Be Excellent To Each Other

So, I'll get home at about 19:00 tonight, and I'd like to watch the England v Croatia WC Qualifier and the 2nd half of the England v Australia ODI.

Which one should I watch?

Which one (if any) will you be watching?

Malc

footy, since I don't have sky

Test Cricket > Club Football > International football (tournament or qualifiers) > International T20 Cricket > Domestic T20 Cricket > International ODI Cricket > Domestic Pro40 Cricket > International football (friendlies) > Hitler > Little Britain.

The cricket for me. I haven't watched an England football match for about four years or so now, and it's the best decision I ever made.

This is what I said after the reign of Steve McClaridge, but Capello has actually turned us into a half-decent team. I still never watch friendlies, though.

No, fair enough (about them being better now), but for me I got out of the habit and have never had the desire to go back. Also, John Terry's captain.

Anything Else!!

Dunno. Might (If I'm allowed out) go to ChavPub so I can watch both.

But England are so crap at football...

Yeah, we've just won all of our qualification games so far and are top of the group by four points with a game in hand. That's rubbish!

My Gran could have done that by herself. And she's been dead for 12 years.

Did we not fail to qualify last time?

When was teh last time we reached the final in anything?

Watch the Soccer

Who cares about what happened in the past? We've got a good team NOW and that's what counts!

So crap = anything outside the final?

nice.

Malc

yes... It is how most world cups are judged... who cares who finished 3rd or 4th!!

I thaought we always had a good team....

We always do. it's dirty Johnny Dago that fucks it up for us.

So we always have a good team.... yet we win fuck all...


Bloody Brilliant

If England have a good team and don't win anything, then the team is either not good, underperforming, or the opposition is substantially better and has been for the past 43 years.

We're one of the top 10 teams in the world - good enough for me. Did England win the Six Nations this year? Must be rubbish if not.

No we lost the 6 nations, as we got knocked out in the quailfiers

No but we came second in the Rugby World cup... but the England Rugby squad is not as good as they should be, in 2003 we were the best in the world, not now..

Did the football make team make the final?

What are you talking about? There are no qualifiers in the Six Nations. Would you say that English rugby is rubbish because you didn't win the Six Nations, though? Bear in mind that we didn't qualify for Euro 2008 nearly two years ago now. The football team is in much better shape than it was then.

Second in the Rugby WC? who cares, we didn't win it - we must be rubbish!

I think that's the problem with a lot of people in this country, if you not the best you're crap.

I caught a bit of the ITV news last night, and they were talking about Andy Murray crashing out of the US Open, and it was all "OMG he's so crap, he might be number 2 in the world, but he still hasn't won a Grand Slam, he sucks"

FUCK OFF! he's the best male tennis player that the UK has produced in 90 years and that's still not good enough for you. JUST FUCK OFF you CUNTS!

Malc

He's Scottish.

Yeah, the media and the great unwashed can't understand anything but GLORY or abject failure. We're pretty average at most sports, but sometimes we do better than that and other times we do worse - why can't we just accept that?

Steve peat is the World Mountain Bike Downhill Champion. he's from Sheffield.
Wiggins came a fucking 4th in the TdF.

Calm down Malc, how else do you rate your teams, unless it is against the other countries team..

The is no point in saying the England football team is the best team in England is there?

@MYP I was being sarcastic about the 6 Nations, as it is a different style of competition to the WC or EC.
When England went into the WC in 2003 they were the best team in the world, we were ranked number One in the world, and we had only lost 1 match in a Two years (IIRC), we had taken the Grand Slam etc etc..

So compared to the 2003 squad the 2009 Squad arn't as good, but it took 4 years to get the 2003 squad perfect... we have a long way to go..


Tell me again why England Football is so great, I am genuinly interested..

Any other football match?

ANY OTHER FOOTBALL MATCH?!

It's only Scotland v Holland you bunch of dicks! If we win tonight, we might get into the playoffs to qualify! ...oh. Yeah I'll probably watch the England game

hopefully Scotland entertain tonight, the second half of Saturdays game was great.

