must be hard to organise any team that has such rampant egotism at its core.

Lets wait till Argentina play a top, top team. I'm still not convinced on them defensively, we shall see when they play Germany.

They've conceded two goals in four games and scored ten. If they aren't adept defensively you might as well say the same about their attack.

[Mattyblue]

I think the number of posters saying they are Rovers first and England second really highlights a problem that we have in this country.

How can your local team mean more than national pride? It seems apparent with the team also.

Are you serious?

I am a hugely proud Englishman and Brit, but Blackburn Rovers versus the England national team? Not even remotely close.

A game like yesterday is the equivilant to Rovers mega games- Dingles, relegation/promotion battles and I didn't feel 10% of the joy/worry/hurt/passion I feel for Rovers.

Your club is something you follow for life, something you defend to the hilt, I take defeats badly, yesterday I had moved on within hours- a pivotal defeat for Rovers? Days. People that would rather England won the World Cup than Rovers win say the FA Cup I can not relate to in the slightest.

[RibbleValleyRover]

Are you serious?

I am a hugely proud Englishman and Brit, but Blackburn Rovers versus the England national team? Not even remotely close.

A game like yesterday is the equivilant to Rovers mega games- Dingles, relegation/promotion battles and I didn't feel 10% of the joy/worry/hurt/passion I feel for Rovers.

Your club is something you follow for life, something you defend to the hilt, I take defeats badly, yesterday I had moved on within hours- a pivotal defeat for Rovers? Days. People that would rather England won the World Cup than Rovers win say the FA Cup I can not relate to in the slightest.

Spot on.

[LeChuck]

Blackburn Rovers versus the England national team?

Why have you bothered writing a post based on this statement?

No-one will ever make you choose between the two, they are separate.

Rovers will never win an FA Cup at England's expense. Why are you talking about it?

Following England and wanting them to do well doesn't make you less of a Rovers fan.

[broadsword]

Are you serious?

I am a hugely proud Englishman and Brit, but Blackburn Rovers versus the England national team? Not even remotely close.

How can you not care about the English team but be a hugely proud Englishman?

Just a small contradiction, methinks.

Why have you bothered writing a post based on this statement?

No-one will ever make you choose between the two, they are separate.

Rovers will never win an FA Cup at England's expense. Why are you talking about it?

Following England and wanting them to do well doesn't make you less of a Rovers fan.

Well said that man.

I think people who say they care more about Rovers are just trying to big up their support for their club.

It's just nonsense.

[JC4LAB]

Breakaway goals when you are pushing for a equaliser are no surprise.Thats how Utd get you a lot of the time Commiting everyone to attack came too early for me(prob cos Upson scored and fancied another)so we looked stupid when caught on the break with no defenders..If our goal had been allowed it would have been so different.Watched first round in the backpackers Bars of Munich...one of 2 Brits among 50+ very loud Americans...Met Italians and French even more p.. off than us...

[Mattyblue]

How can you not care about the English team but be a hugely proud Englishman?

Just a small contradiction, methinks.

Well said that man.

I think people who say they care more about Rovers are just trying to big up their support for their club.

It's just nonsense.

I do care, but I was quoting a post stating the national team is suffering as too many people put club before country. As most Rovers fans I know crave success for the club before England, are we part of the problem? Of course not.

[unluckymorton]

How can you not care about the English team but be a hugely proud Englishman?

Just a small contradiction, methinks.

Well said that man.

I think people who say they care more about Rovers are just trying to big up their support for their club.

It's just nonsense.

Just because you don't understand doesn't make it nonsense. I too follow Rovers and only Rovers. I don't have anywhere near the same feeling for the national team. I'd like to see England do well but I'll not lose any sleep over being knocked out by Germany on Sunday. I too am a proud Englishman but you'll not see me going out watching England draped in a St Georges Cross flag with the St Georges Cross painted on my face. I can't support the same players that I hurl abuse at from the Blackburn End from time to time, the same players who seem to have no pride in the England shirt.

[Eddie]

I think this sums up quite nicely how I felt about it...and how I still feel now

[broadsword]

Just because you don't understand doesn't make it nonsense. I too follow Rovers and only Rovers. I don't have anywhere near the same feeling for the national team. I'd like to see England do well but I'll not lose any sleep over being knocked out by Germany on Sunday. I too am a proud Englishman but you'll not see me going out watching England draped in a St Georges Cross flag with the St Georges Cross painted on my face. I can't support the same players that I hurl abuse at from the Blackburn End from time to time, the same players who seem to have no pride in the England shirt.

Well, I think it is nonsense, so we'll agree to disagree.

I'm a proud Englishman, and I was gutted on Sunday. And no, I wasn't wearing the cross of St George.

It's beyond me how people can't seem to keep the national team separate from club football. But I'm glad you're letting us all know how you're not really fussed even though you'd "like" to see us do "well"; because it makes watching my national team get an absolute ass-reaming from one of our oldest enemies so much easier to bear.

It would be like you saying that you were gutted Rovers lost and some smarty-pants asking what the big deal was, it's only football. That would make you feel so much better, yeah?

