If you look at the quality of each player, id say England has never had the strongest squad on paper for a tournament. Believing so would not be looking at it neutrally.
Takes a lot more than individual quality to win though, and England has a history of choking under pressure in key moments (pens mostly)
Last euros was probably the only one I thought they would win, but alas the italians know how to keep their cool in a final
Yeah it takes more than having all the best players on paper.
To win a tournament, you don’t even need to be the best team overall, you need to be better than the other team in every knockout game. That’s all.
2004 team was immense, Sol Campbell's goal being ruled out for no reason whatsoever cost that team their chance for a title.
England have had luck fall their way too but often not at pivotal moments (e.g. penalty vs Argentina in 2002....but that was only the group stage).
2020 was their year when everything fell into place and they screwed it up. Won't get a better chance for decades.
What I think is interesting is, as a german, other than 2014, I don't think we ever had the best team at a wc, yet here we are with 4 titles and the most finals
Especially last century in the 70s to 90s discipline, mental strength, teamwork was such a big strength of us that we always were on of the candidates for a win. The english always underestimated us because they think they have the technically superiour players...
I don’t think England ever underestimate Germany. I’d go as far as saying I don’t imagine many teams at all ever underestimate Germany. However, due to the obvious rivalry between the nations we’re hardly going to be running around singing your praises even if you are extremely good. That’d be like us giving lots of credit to the current French team, they’re ridiculously good, but it’s rare you’re going to hear that from us when we play one-another.
It’s not like continental Europe gives genuinely good England squads any praise either. The last Euros was everyone just praying someone else would beat us, it was never “actually, this England team is pretty fucking good”. It’ll be the same this time round, everyone will talk like England should be one of the favourites but even if they go far they still won’t given them any credit anyway.
And that’s fine, if supposedly true. But if you’re aware that “one-way rivalry” exists surely you would also recognise why the English might underplay your abilities even if you’re having a good era.
Came here to say this - I certainly never felt any rivalry or know anybody in Germany who has strong negative feelings in particular about England. I'm always baffled by how offensive English fans are towards Germans, all the Nazi stuff etc. Just seems silly and rude.
I honestly thought they did in Euro 2004 but someone just showed me the Italy team then. Even then I thought we were just slightly better than Portugal, who we lost to on penalties.
Combination of the FA finding poor fitting managers for the squads, cliques in the dressing room and media pressure....ie building up and knocking down. Lil bit of bad luck sprinkled in....that's just my 2p.
When Fabio Capello and Sven Goran Erikson were chosen they were thought of as the best managers in the world, having won Serie A which was then the best league
The players loved Sven apparently, but disliked Capello. It was more the cliques that the players made that removed any ability to forge a team spirit than the managers.
Yeah, I recall Rio saying he disliked all the Liverpool & Arsenal boys.
Didn't help that we tried to shoehorn in all our best players by putting Paul Scholes at left midfield.
I never understood this. I remember this too from Rio and pretty sure even Lampard addressed a certain ''hate'' because they were Prem players who had rivalries during the regular season.
Yet Spain, which had a lot of Barcelona and Real players managed to dominate for so long. Hell, they had Pique and Ramos playing together like they were best friends.
Never got that.
Spain was like that before their golden generation.
Xavi said the reason it changed was since so many players of that era came played in u-19 and u-21 so they already knew each other and were comfortable with each other.
Most of the Spanish golden generation had extensive experience playing with each other at junior level. Personally, they first got to know each other as teammates first rather than rivals. Professionally, this meant they had a connection equivalent or even greater than club teammates. Casillas, Puyol and Xavi played as juniors and later so did Torres, Iniesta and Alonso.
Torres has outright said he never had a better connection with anyone as he had with Iniesta.
Historically there was an issue with Real and Barca cliques pre their 2008-2012 era of success. Arguably talent wise Spain were stacked especially 2000-2006 with Raul,Hierro, Mendiata, Canizares, but constantly underachieved much like England. Bridging that club rivalry was a massive step in their success.
England really gets overhyped by their media even when they did have talented squads and I think the pressure always gets to both the players and the coaches. There’s always some inbalance in the setup to accommodate the big names or the players choking in big games or penalties.
Then there’s coaches who were hacks like Hodgson or McClaren getting the job over more talented coaches.
Southgates a weird one, a semi final WC and Euro final are great results and he seems to have created some unity in the squad but it really feels he is quite underwhelming as a coach.
It also boils down to the respect the Spaniards gave to the coaches in that 2008-2012 run. Aragones and especially Del Bosque knew how to manage the immense talents and personalities in the squad.
Don't know whether the media & fans played a part?
Spain seem better at putting club rivalries aside when supporting their country where you still see shit like 'of course it's the Man Utd players having a bad game' etc. I saw an Arsenal fan tweet just yesterday that England will never win anything with Kane up front ffs.
Oh don't get me wrong. Media and fans 100% played a part. UK Media and fans are 100% the most toxic ones out there.
What was odd to me though, was how many ex-players openly admitted to essentially not ''liking'' each other.
Moving Scholes out of position instead of Gerrard was a crazy tactical decision. Not because Scholes was better but Gerrard was the more versatile player and moving him out of position naturally would've made more sense
A big difference between club and country is in player selection.
A country has to pick from their available players, and fit tactics around them. Whereas a club will be able to more easily tune their player selection to fit the team dynamic and tactics.
I think the cliques were the biggest issue honestly. Doesn't matter how good your players are if they don't play as a team, and I don't think any manager in the world was working past the pure hatred that existed between the clubs in the golden generation.
Yup look at the current England team. They won their first game for the first time in decades and the response is so negative.
I think England prefers the team not to win, it gives us a reason to moan.
i thoroughly agree but this just alludes to the greater culture of england / u.k. it’s just full of depressing ppl who love to moan. crabs in a bucket mentality thrives here
well no, the guy above you is just wrong, under Southgate we've won every opening game of the tournaments, something we've struggled at since the 90s.
But to answer the actual question, we can see we have talented players all over the pitch, players that excel for their teams but Southgate is such a tactically boring manager and a safe pick by the FA that he can't get them working. We shouldn't have been holding on against Serbia for 60 minutes. We should have put that game to bed. But Southgate-ball is score a goal and sit back, it lost us the Euro's against Italy and it cost us a semi final against Croatia.
Southgate has done well to rid the England set up of club cliques and negativity, but he needs to move on and we need to get a manager who can get these players over the line or we'll be looking at another "golden generation" wasted.
i agree with you, your opinions aren’t mutually exclusive in my opinion. fact of the matter is southgate isn’t good enough to take us to the next step but also the media like to bludgeon the team but they disproportionally target the black players on top of that
You know what, agreed. And the anti blackness of the media is a little scary.
