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Obviously the next big tournament is the European Championships in Portugal in 2004. We're in a group with Turkey likely to be our main rivals for top spot. We should go all out to win this group with some confidence, but there are other things I'd like to see first.
No more "5-1!" No more "We beat the Argies!" That's in the past now, it just so happens that Germany got further than us in this tournament anyway. It's time to move on, look to the future rather than wieghing down the players with the memory of past glories.
Our team has plenty of potential goal scorers, but against Brazil we seemed frightened to shoot. Being a relatively young team, many of our players don't have a great many goals England, so maybe lack a bit of confidence in front of goal. Paul Scholes has hit a few for England, but it seems the fact that he hasn't scored for over a year for England is getting to him.
The answer to this problem? Set up a friendly with one of the whipping boys of world football for early next season. Bring the San Marino team over, and tell our midfielders to put their shooting boots on. Getting back on the score sheet would do Scholes' confidence the world of good, and if players like Sinclair, Dyer, Joe Cole and the like felt happier in front of goal, having scored a couple, they'd be more likely to let fly in the match, rather than passing the ball around for an age, then either losing it, or hitting a hopeful ball towards Owen. He's not the only player capable of scoring you know.
We now have a team capable of beating anyone on their day. The problem is making this day be every single match day. Against Brazil we just didn't perform in the second half. We have to figure out why this happens so often. at least under past managers, Glen Hoddle, Kevin Keegan, even Graham Taylor, our players would run till the very end. The fact is back then our team wasn't good enough, and we lacked ideas. Now our team is good enough, why the lacklustre performances? We need someone to get into these players heads to find out what the stumbling block is. The best examples are the two games after we beat Germany. Qualification was in our own hands then, and we struggled to beat a poor Albanian side, then there was the Greek tragedy, saved by a piece of last minute brilliance.
We have the players, decent ones now, decent young players to come in, we have a great manager, all we need is to be able to perform every single time. Once we have that, major tournament trophies may no longer just be a dream.
We beat Argentina, Denamark and came out of the Group of Death without much bother, I think we hold good stead for the future specially with Becks/Sven leading the troops.
In this World Cup campaign, Beckham hasn't been 100%, nor has Owen, even Scholes has been carrying a little injury, and Gerrard wasn't available at all.
Despite all of this we have still got to the quarter finals, and only through the luck of the draw (i.e. getting Brazil) have we gone out.
Not to mention the awesome feat of qualifying from the 'Group of death'. A task which many countries would have struggled to do.
On paper now we must be in the top 8 countries in the world.
The papers said that we weren't going to qualify for the World Cup after the 1-0 defeat to Germany and the draw to Finland, and then no manager and no one wanted the job.
But then came Sven Goran Erikson who helped us to qualify, we also beat Germany in their own back yard. We then were entered into the 'Group of Death' and beat Argentina. Then beat Denmark 3-0.
I think that we did very very well, as we were unbeaten in 19 games?
I am proud of the England squad.
> remember when...
>
> The papers said that we weren't going to qualify for the World Cup
> after the 1-0 defeat to Germany and the draw to Finland, and then no
> manager and no one wanted the job.
>
> But then came Sven Goran Erikson who helped us to qualify, we also
> beat Germany in their own back yard. We then were entered into the
> 'Group of Death' and beat Argentina. Then beat Denmark 3-0.
>
> I think that we did very very well, as we were unbeaten in 19 games?
>
> I am proud of the England squad.
Exactly me to and they are still so very young most of them
I have a feeling that the home nation (Portugal) will bounce back from this World Cup and win it.
Don't know why I feel that, but I just do.
:-)
It's mainly because of the age of our squad, and how well it's done this year. We've also got a lot of talent in the U-21 squads, so we'll be able to forget about Seaman and co. as we should have good enough replacements!
And other teams like France are actually quite old, and so too many chages could effect them - for worse!