The Official Football (Soccer) Thread

[On The Edge of Insanity]

That was perhaps the most shocking England performance I have ever witnessed. We just kept punting the ball to Crouch and hoping something would happen, which most of the time it didn't. Although I do feel a little bit sorry for Crouch, most of his headers when support did arrive were useless and nowhere near their intended targets anyway. If he had even 25% of Sheringham's cleverness and heading ability then he would be unplayable. As it is, he's just a tall bloke.

Changes need to be made from grassroots level, players need more time working with the ball with an early age as it is clear that we have a major technical deficiency compared to almost all the other major/semi-major European nations.

[es-jay]

funny joke i heard last night:

what would Peter Crouch be if he wasn't a footballer?


a virgin.

[da_notorious_mack]

funny joke i heard last night:

what would Peter Crouch be if he wasn't a footballer?


a virgin.

LOLOLOLOL props

[da_notorious_mack]

paul tomkins on the proposed quota of english players i agree completely


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A couple of years ago, most England fans, judging by the way they treated him, would rather have had Peter Crouch in goal than up front. 
Fast forward two years, and he is the only man this morning who can hold his head high (and no, that's not a pun on his size.)
 
I almost always want to see the England team do well (particularly when a few Reds are playing), but unlike when it comes to Liverpool, I am not a 'fan' in the sense that results affect me. I care … just not that much.
 
I look forward to the summer competitions with England participating, partly because it's the only football around at the time. Of course, like most genuine football fans, I soon get sick of the WAGs and the loutish fans, sick of the abusing of other teams' national anthems as well as of our own players.
 
But when the England national team and its wider issues start to affect Liverpool, my antennae chime into life.
 
As a result of last night's calamity, there will be calls to rid the Premiership of the foreigners who are 'doing so much to damage our game', and to have a quota system whereby a number of home-grown players have to feature in every game. Such calls were already being made even before England's depressing denouement.
 
These are the same foreigners who dragged English football out of the early-to-mid-'90s dark ages –– a time when Andy Sinton, Carlton Palmer, Tony Dorigo, David White and Geoff Thomas were England players, and self-confessed alcoholics like Paul Merson and Tony Adams were regular internationals; a time when, before the 'foreign invasion', England failed to qualify for the World Cup, and European competition was too tricky for our nation’s clubs. In 1994, Barcelona absolutely humiliated Manchester United.
 
These are the very same foreigners –– including three continental managers –– who helped the Premiership (and its best English players, let's not forget) find itself heavily represented in the last four Champions League semi-finals and the last three finals.
 
If there's one thing I hate above almost all others when it comes to Englishness, it's the blaming of foreigners for any malaise. You can find plenty wrong with any country and any culture, if that's what you choose to focus on. But the same applies to England, lest we ever dare look at ourselves through the thick fog of our patriotism.
 
Personally speaking, I'd much rather have a league that celebrates the best: the best players from around the world, allied to the best English talent.
 
I want to see talented English players, most preferably Scousers, in the Liverpool team.
 
But the club has to find the raw talents to start with –– i.e. those talents need to exist, they cannot be made. Meanwhile, buying other English players is always an expensive gamble (Darren Bent for virtually the same price as Torres? What mad world is this?)
 
Should quotas be put in place, the price of England's best players will double. Unfortunately, so will that of its worst.
 
Liverpool have to look for the most gifted footballers at any age –– those starting out as kids, or those fully established as internationals –– and bring them to the club. It has to find players good enough to be ready to play alongside Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard now, and kids who are good enough to develop and eventually do the same.
 
It is only right that the system should make the best young home-grown talents prove they have what it takes to succeed, while the worst are let go. If the best English kids train and play regularly with the best overseas players, then they will learn from them, and they will also see what standards they have to aspire to.
 
If English 16- and 17-year-olds at Liverpool aren't as good as Bruna, Simon, Ajdarevic, Hansen, Pacheco and Poure, then they can have no complaints. And if they aspire to be as good, then they have to work hard at their game. It’s the same for any 20-year-old: if he is not as good as Lucas or Babel, how can he complain?
 
Let's be clear: it's in no-one's interest if substandard local or English lads are in the Liverpool team simply because of a quota system.
 
It will make the football worse, and hamper the Reds' chances of success at home and in Europe (and subsequently damage the national team, the very thing it could be brought in to protect).
 
If the English Champions League teams struggle because their sides suddenly aren't as good, then the best English players will not be getting the kind of experience that has benefited the twenty-or -so to play in the semi-final or final (and some more than once) in the last four seasons.
 
Look at the names I can fire off the top of my head: Gerrard, Carragher, Crouch, Pennant, Rooney, Scholes, Neville, Terry, Lampard, Joe Cole, Ashley Cole, Campbell, Ferdinand, Wright-Phillips, Bridge, Brown.
 
Nearly all of these players didn't just feature in Champions League runs, they were key players. Jermaine Pennant can't get a cap for England, but was Man of the Match in a Champions League Final.
 
How can they be so good for their clubs in Europe, often against far better opposition than England play (Andorra, Macedonia, Russia and Croatia aren't anywhere near as talented as AC Milan or Barcelona), but so poor for England? Could it be to do with their clubs' non-English managers, who are among the best in the world? And could it also be down to the foreign players who, when dovetailing with the locals, are so good they elevate their teams?
 
Everyone is talking about Scotland doing so well, but there’s far more English talent out there. So maybe it’s not the talent, but something else.
 
What a quota system would do would be to forcibly promote more average English players to the first team, in the hope that they develop when given the experience to do so. It would be designed to give the nation more to choose from, but would arguably just produce greater quantity and less quality. For me, the right to play in the Liverpool team should be earned, not given because of nationality.
 