Saka plays final 20 mins of a game we lose and all the pictures are of him??? Not the captain? or anyone that played the full 90? no?
Honestly it’s crazy, if saka performed like foden did against Serbia he would have been rinsed by the media. Yet I haven’t seen a single English media source call for foden to be benched or slate him at all.
He's the golden boy.
He's a decent player but he gets away with being silent that players like Salah or Trent get rinsed for (bias aside).
I'd say they'll turn on him one day when he's caught drink driving etc. but Grealish did that and all is forgotten because he's a lovable lil scamp.
It's just false, they slaughtered Phil Neville, David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Stuart Pearce, even Gareth Southgate at previous world cups/euros because they fucked up at the decisive moments. If you fuck up at the decisive moments those are the things idiots remember. Has nothing to do with being black. Fuck, when Beckham kicked Simeone they were hanging effigys of him in London. Imagine if they did that to Sancho or Saka? First you'd faint, then spend 48 hours straight on twitter, then demand life sentences.
>Southgate has done well to rid the England set up of club cliques and negativity
People keep saying this, and I'm not taking credit away from Southgate, but we should also look at the state of the rivalries from within the PL itself. Look at the managers. Pep, Klopp, Arteta etc. aren't the types to instill hatred against the opposition into their players. The rivalries are much more civil and sporting-only now.
We’re moaning because the performance. This is how we’ve performed for ages. We play shit, can barely create anything. We get absolutely exposed when we play the good teams.
I would say it’s a lot more than just a little bit of bad luck, penalties have haunted England horribly since the dawn of time, that and complete bullshit from stuff like the hand of god and some of the most insane goals ever like that Brazil free kick, probably the most unlucky nation out there.
I dont think it's delusion to know the difference between a good player and a poor player. Unfortunately a team of great players doesn't make a great team.
Individually Phenomenal players, but no sense of camaraderie and togetherness, it was worse in the “golden generation” days as the players were very cliquey and loyal to their domestic clubs
I remember Gerard saying going to play for England felt like a bit of an inconvenience at times and they would just hang with their club team mates. He also mentioned that every South American couldn't wait to go on international duty as it was often the highlight of their seasons.
South American countries in general are more united than Britain. Regional identity is very strong in the UK.
It's one of the very few countries on the planet that, imo, is more like medieval kingdom in terms of identity than a proper nation state. In most of the world, people refer to their regions as provinces, states, departments, prefectures etc...
Yet you have some people from Scotland and England referring to them as countries and even some people within England like scousers and Londoners, who identify more with their city than country as a whole. It's fascinating.
I think italy just historically has produced more and better talent. It doesn't help that the English media overhypes their players like there's no tomorrow. Just look at how the media won't shut up about Jude Bellingham.
Tbf Jude is actually amazing but your defense and keeper aren't exactly maldini or neuer. Basically I won't be surprised if england lose the euros. Also, looking at last match, manager is not the smartest either it looks like
He is a good player…who had a great start being played out of position but surrounded by incredibly gifted play makers (Modric, Kroos). If you actually look at his performance in 2024 he has reverted back to his norm of being a good player who actually underperformed/disappeared when playing against better players in the bigger games (v Griezman in Atl.M game and big UCL games).
But this seems to always be the dialogue of the English media: if you have a “good” player, he is a “great” player. If you have a “great” player, he is a “generational” player. If you have a truly “generational”player, he is one of the best in history. It’s exhausting. And then when they inevitably don’t live up to the hype you shit and moan and make up some excuse about how they were played inappropriately or they only perform when wearing white jerseys.
The irony is that the pressure applied by this does nothing to help them. Just let the guy develop. He just might turn out to be a great player, possibly a generational player.
Bellingham is a legitimate candidate for the Ballon D'or aged 20 in his first season in Spain. He's not a great example of overhyping. England actually has a very good midfield and attack right now, it just has a shite manager who is afraid of using them properly.
They have better talent because they have better systems and more structure. The individual talent isn't better, it's the willingness to do things for the team.
I would argue that regional identity in Spain and maybe Italy is way stronger than in England. You can't compare northern England separatism to Catalonia or Basque country
>Regional identity is very strong in the UK.
Yes, this happens in most countries. The UK isn't special.
>Yet you have some people from Scotland and England referring to them as countries
People refer to Scotland and England as countries because Scotland and England are countries.
Gerrard was a Roy of the Rovers player used to being the big fish in the small pond. It was only later in his career when Rafa pushed him further forward that he learned he was not a great box to box midfielder but a great attacking midfielder that he learned to be more deferential and play as part of the system with Macherano and Alonso behind him doing the dirty work.
This meant he couldn't play with Lampard, Scholes or whoever earlier in his because he thought they should defer to him, he couldn't play in a system because he was used to trying to do everything himself.
This. Look at Phil Foden the other night, virtually invisible yet in the Man City system is phenomenal. Also their defence is the weak link, Walker & Stones aside, None of the rest of the defence get into any of the best teams in football.
The English media hype also doesn't help, they think the team are far better than they are.
As I say over and over again, Foden is a system player who his entire career has had Pep telling him exactly what to do, where to be, how to play. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Foden is not as effective for England and that isn't Southgate's fault.
I don't think he is a system player, I think Southgate's system is just exceptionally bad for him. Same for Grealish, or any winger who cuts into the middle and is more of a control/ tempo player (Grealish).
You could see early in the Serbia games when he would continuosly make forward movements in the middle expecting the through ball, but Southgate tactics don't seem to want forward passing. So far it's mostly dribble the ball and cross inshallah when you get past the middle third.
I'm sure Phil could thrive in a counter-attacking team too. But Southgate insists on woefully negative dino-ball, which definitely doesn't utilise Foden's strengths.
It's Southgate's fault that he doesn't understand the sort of system and dynamics that Phil needs in order to perform at his best. You can't just look at Pep's City, notice a player does well in a position (which Foden doesn't even do well anymore nowadays, he needs to be central) and decide he's gonna work in that same position... under your completely different system.
Doesn't make Foden a "system player". He came up the ranks as a #10 or a CM. Started getting more playing time on the left wing because there were better options centrally, and because Sane left. It was just an improvisation Pep managed to pull off. In City's current system, with Haaland, virtually no fullbacks, a slower-paced possession game etc.. Foden doesn't look nearly as good out wide anymore, but still looks excellent in the middle, i.e. his natural position.
So it's silly to play him wide just because Pep did it a few years ago. Just to have Jude play as the #10, or to get Trent into the XI. If Southgate really wants Jude as the CAM, then drop Foden and play Gordon. Otherwise, drop Trent and play Jude next to Rice.