[Majiball]

Surely its more to do with disillusionment than anything else? Everytime a major comp or England game comes along you read, its our year, remember 1966, the golden generation and other such foundation-less propoganda. Its no wonder people have fallen out of love with the national team anything less than wining the whole competition is failure. You beat slovenia, just and yet all I then heard was we can go on and win this competition?? Baffled does not describe my reaction especially after watching the USA game and the algeria one. The national team gets built up so much in the press and media, myths constantly coming out and the such its mental.

[FourLaneBlue]

Can't really agree with that majiball.

If all you heard after the Slovenia game was that we would go and win the whole damn thing then you have just been speaking to the more idiotic fans.

I don't think I heard anybody who thought we would beat Germany and then Argentina just to get to the semis, let alone win the damn thing.

This stuff about only winning the thing being acceptable is a fallacy and not helped by the less respectable newspapers. A semi-final would have been a great result. Achievable as well if we had won our group. Oh...and not been total pants as well.

[broadsword]

I don't mind getting beat, but when the players have no pride in the shirt I really get annoyed.

Not all of us buy into the media hype, we just want something to cheer, maybe a bit of hope.

[RoyRover]

Right on! This is exactly how I feel about the "England" squad. Can someone explain how I'm supposed to support the backbone of the team when Rooney, Gerrard, Terry, and Ashley Cole et al are such obnoxious warts? Players who have had every superlative exhausted on them by the overbearing media, but continue to disgrace themselves on and off the pitch? These players aren't anywhere close to being "world class", because none of them have achieved anything on the world stage. It's just another cheap term banded around by the media without any significance. This country has a swollen estimation of England's ability, formed from Sky Sport's broadcasts and not a genuine knowledge of our football climate. These players are supposedly born from the greatest league in the world. Nah, not on your life. It's just the richest league in the world, why else do so many foreign players come here when they could play a cultured game on the continent? This is why England has a problem controlling its expectation - because the players are overhyped and overpaid. I heard something today that Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard and Terry earn more together than the entire Germany team. It must be hard to organise any team that has such rampant egotism at its core.

Good post. Far too many people have been blinded to the fact that England have been a second rate football team for the best part of a decade, if not longer. The Sky Sports driven Premiership and the marketing campaigns for the Super Sunday games have been directed to boost sales and interest and have brain washed people into thinking that certain players are better than they actually are. Naturally when these English players come to play for England, people have unrealistically high expectations for them and what they can achieve. Rooney is a brilliant player. Gerrard is a brilliant player. But even then only under certain conditions and with certain players surrounding them.

My hatred for Mark Lawrenson has only deepened during this World Cup and when I heard him saying that barely any of the German players would get into the England team, it just highlighted the bloated and arrogant estimation that people in the media have of vastly overrated England team that they have constructed. Even then when the Germans were tearing chunks out of England that pillick still had the audacity to suggest that few of them would good enough to make into the England 11. Because these guys aren't as well known, aren't in TV ads selling everything under the sun and don't have their faces pasted in every magazine in the world (probably due to the fact that they don't play in the Premiership - linking to my point about players being hyped up to boost sales) then aren't see as being worthy.

I was glad that England got knocked out, because the idea of the likes of Terry and Rooney, who are just two examples of everything which is wrong with modern footballer, going on to achieve any type of success, would be too much to bare. It would have added to the ego driven world that these guys live in and further disconnected them with the people in reality who have come to loathe everything they stand for.

[Eddie]

The England players are no different to players from any of the other footballing nations. They are all hyped up, overpaid, largely uneducated and ignorant, plastered over ads and magazines and will endorse anything under the sun.

They are all no different to each other and to act as if England going out is somehow morally justified or better for the game is ridiculous. If you live in the UK you hear a ton about British football, that's standard. It's exactly the same in every other country. In some other countries there is a greater emphasis placed on foreign leagues because the quality of domestic football isn't as high, but it's the same everywhere.

[HemelRover]

Those things are incredible! they do a version with a soft doughylike pastry round it too. Amazing(and I hate Pepperami's)

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Brazil make it 3-0 with 30 minutes to go.

Good finish by Robinho. Brazil are playing superb.

[thenodrog]

Chris Waddle is perhaps the most realistic pundit on 5 Live. Listening to him this morning. The guy is genuinely p*ssed off.

Not nearly as p1ssed off as me when he missed that penalty!

[Rovermatt]

Ruthless performance from Brazil. They've crushed the early joyful resistance of the Chileans. Brazil are proper contenders.

[thenodrog]

..... Even when Tevez didn't seem happy about being taken off, Diego gave him a big hug and said a few words to him, turning his disposition around.

No wonder he quietened him..... I bet that bloody suit stinks by now.

We will still have Eddie and Co proclaiming the "World Class" nature of individuals essentially as a team, the quality isn't that high, in fact it is almost forgettable.

I've posted before that eddies knowledge of football matters and football players could easily be written on the back of a postage stamp. His recent ramblings about Lampard being world class just prove me right.

..........This is why England has a problem controlling its expectation - because the players are overhyped and overpaid. I heard something today that Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard and Terry earn more together than the entire Germany team.

In fairness that is not their fault. It is the fault of the stupid buggers who write their pay cheques.

[RoyRover]

They are all no different to each other and to act as if England going out is somehow morally justified or better for the game is ridiculous.

That makes two of us then who've posted some ridiculous stuff about England during this World Cup.