No offence to John Welsh, Jon Otsemobor, Neil Mellor, David Raven, Zak Whitbread and Darren Potter, all of whom are fine pros (who may yet one day make it as top-division players), but they didn't prove they were good enough to be regulars for Liverpool.
 
No home-grown player released by Liverpool in the last 15 years has gone on to look like they should have instead been a regular at Anfield. I’d much rather have Alonso, Mascherano, Reina, Arbeloa, Agger and Torres than the aforementioned players. Perhaps the difference is that, with the exception of Arbeloa, all of these looked ready for the top at 19/20.
 
Meanwhile, any Liverpool player currently out on loan has to take the chance to learn, develop his game, and be prepared to work hard upon his return to Liverpool, and not to think he's 'made it'. At no time can they take their eye off the ball and relax their standards.
 
If they are still not ready, they have to be prepared to go back on loan, to a better club in a higher division, to maintain that gradual improvement; after all, upon their return they will be competing with players who've been to World Cups and played in Champions League finals.
 
I often hear 'throw the kids in, what harm can it do?', and then if the kids make a mistake, as Carson did last night, they're quickly crucified. While Carson merited the start based on his club form, it was arguably not the correct circumstances in which to give him his competitive debut; the proverbial lamb to the slaughter. He looked nervous, and who can blame him? I was nervous for him.
 
Pressure is a big thing in football. Pressure and confidence are two of the biggest factors in determining any given performance, often more so than talent. And youngsters have to learn to cope with the pressure and to deal with dips in confidence.
 
As Scott Carson has found, playing for Charlton is easier than playing for Aston Villa, and playing for Aston Villa is easier than playing for Liverpool. But playing for Charlton helped Carson step up a level to play for Villa. It was a stepping stone.
 
However, with Pepe Reina –– who was already playing for Barcelona at 18 –– so supreme between the sticks at Anfield, he was never going to get much playing time for Liverpool.
 
And so Carson has stepped up another level in terms of pressure in starting a crucial match for his country. It will all benefit him in the long term, providing he's allowed to forget last night (all players make mistakes, after all). But as one of England's finest keepers, and a great prospect, he is as yet nowhere near the level of Reina, who himself is still a very young keeper.
 
While I doubt they will be forthcoming in doing so, the English tabloids from the late '80s onwards needs to take a big share of the blame for the nation's failings.
 
The way it turned the England job from an already difficult position into a trial by personal ridicule, starting with Bobby Robson and reaching a new nadir with Graham Taylor, was scandalous. It moved well beyond the necessary levels of criticism, and started a football-wide bandwagon of disrespecting players and managers to unacceptable degrees.
 
It's why I fight a lot of the media's treatment of Liverpool managers. If people can't see how the press generates pressure and damages reputations, then they only need to look at what has happened to the England managers whose heads were turned into various root vegetables.
 
Generally speaking, Liverpool fans are far more discerning and intelligent, but once a media perception of a manager is in place it's notoriously hard to shift.
 
This kind of reporting only baits the fans to further damage their own team's hopes, to the point where you have England fans in consecutive games booing Frank Lampard, their own player of the year in recent seasons, and for what? –– for nothing more than not being at his best. How is that going to help one of the country's better players reproduce his form?
 
Two years ago you had Crouch being vociferously booed when entering the pitch, and for what? –– for not being considered good enough for England, by 'intelligent' fans who were so accurate in that assessment they have since seen him score 15 goals in 15 starts for his country. Perhaps those fans ended up with the performances they deserved.
 
To conclude, if Scott Carson is feeling down in the dumps today, he need only have a chat with Peter Crouch: a man who has suffered some of the worst stick imaginable, but who has come through the other side and proved himself on the international stage.
 
If every English kid had Crouch's attitude to go with such fine technique, the World Cup would indeed be 'coming home'. 

[KURUPTION-81]

funny joke i heard last night:

what would Peter Crouch be if he wasn't a footballer?


a virgin.

thats not a joke, peter crouch was been interviewed and he was asked what would you be if you werent a footballer and he said a virgin.

At least the guy has a sense of humour.

[KURUPTION-81]

Real football is back tmw 

[es-jay]

funny joke i heard last night:

what would Peter Crouch be if he wasn't a footballer?


a virgin.

thats not a joke, peter crouch was been interviewed and he was asked what would you be if you werent a footballer and he said a virgin.

At least the guy has a sense of humour.

really? that i did not know.

[K.Dub]

Finally, Premiership match..

Wigan is goin doooown

[es-jay]

So, Liverpool have started the day with a 3-0 win over Newcastle @ St. James' Park. bring on 3 o'clock.

[KURUPTION-81]

Not a good day 

[K.Dub]

Not a good day 

It is a very good day
Thank you Carew!

[Lil White Azz]

Not a good day 

It is a very good day
Thank you Carew!

Fuck you, I have a hangover and we lost 

[K.Dub]

Not a good day 

It is a very good day
Thank you Carew!

Fuck you, I have a hangover and we lost 

Fuck you too
Go get drunk!

[Lil White Azz]

Not a good day 

It is a very good day
Thank you Carew!

Fuck you, I have a hangover and we lost 

Fuck you too
Go get drunk!

I don't have to, I think that I'm still drunk 

and oh yeah, fuck arsenal for winning....why you have to be so good right now 

[K.Dub]

Not a good day 

It is a very good day
Thank you Carew!

Fuck you, I have a hangover and we lost 

Fuck you too
Go get drunk!

I don't have to, I think that I'm still drunk 

and oh yeah, fuck arsenal for winning....why you have to be so good right now 

No more black November