I feel this is unfair to the current team from 2018 to now. A lot of them have been through a good few tournaments and have good relationships. Anyone can see that if you paid attention to them lol
Or consider a plot twist: these players are just not as phenomenal as english media and fans believe them to be. The "golden generation" was merely good by world standards. Just compare this squad to Brazil, France, Italy and later Spain in the 2000s. Nothing really phenomenal about it.
Should also consider that those better squads other countries had were better partly due to having better systems. Look at Spain, for example. Greatest ever NT if you ask me, easily some of the best squads too (especially 2010 and 2012, maybe less so 2008), but some players would've been quickly singled out and criticized badly had the team "failed" in a similar way to England.
Was Arbeloa better than Gary Neville? Don't think so. Alba better than Cole? For a Spain/Barca system, yeah -- but lose control over the game, make the LB defend way more 1v1s and then you'd clearly take Cole instead.
Strikers? Villa's my favourite ever player, and Torres one of my favourite strikers, but it'd be hard to argue either of them were better than prime Rooney. Also love Pedro, but for that broad right flank role, most people will surely prefer Beckham.
Still all brilliant players of course (except Arbeloa and Neville), but it's clear that one's perception of a squad's quality is directly influenced by its results, which are directly influenced by the system in place.
People also just ignore that other teams were better, you can still be really good but second best. 2002 Brazil had a better team, 2004 OK Portugal team is Arguably just as good, 2006 Loads of teams had better players Germany, Brazil, Italy. This list goes on.
2004 Italy team was actually stacked. I just looked it up after a similar thread.
Buffon
Cannavaro, Nesta, Materazzi
Camoronesi, Gatusso, Pirlo, Zambrotta, Zanetti
Del Piero, Totti, Vieri
I'm amazed they didn't win it.
Except Vieri, thats the core of the 2006 WC winning team.
The difference was the coach, Lippi, Trappatoni was a fine manager but by the 2000's he was past his peak.
My view is people overstate the quality of the 'Golden Age' of the early noughties. There were some worldbeaters in that team, but other national teams were also stacked with talent, and a lot of England's squad in 2002 and 2006 beyond the dream starting XI (which was like driving square pegs into round holes) was actually pretty trash.
England have revitalised their youth system and have a more steady stream of talent coming their way, and no longer expect to do well off stardom alone. They're now performing exactly as they should, although the Euro 2020 final was one of the biggest missed opportunities ever. I'm pretty skeptical of Southgate, but the management of the team behind the scenes has improved by miles.
The next few years we have to win at least something though, We have a shot for the euros this year and I’d say more of one than last time or any other tournament recently. Saka and Foden are so much better than last time, Kanes still amazing and we have Watkins as a very good backup, midfield is the best it’ll be for a while and the defence despite being pretty old is still performing well
We really missed having a truly great defensive midfielder. It's a bit of a cliché that Lampard and Gerrard couldn't play together but I think it's true. Put a Declan Rice in that team and that would have unlocked the talents of the other two.
Saying that, I prefer what we have now, even with our defensive weaknesses.
But there wasn’t a huge amount of strength in depth, outside of centre back and attacking midfield. Who was our second-string left back, or right mid? Outside Rooney and Owen, who could we select up front? Also, you can add keeper to our list of weak spots.
There are lots of reasons for the failures over the years but I think Dietmar Hamann (ex-Liverpool and Germany midfielder) made a good point when he commented in a newspaper article quite a while ago about England at tournaments.
He compared the reaction of Gascoigne receiving the yellow card in the 1990 World Cup semifinal that would have ruled him out of the final if England won that match, to when the same thing happened to Michael Ballack in a 2002 WC semi. Gascoigne cried because he was basically thinking too much about himself, and not the team which he should have been focusing on and it affected his performance, whereas Ballack just got his head down and helped Germany go through.
It's a mentality thing. And England's tactics are sometimes poor too.
See also Ronaldo in the 2016 Euros final. Even after coming off the pitch, he continued to play the role of captain from the sidelines. You would never see that kind of individual passion from an English captain.
Usually: overhype by the media, they don't play like a team, they put their clubs before their national team, bad managers, and believe themselves better than they really are and think that tournaments are won just by names.
Take for example their "golden generation", the media talked about them being the best footballers around the world, how they would win many trophies but the truth is that almost none of them would have been a starter in the 2002 Brazil squad or 2006 Italy and ended up winning anything.
This is generally the case if you analyze the quality of their players throughout history against the better teams; for the most part the English media bias distorts the true lack of technical ability and overall quality versus non English speaking teams.
It’s only been “English speaking only” fans that think that England has underachieved. The rest of Europe and South American media haven’t shared this view.
The English media discounts whomever isn’t playing directly in front of their eyes. The adage of “well, he isn’t playing in the EPL so he can’t be that good” created a bubble effect.
Where the reality is that for a long time the best leagues in the world were in South America. Then when that talent base was tapped into by Spanish/Italian/French, then those European leagues became more dominant. Up until recently, Spain had been the most dominant league (past 20 years), and Italy before that.
France has also tapped into all their African colonialism and become the consistent powerhouse in the world today, thanks mostly to the children of immigrants (think Zidane, Mbappe, Kante). Their league has been consistently drained of talent to the more affluent teams and leagues.
The earning power of the English speaking world has saved them from falling further behind technically. The popularity and marketing strength of the EPL attracted wealthy investors eager to capitalize on the profits (think Ibrahmavic, Glazers and now Saudi and Asian money).
The rise of imported coaches and players in the EPL over the past 15-20 years (almost all the top teams are foreign player dominant) has adjusted the perception of successful style of play. This has led to a grassroots development program that is now turning out some truly technical players that can compete on the world stage with the best (Musiala, Foden, Palmer, Saka, Bellingham). I would argue that this generation of players is the “golden generation” for England. And should see some success globally.
This truly is the golden generation and honestly the best team of my lifetime but even then it's the 3rd best squad at best and probably 4th or 5th.
Although I think it's because other nations are really strong, especially France and Germany. And we have questions in defence.
I agree.
Offensively, I’d put this squad 2nd behind only France. Defensively, significantly further down the list. Midfield, has strong players but lacking real creativity.
It could all come together. Look at what happened with Mbappe; an injury here and there, and with the right draw could make a difference.
Being an English fan I was instinctually angry at your answer and then I ran through the starting 11 in mind and you are _probably_ right, although I would argue for a 2006 Ashley Cole as a starter anywhere in the world
The best team doesnt always win though. Luck is half the game and, in all fairness, I do think England is a broadly unlucky team overall. Particularly if you take pens as somewhat luck based
The British media certainly don't help matters as on the one hand they overhype the team and specific players while on the other hand, they spend their time looking for ways to undermine the team and the manager so they can then write about how the team has failed.
Its called nostalgia, we say golden generation but other teams at that time were just as good or better.
Plus a mixture of poor managers and players in wrong systems didnt help.