Perhaps a better metric of success would be the amount of time the managers stay in the job, as it's a results driven position.

The England Football team is one of the 10 best teams in the world, out of about 200 teams. It's not the best team in the world, it's probably not in the top 5, but it's between 5 and 10 (FIFA rate it at 7th at the moment I think and ELO actually rank it 4th and I don't mean any kind of light orchestra, electric or otherwise)

Now, I think that's pretty impressive, and almost as impressive as being ranked number 1 in Rugby in the world (which have 1/2 as many teams, but really only about a dozen nations who have a chance of getting out of the group stage of the WC)

My problem is with people who think anything under "The best" is crap. If you're calling the 7th best team in the world crap, what do you call the 10th best? 20th? 50th? 100th? 150th? 200th? It's just silly.

Malc

I know that, I also know Wales are playing russia, and I think NI have an important game too, hence the generic.

I caught the last 20 minutes of the last Scotland Game, and yes, they were very good.

Being 1/2 Scottish I genuinly hope that Scotland qualify for the WC.

Malc

Where did I say we were great? We are merely good. Now you're putting words in my mouth, King o' tha' Straw Men.

Good teams get to quarter-finals of WCs/ECs, which we do on a consistent basis. Great teams win them.

Mali: also, the England men's team have won the Ashes and the women cricket team have won the Ashes, World Cup and World T20 in the last year. There are exceptions, of course.

Wales.

So we are 7th in the World... who is ahead of us...

World cups are about being the best on the day not your world rankings
And if we are good, why on earth have we not won anything since 1966?

The rugby argument is correct, there are less teams, and the Eleite teams are ahead of the rest, the RFU is trying to balance that.. That is why Argentina were so impresive to reach the last 4, and only being a part time team..

So why do you keep going on about England being #1 in the world in 2003? Make your mind up!

Professionalism killed the game of Rugby.

Picture the scene, it's a Bezzie meet up:

KovC: Drinks anyone?
MaliA: most of the bar, please
Grim..: Pint, it's a man's drink
Mr Chris: brandy
Dimril: Zardoz splurge please
Myp: Pint, please

KovC goes to the bar and returns with most of it, a man's pint, a brandy, Zardoz splurge and another pint.

KovC: here you are
<distributes drinks>
myp: WTF is this?
KovC: You said you wanted a pint
myp: don't put words in my mouth!
KovC: You said a pint1
myp: I didn't say a pint of beer, did I?

<3

Mali sticking up for his boyf again. It's so sweet.

it's just amused me, that's all. Nothing to do with sticking up, it's more a bit of gentle pisstaking, my friend.

Bad Luck?
Losing our nerve?
Bad Tactics?
Playing in the heat of summer, when our players are more used to playing in the winter?
Poor performance on the day?

Malc

You can't do that sort of thing round these parts - bully!

Anyway, I wasn't the one changing my story every five minutes. I never said the England team were world-beaters. I said we had a pretty decent team. Your analogy would work better if Kov came back with my pint and it was full of spunk.

I was saying that England were the best in the world as they had wone everything bare 1 match, including all the WC matches quite convincingly... so they were the Best on the day etc etc


To prove a point, in 2008 we were shit in the Groups getting hammered, yet we turned it around and made it to the final..

2 consecutive WC, 2 finals.... not bad eh?

The same situation for everyone....

I think you missed off the pitch and the ref...

THIS JUST IN!!

How many teams can realistically win the Rugby World Cup? Four? Good odds, I'd say.

I think if England do get to the finals, then they have their best chance in ages as it will be the SA winter.

Malc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_mJJm6DqoY

Chuckles.

Those crazy kids.

I'll translate it it if anyone wants, but it's fairly self explanatory.

More than 4... about 7 or 8...

Or any one that makes it to the final, but you have to be in the final... something that England Football can't do..

Yeah, because we're the 7th best team out of about 12 who are good enough to possibly win it. It stands to reason, really. The depth of world rugby union is pretty shocking though, so it's easy to see why we can win it. I mean, we were dreadful in 2008 but still managed to get to the final - that doesn't say much for the competition, does it?