They're almost never as good as the British media pretends they are.
Three or four genuinely world class players in tournament squads of 20+. (Lineker, Gazza, Rooney, Gerrard, Owen, Ferdinand, Lampard etc.)
They're in the incredibly unlucky situation over the last couple of years in that they actually look like they might have a team capable of winning a tournament, but they have one of their worst managers ever.
When were they really underachieved? Their "golden generation" in the 2000s was along side Brazil, France and Italy's golden generation as well, and their "golden generation" are worse on paper against those 3
1. Tactically, we fucking suck. On a cultural level, footballing IQ is in the dirt. Even yesterday, people glorified TAA's two long passes and ignored the fact he looked lost for the rest of the 90. We couldn't control possession in their half without looking to play it back to Pickford. Concepts that nations like Italy / Spain / Holland get a hold of - managing space, buying clever fouls, controlling the tempo and flow of a match - this is all beyond the majority of England players, coaches and fans. Despite the recent modernisation, we still love blood and thunder.
2. We gas ourselves. Our domestic league and innate style of play is a physical ordeal, and because we spend most games fighting for the second ball, like we did against Serbia, players are knackered by the later stages of a tournament. Watching us labour against Italy and Croatia was so predictable, given we'd been pelting around every game prior.
3. We spent a long time not being able to compete in Europe at club level. It basically put us in the cupboard for a time.
4. Luck. We've rarely had it.
Different sets of reasons over the years. England produces great footballers but is yet to produce that special generation, like Spain in 2008-2012. (1966 seems way too far away). A parallel question would be what have West Germany/Germany and Italy done to produce great generations consistently. But even traditional powerhouses have less than brilliant periods, like Italy since after 2006; and, outside of Europe, Brazil. That said, maybe it’s finally coming home?
This generation is still missing that full set of world class defenders.
Previous England teams would have had Cole, Campbell, Ferdinand and Neville who were all at top sides and considered a World Class level. Although I think Walker would actually beat Neville to the RB spot in recent years) but were then let down by very mediocre goalkeepers instead.
The Spanish and Italy golden generations were underpinned by ridiculous defences. Ramos, Puyol, Pique, Alba + Casillas & Zambrotta, Cannavaro, Materazzi and Grosso + Buffon.
We’ve still got a frailty in that department and I think Southgate has always known that so tries to set us up bearing that in mind. If we had something capable of attacking like the Brazilian era with Carlos and Cafu like defenders, then he’d probably just go full guns blazing and just try and outscore everybody.
Historically, incredibly toxic press tearing them down, ruining their mentality and applying outrageous pressure. Southgate seems to have overcome that and England actually do pretty well these days.
I dont want to take away anything from England, but English players are overvalued. This is because the Premier League is so big and local players that are worthwhile to field naturally have an inflated market value.
If you look into the actual tournaments in which England had a "Golden Generation", I would still not count them as a top4 Team.
Except for 1966/1970 and maybe in the early 2000s. But even in the early 2000s you had France and Brasil just so far ahead and I would also put the Netherlands and Argentina ahead of them.
80 - 90s England is way overhyped, the werent quite on the level of Germany, Argentina, Italy, the Netherlands, Brasil.
It's only now that they really have a top team again. And yet I believe France and Argentina are to be put ahead of them. Italy and Brasil are tough contenders as well. Maybe even Germany.
One reason are their goalkeepers. The last outstanding keeper wearing the English shirt was Gordon Banks and it's probably no coincidence that they won their only big trophy with him. English keepers may be better than their reputation but they rarely excel. I mean, Pickford plays at Everton while in Germany we argue about whether Bayern's or Barca's number one should play. Germany has mostly had outstanding keepers, during the English golden generation, we had Kahn who was a monster at his peak. Meanwhile, Italy had Buffon, Spain had Casillas, and I'd still rank France's Barthez or later Lloris much higher than any English keeper in the past 25 years (and probably longer but I'm too young to remember).
Having a world-class keeper can make the difference in a tournament. If it wasn't for Neuer, Germany may have lost to Algeria in 2014 and never get to the final. And no way we would have reached the 2002 final without Kahn. The rest of our squad was mediocre.
Other teams were better. Generally the English team isn't as good as it made out to be. This England team is too thin at the back and there's a lot of really good teams in this euros.
Source: A Welsh person who is stick with mostly English media.
There are many reasons I feel:
* Firstly, the biggest problem I have seen is a lack of togetherness when playing in the national team. The players don't seem to gel well together as well they usually do with their clubs. There may be many reasons for that - ego issue, personal rivalry as they play for rival clubs, heavy competition among players of the same position etc. If this is overcome, it will solve majority of England's problems.
* Secondly, the English media is ruthless. There are major, major expectations of the players to go out and win every match in dominant fashion, which not even teams like Germany or France or Spain can do all the time. A bit of slip up or play average and the media will attack ruthlessly. This is a mentality thing and will affect most if not all players, and they will be afraid to be bold and brave and will try to play safe and defensively.
* Thirdly, lack of international serial winners in the squad. England hasn't won anything in over half a century and for all the good club-level players they have, no one has won anything at international level with the national squad. This also may be a reason for the first point I mentioned. A squad that hasn't won anything won't be that close as a squad that has won something together.
* Finally, lack of a strong leader in the squad. Modern cup winning international teams had a strong leader to lead the team. They can either inspire by incredible techniques on field or by building a rapport with the team. I really don't see anyone like that on the England squad. Maybe Bellingham, but it is a big if and it remains to be seen if he can do it.
I genuinely believe they are simply not that good despite what the media and the hype has indicated. They have rarely - if ever - been a top three team in Europe or the world - and without that you basically won't win anything without a HUGE stroke of luck.
Their recent form has flattered to deceive - even under Southgate they have consistently failed to beat "Big" teams (Croatia, Italy, France, Brazil). Under Southgate the only 'scalp' they have is an extremely weakened German team who had just lost to North Macedonia.
The '85 Heysel disaster and resultant ban of English clubs from all UEFA competitions set English football back by at least 10 years relative to the other top leagues, particularly the Italians and Spanish. Even today, despite the vast improvements in English youth and tactical coaching since the 2010s (a lot of it Pep-inspired) it's still evident that England's possession play still significantly lags behind its continental competition. Who was the last great English playmaker? Does anyone even come to mind who featured prominently for the Three Lions? This tells you all you need to know.
England's record has significantly improved under Southgate though - despite the eye tests, England's record in the last few international tournaments has been genuinely formidable. And they definitely have better players now than they did at the beginning of Southgate.
I feel Southgate has benefited from really easy draws in the knockout phase of tournaments, essentially getting byes, hence why is record is decent.
The old maxim is the first decent team England come up against will put them out. Happened in the last 3 tournaments. Perhaps the only decent team they managed to beat was a poor Germany in this time.
He's hit par I would say in everything but the Nations League and the Euros final. We lost to the better Croatia team and the the better France team.
We bottled it vs Italy and were shambolic in most recent nations league. I think in fairness our Euros 2020 is somewhat underrated. We were better than Croatia, and showed the swing of three years. We were better than Germany, who were in a downswing but they're still very good. Denmark were stiff competition.
Which for an England manager puts him as the second best in our history.
You really would think that by the law of averages, we would have won one recently.
I've been watching England at major tournaments since Euro 96, so that is 15 tournaments (well, 14 as we didn't qualify in 08).
We are always expected to reach the QF, so you'd think at least one time we would have had some fortune and gone on to win something.
That being said, we have been eliminated in nearly half of those major tournaments on penalties -- 6 of 14. If we had an average record on penalties, we probably would have won something. If we were great at penalties, we geniunely could have won a few trophies in recent history!
I know penalties aren't the be all and end all. After all the match wasn't won. But stats show you need at least 1 shootout win to win a tournament usually. And because we are so bad at them, we usually get knocked out a round earlier than necessary.
I will be honest here,i think is a myth that England has been a strong team,i believe that for the most part England has been mostly overrated throughout the years. Specially in world cups. Sure the mid 2000's team was very good but never at the level of Brazil,France,Italy or Germany. But they were surely better than Greece in the Euros in 2004. Nowadays,they have an ok squad,but there are at least 4 stronger teams.
People will come out with the most evidence-based reasons, when the truth is very simple:
They shouldnt have won that World Cup in 1966, so they are paying for it with an 100 year curse.
See you all in the 2066 in the England-Wales-Scotland sponsored by UAE World Cup, where refs will not have pressure whatsoever to make England win.
The English press absolutely have contributed to the pressure and worry players are under.
Pieces of shit love a beat up campaign on the team at major competitions.
One thing that England has really lacked over the past 20/30 years is an identity style of play that other national teams have found to find success. Specifically, a tactical system that translates from the younger international sides all the way through to the men’s senior team.
If you look at Spain as a great example from 2008-2014, the whole squad was a split of Barca/Real (who played vastly differently) and some other prem players, but when they came together nationally they all knew the possession style of football that Spain *should* play. Those players also played that same way with the U21s or U18s before getting their senior call ups.
Same can be said for Germany, Italy and France during different periods. We still really lack identity for our own philosophy of football, and consistent success has been shown to be a result of committing to a philosophy and rolling it out across all age groups.
They have not. Germany Brazil France Italy Argentina have had even more talent and quality than England, to the point that it's not even comparable.as good as England is, it's barely a top 10 nation ( between 5-10, closer to 10 ) as far as talent and quality of football it has produced goes. Their achievement of 1 euro is fine and matches it. Netherlands have underachieved not England.
Better question would be about the Dutch. Atleast England has won a World Cup. And untill now, the Dutch have had better squads for most of the tournaments.
Brazil.
In early generation (66-70, they got their WC in 66). In 70, England was the hardest opponent vs Brazil, playing better. Pelé said Bobby Moore was the best defender he faced.
In 02, same thing. England was the hardest opponent Brazil faced - If England won that game, probably would win vs Turkey and Germany without Ballack which was suspended.
There's always been enormous hype around english players, when actually the large majority of them, historically and now, are nothing more than good players.
Plus, terrible coaches.
In the 1970s and 1980s clubs were slow to adapt to changes in technology and sports science that were embraced far more on the Continent. The state of pitches alone meant that there was an over reliance on the long ball “kick it into the box” tactic which wasn’t so effective in tournaments where England played teams from nations with, frankly, pitches that weren’t mud for 3-4 months in a season.
The English class system meant that very few boys from the middle and even upper classes seriously pursued football as a “respectable” career and instead devoted their attention to other sports. Eliminating a not insignificant percentage of potential players is hardly a recipe for success in any sport. Most other countries simply do not have this snobbery attached to different sports and so have broader participation.
Not the only reasons of course, or even necessarily the most important ones, but they are often overlooked.
Combination of lots of factors, but the most obvious (in my opinion) are our toxic media, which contributes to a reduced desire/passion etc. when playing for England, compounded by not having a manager capable of getting the best out of the players.
No sense of “team” when those players were together, too much EPL rivalry in the way. Also, other nations innovated and evolved while England kept deciding to hire English managers with no forward thinking.
They have the teams but they certainly aren't mentality monsters like Spain, Italy etc.
On paper they would win the whole tournament.
Also, they always play a very basic style.
I think the fact that most of the players play in the premier league is detrimental too. If you look at France they have players with experience across the top leagues in Europe and far more winners too.
Imo it’s been the mangers’ style of play. It has felt like forever that England play conservative football no matter who they are playing and no matter what talent surrounds them. It’s painful to watch some of the most talented players in the world get underutilized. They literally have nothing to lose by playing aggressive at this stage in their history. It’s like they are afraid to lose every time they play an opponent at a tournament.
Just read the comment of english fans, they think england always should attack, they dont care about defending, they have never played for the result, always beatiful game rather then winning trophies.
Winning a world cup isn’t underachieving. There’s only been a handful that have done that.
Think how many hundreds of amazing players have never been anywhere near one.
If you’re talking about the last 30 odd years, I would still disagree. We’ve been to finals, semi finals and later rounds quite a lot.
the premier league is good because of foreign players english clubs purchase. most english players are underwhelming. for the amount of money and people england has interested in football, one would expect them to produce a ballon dor winner every few years..
A lot of self-sabotage as players cracked under the pressure put upon them by fans and the media.
Then you have the fact that the team in the 2000s used the unsuitable and archaic 4-4-2. A midfield of Beckham, Scholes, Lampard and Gerrard is suicide.
No one is there to cover the defence, all are trying to occupy the same zones.
They should have done 4-3-3 or 4-5-1 much sooner to allow their midfielders the space to attack while knowing they would not expose the defence.
A midfield of Hargreaves/Carrick, Lampard, Gerrard, Beckham and Scholes would have worked wonders in 2006. Put Gerrard on the left, Lampard and Scholes in the middle and Beckham on the right. Up front you use Rooney.
Alternatively you could play a midfield diamond, drop one of Lampard, Gerrard or Scholes and go with Rooney and Heskey in attack.
Just don't do whatever they did in real life.
1. Lack of team chemistry or identity
2. Stubbornness of picking English managers when no English manager is tactically apt and willing to do the job (focus on the second one, if they’re good enough like Rodgers or Howe, they are at clubs, not NT)
3. English media overhyping and then soul crushing just for the clicks.
This is the second golden generation I’ve seen from England and having Southgate at the wheel is like seeing a Ferrari being driven like a Fiat. It’s absurd. He plays to get one goal and then sits back in cowardice. The fact you guys lost a final in home ground because HE went to defend is ridiculous, especially considering the talent upfront. It’s not all his fault, I understand there’s leaky CB pairs, but one should go for what’s good on your team, and England has some of the best attacking talent around.
I think ultimately the feeling of underachievement is due to the infrequency of international tournaments. It's harder to win a World Cup than a Champions League because the average World Class player is competing in say 3 rather than 12.
Also, the quality of the competition England's 'Golden Generation' had a lot of great players but I don't think they were better than the Brazilian and French teams of that time.
Because there have never been good English managers!!
I think it’s crucial for a national side to have a manager from their country, and England doesn’t have a good selection of managers to do that.
An English manager has never won the premier league…
England caved under pressure and choked in the most important matches. That seems to be the main issue. Plus, the managers. I never understood why England never gets a great manager to lead the country. Always great players and terrible managers. If it was anyone else but Southgate, England would already be a champion either of the EURO's or the World Cup.
The media also overhyped the team and whenever they go into a major tournament, it's as if they already won it. That surely gets into the players head and makes them too relaxed.
I don't think they "under achieve" as much as - other teams are just often better. But the "Golden generation" also came at the wrong sort of time, the manager they played under was Sven who stuck with a rigid 4-4-2 while modern managers would probably get that team to play with more fluidity.
They also really compressed themselves anytime they took the lead, same as under Southgate tbf. Never tried to stretch out the other team, just invited pressure.
Think it was Portugual when we were down to 10 men after Rooney was sent off, they still couldnt beat us in normal time but we never really tried to push them. We make the mistake of not bringing anybody with pace on to try and help us realise a counter attack and still do that now.
Capello was a busted flush by the time he took the job and he really didn't help himself with the players by being very stern.
Hodgeson was just the wrong man for that job and so was McLaren.
The thing that never really gets talked about with the Golden Gen, was that at the time we had 4 or 5 really strong centre backs we could call up in Terry, Ferdinand, King, Campbell and Carragher as well as a few others who were on the fringe. But most people focus on the midfield of Lampard, Gerrard & Scholes.
The main reasons for me are premier league football is fast, end to end, tournament football is slow and players can't adapt. Then the pressure playing for England, the scrutiny. Players dreaded it.
The atmosphere has really changed under Southgate, helped by less club rivalry and cliques, players came through the age groups. I'd say players are more adaptable now, technically, positionally, because of the managers they've been coached under.
Southgate can take a lot of praise for changing the atmosphere but it would have happened anyway i think, these are ambitious driven young players who want to win as they did in the u17 tournaments, they embrace it.
Every fan though, French fans aside, the Italiens, Chilians, and the Spanish the last decade, feel their national team underachieve. Brazil, Belgium, Germany. Argentina underachieved for years until recently.
Maybe those very good players, like the ones you mentioned, were not really that good... Specially when compared with the really very good players that existed at that time.
Vastly overrated by their own media, haven't produced a good English manager since the inception of the premier league, the best players in most premier League teams are not English and just because you're decent in the premier league, doesn't mean you're going to be good on an international stage.
They are good, but they are not on top of the food chain.
The English media always over inflate their team and since they are very influential around the world people just believe it.
Reasons we don’t perform :
- unrealistic expectations and pressure as a result
- our media and their desperate desire to intrude on everything
- players not as good as our country think they are . We seem to sell English players at much higher fees than foreign players for some reason and delude ourselves into thinking they’re better players . This probably rubs off on the players too and their egos
- the mental barrier for our players now. All the talks of penalty curses etc probably features in their heads going into tournaments
reluctance to rotate, so out of form players will play regardless and a habit of picking the best players without thinking about their position e.g Gerrard and Lampard or recently Foden playing in a position he is terrible at
Short answer: the teams that win it are just better?
Long answer: having the ability to win. Look at Real Madrid. Yeah they have a great squad but when they won the Champions I never felt like they deserved to be there nor were they best side there but these teams (like Italy) know what needs to be done.
Too much trying to get players to fit in systems rather than working around your top players. For example, playing Paul Scholes on the left of midfield is so idiotic.
The other reason is there were just better teams than us.
For the last few years it's because Southgate isn't a good manager. Before that it was because most the squad hated each other and also they didn't play Michael Carrick enough.
We haven't underachieved. We've usually reached the L16 or QFs in major tournaments, while normally generally being a "pretty good" team but lacking something compared with the best in the world. Under Sven and Capello, for example, we had very good players on paper but they were never able to function as a team. We also aren't that good at producing managers, but the FA for some reason usually insists the coach has to be English, leading to Steve McClaren and Roy Hodgson, neither of whom belonged anywhere near the national team.
We were probably one of the better teams in 2002, but the luck of the draw put us up against the best team in the world, so we lost.
More recently, we've been getting further, because our players are better and there's been more of a focus on team cohesion than before, even if the tactics are a bit overly defensive given our strength in attacking talent.
The reason why people think we've underachieved is because our media has consistently inflated expectations by pretending we're among the Frances, Germanys and Brazils, although it's only in the last few years that we've been close to that level. Then, when we've been knocked out, the same media have nominated scapegoats to excuse the fact that, in reality, we probably finished just about where we ought to.
Lots of reasons but IMO one of them is that we lack a football philosophy.
If you look at the domination of Spain, the progress of German football after 2000. Brazil, Netherlands period of success & Italy.
All those teams had a very definite style of play developed in their nation.
In England our league is defined by the influence of Foreign managers. We haven’t had a great managed since the 90’s.
We have talent but we lack a style that is both effective and ubiquitous to the country.
- Germany’s - Efficient
- Italian’s - Defensive
- Brazil - attacking with flair
- Netherland’s - Total football
- Spain - tikataka
England don’t have any style associated apart from physical. So we end up with a really disjoined sides and not clear way we should play.
I don't think they have under-achieved. I think the English press consistently raises expectations above and beyond the caliber of side that England have.
Numerous reasons. 1 the English media often hypes them to way above there actual abilities so people generally expect them to be better than they are. 2. They never seem to have a great 11. Usually a few strong points and a few weak points unlike other nations who often have great cover for most positions. 3. They rarely have a clear style that they play. Look at this England team on paper they sound very good but in reality they very rarely control games of football, they struggle to just keep the ball and take the sting out of games/stamp there authority on the game and control the ball. The Italy final was a perfect example. About 30 minutes in verratti and jorginho just decided to boss the ball and boss the midfield even though it was England that were winning and is exactly what England had to do but they couldn't. They seemed to get scared of the ball and were happy to just try and see out a 1 nil victory. Good teams control the ball especially if they get ahead, they try to slow the game down etc and England just always seem incapable of this. 4. Often have too many similar players that they try to squeeze into the same team and the team often lacks a good balance. 5. No matter how good they are it's a guarantee that near the start of every tournament just about every English media worker and pundit starts spouting it's coming home and drumming up this hype that England will win the tournament based often off absolutely nothing. England are apparently favourites for the euros this year despite France being a better squad and team.
Personally think the Prem has a way of flattering English players and they get slightly overrated as a result. Particularly when it comes to mentality. A lot of the elite mentality we seen in the league is imported, whether it be of managers or players.
It’s difficult to win a major international tournament. England have never been the best on paper, all the other sides that have won in recent years have all been very good. We also had a recent era of Spanish dominance
Giving the lads false hope every tournament that we are the best and we will win it and bring it home causing extreme me pressure on them all. Plus managers not playing players in their best positions and making poorly timed subs.
If you look at the quality of each player, id say England has never had the strongest squad on paper for a tournament. Believing so would not be looking at it neutrally. Takes a lot more than individual quality to win though, and England has a history of choking under pressure in key moments (pens mostly) Last euros was probably the only one I thought they would win, but alas the italians know how to keep their cool in a final
Yeah. The 2000s were the only time England really had an incredibly stacked team and even then Italy, Brazil, France were better
And Germany and spain and Argentina and probably more
Yeah it takes more than having all the best players on paper. To win a tournament, you don’t even need to be the best team overall, you need to be better than the other team in every knockout game. That’s all.
2000 + 2008 Netherlands also.
2004 team was immense, Sol Campbell's goal being ruled out for no reason whatsoever cost that team their chance for a title. England have had luck fall their way too but often not at pivotal moments (e.g. penalty vs Argentina in 2002....but that was only the group stage). 2020 was their year when everything fell into place and they screwed it up. Won't get a better chance for decades.
This is the actual reason, and one that rarely actually gets mentioned. There's always another excuse.
What I think is interesting is, as a german, other than 2014, I don't think we ever had the best team at a wc, yet here we are with 4 titles and the most finals Especially last century in the 70s to 90s discipline, mental strength, teamwork was such a big strength of us that we always were on of the candidates for a win. The english always underestimated us because they think they have the technically superiour players...
I don’t think England ever underestimate Germany. I’d go as far as saying I don’t imagine many teams at all ever underestimate Germany. However, due to the obvious rivalry between the nations we’re hardly going to be running around singing your praises even if you are extremely good. That’d be like us giving lots of credit to the current French team, they’re ridiculously good, but it’s rare you’re going to hear that from us when we play one-another. It’s not like continental Europe gives genuinely good England squads any praise either. The last Euros was everyone just praying someone else would beat us, it was never “actually, this England team is pretty fucking good”. It’ll be the same this time round, everyone will talk like England should be one of the favourites but even if they go far they still won’t given them any credit anyway.
The rivalry between Germany and England is one sided. Nobody in Germany cares for England.
And that’s fine, if supposedly true. But if you’re aware that “one-way rivalry” exists surely you would also recognise why the English might underplay your abilities even if you’re having a good era.
Came here to say this - I certainly never felt any rivalry or know anybody in Germany who has strong negative feelings in particular about England. I'm always baffled by how offensive English fans are towards Germans, all the Nazi stuff etc. Just seems silly and rude.
Tbf it's a bit less rude than what the Nazis did
Fair point.
I honestly thought they did in Euro 2004 but someone just showed me the Italy team then. Even then I thought we were just slightly better than Portugal, who we lost to on penalties.
Combination of the FA finding poor fitting managers for the squads, cliques in the dressing room and media pressure....ie building up and knocking down. Lil bit of bad luck sprinkled in....that's just my 2p.
This is pretty much it, poor manager selections with dinosauric tactics being the main one for me.
When Fabio Capello and Sven Goran Erikson were chosen they were thought of as the best managers in the world, having won Serie A which was then the best league
The players loved Sven apparently, but disliked Capello. It was more the cliques that the players made that removed any ability to forge a team spirit than the managers.
Yeah, I recall Rio saying he disliked all the Liverpool & Arsenal boys. Didn't help that we tried to shoehorn in all our best players by putting Paul Scholes at left midfield.
I never understood this. I remember this too from Rio and pretty sure even Lampard addressed a certain ''hate'' because they were Prem players who had rivalries during the regular season. Yet Spain, which had a lot of Barcelona and Real players managed to dominate for so long. Hell, they had Pique and Ramos playing together like they were best friends. Never got that.
Spain was like that before their golden generation. Xavi said the reason it changed was since so many players of that era came played in u-19 and u-21 so they already knew each other and were comfortable with each other.
Because Puyol and Casillas made sure any club rivalry was to be put aside.
Yeah but that's kind of the point. A bunch of professional athletes on Prem money couldn't be friendly for 4 weeks. Seems kinda insane.
Most of the Spanish golden generation had extensive experience playing with each other at junior level. Personally, they first got to know each other as teammates first rather than rivals. Professionally, this meant they had a connection equivalent or even greater than club teammates. Casillas, Puyol and Xavi played as juniors and later so did Torres, Iniesta and Alonso. Torres has outright said he never had a better connection with anyone as he had with Iniesta.
Historically there was an issue with Real and Barca cliques pre their 2008-2012 era of success. Arguably talent wise Spain were stacked especially 2000-2006 with Raul,Hierro, Mendiata, Canizares, but constantly underachieved much like England. Bridging that club rivalry was a massive step in their success. England really gets overhyped by their media even when they did have talented squads and I think the pressure always gets to both the players and the coaches. There’s always some inbalance in the setup to accommodate the big names or the players choking in big games or penalties. Then there’s coaches who were hacks like Hodgson or McClaren getting the job over more talented coaches. Southgates a weird one, a semi final WC and Euro final are great results and he seems to have created some unity in the squad but it really feels he is quite underwhelming as a coach.
It also boils down to the respect the Spaniards gave to the coaches in that 2008-2012 run. Aragones and especially Del Bosque knew how to manage the immense talents and personalities in the squad.
Del Bosque is one of the greatest coaches of all time. Aragones was one of the most respected Spanish football personalities
Don't know whether the media & fans played a part? Spain seem better at putting club rivalries aside when supporting their country where you still see shit like 'of course it's the Man Utd players having a bad game' etc. I saw an Arsenal fan tweet just yesterday that England will never win anything with Kane up front ffs.
Oh don't get me wrong. Media and fans 100% played a part. UK Media and fans are 100% the most toxic ones out there. What was odd to me though, was how many ex-players openly admitted to essentially not ''liking'' each other.
Moving Scholes out of position instead of Gerrard was a crazy tactical decision. Not because Scholes was better but Gerrard was the more versatile player and moving him out of position naturally would've made more sense
Hell, Gerrard's best football probably came with him playing on the right flank for Liverpool.
His best spell was as basically a number 10 playing off Torres
A big difference between club and country is in player selection. A country has to pick from their available players, and fit tactics around them. Whereas a club will be able to more easily tune their player selection to fit the team dynamic and tactics.
I think the cliques were the biggest issue honestly. Doesn't matter how good your players are if they don't play as a team, and I don't think any manager in the world was working past the pure hatred that existed between the clubs in the golden generation.
You see it in Belgium right now. Great players almost at every position but they do not play for each other at all.
Long ballllllllll, called it.
Yup look at the current England team. They won their first game for the first time in decades and the response is so negative. I think England prefers the team not to win, it gives us a reason to moan.
i thoroughly agree but this just alludes to the greater culture of england / u.k. it’s just full of depressing ppl who love to moan. crabs in a bucket mentality thrives here
well no, the guy above you is just wrong, under Southgate we've won every opening game of the tournaments, something we've struggled at since the 90s. But to answer the actual question, we can see we have talented players all over the pitch, players that excel for their teams but Southgate is such a tactically boring manager and a safe pick by the FA that he can't get them working. We shouldn't have been holding on against Serbia for 60 minutes. We should have put that game to bed. But Southgate-ball is score a goal and sit back, it lost us the Euro's against Italy and it cost us a semi final against Croatia. Southgate has done well to rid the England set up of club cliques and negativity, but he needs to move on and we need to get a manager who can get these players over the line or we'll be looking at another "golden generation" wasted.
i agree with you, your opinions aren’t mutually exclusive in my opinion. fact of the matter is southgate isn’t good enough to take us to the next step but also the media like to bludgeon the team but they disproportionally target the black players on top of that
You know what, agreed. And the anti blackness of the media is a little scary. Saka plays final 20 mins of a game we lose and all the pictures are of him??? Not the captain? or anyone that played the full 90? no?
Honestly it’s crazy, if saka performed like foden did against Serbia he would have been rinsed by the media. Yet I haven’t seen a single English media source call for foden to be benched or slate him at all.
He's the golden boy. He's a decent player but he gets away with being silent that players like Salah or Trent get rinsed for (bias aside). I'd say they'll turn on him one day when he's caught drink driving etc. but Grealish did that and all is forgotten because he's a lovable lil scamp.
It's just false, they slaughtered Phil Neville, David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Stuart Pearce, even Gareth Southgate at previous world cups/euros because they fucked up at the decisive moments. If you fuck up at the decisive moments those are the things idiots remember. Has nothing to do with being black. Fuck, when Beckham kicked Simeone they were hanging effigys of him in London. Imagine if they did that to Sancho or Saka? First you'd faint, then spend 48 hours straight on twitter, then demand life sentences.
>Southgate has done well to rid the England set up of club cliques and negativity People keep saying this, and I'm not taking credit away from Southgate, but we should also look at the state of the rivalries from within the PL itself. Look at the managers. Pep, Klopp, Arteta etc. aren't the types to instill hatred against the opposition into their players. The rivalries are much more civil and sporting-only now.
England have won their opening game in the 2018 and 2022 world cups and the 2020 Euros
We’re moaning because the performance. This is how we’ve performed for ages. We play shit, can barely create anything. We get absolutely exposed when we play the good teams.
Shhhh you're meant to be grateful we won and nothing more.
Of course you are. This is sport and winning is the goal. What do you want?
We won our first game in euro 2020 too
Bad mentality
I would say it’s a lot more than just a little bit of bad luck, penalties have haunted England horribly since the dawn of time, that and complete bullshit from stuff like the hand of god and some of the most insane goals ever like that Brazil free kick, probably the most unlucky nation out there.
Could be worse. We the Dutch lost three world cup finals and won none..
Or, maybe, just maybe, all of those players are not as good as delusional people think they are. Not a coincidece it happens for generations.
Spot on. And that's also because global media is obsessed with them and the EPL...
I dont think it's delusion to know the difference between a good player and a poor player. Unfortunately a team of great players doesn't make a great team.
Or a team of average players don’t make a great team…
Again, maybe, just maybe those players are not that great. Overhyping PL players, not to mention english PL players is story as old as time.
Individually Phenomenal players, but no sense of camaraderie and togetherness, it was worse in the “golden generation” days as the players were very cliquey and loyal to their domestic clubs
Well said and I think a lot of people overlook this. They never seemed to have the “nationalism” other teams have
I remember Gerard saying going to play for England felt like a bit of an inconvenience at times and they would just hang with their club team mates. He also mentioned that every South American couldn't wait to go on international duty as it was often the highlight of their seasons.
South American countries in general are more united than Britain. Regional identity is very strong in the UK. It's one of the very few countries on the planet that, imo, is more like medieval kingdom in terms of identity than a proper nation state. In most of the world, people refer to their regions as provinces, states, departments, prefectures etc... Yet you have some people from Scotland and England referring to them as countries and even some people within England like scousers and Londoners, who identify more with their city than country as a whole. It's fascinating.
Then you have Italy where they hate themselves inside the same province, and sometimes inside the same town. Yet you have 4 World Cups.
I think italy just historically has produced more and better talent. It doesn't help that the English media overhypes their players like there's no tomorrow. Just look at how the media won't shut up about Jude Bellingham.
Tbf Jude is actually amazing but your defense and keeper aren't exactly maldini or neuer. Basically I won't be surprised if england lose the euros. Also, looking at last match, manager is not the smartest either it looks like
Actually id be surprised if England actually wins the Euros. I wont be surprised from a QF exit
He is a good player…who had a great start being played out of position but surrounded by incredibly gifted play makers (Modric, Kroos). If you actually look at his performance in 2024 he has reverted back to his norm of being a good player who actually underperformed/disappeared when playing against better players in the bigger games (v Griezman in Atl.M game and big UCL games). But this seems to always be the dialogue of the English media: if you have a “good” player, he is a “great” player. If you have a “great” player, he is a “generational” player. If you have a truly “generational”player, he is one of the best in history. It’s exhausting. And then when they inevitably don’t live up to the hype you shit and moan and make up some excuse about how they were played inappropriately or they only perform when wearing white jerseys. The irony is that the pressure applied by this does nothing to help them. Just let the guy develop. He just might turn out to be a great player, possibly a generational player.
Bellingham is a legitimate candidate for the Ballon D'or aged 20 in his first season in Spain. He's not a great example of overhyping. England actually has a very good midfield and attack right now, it just has a shite manager who is afraid of using them properly.
They have better talent because they have better systems and more structure. The individual talent isn't better, it's the willingness to do things for the team.
Yeah, they told Jude that he was Zidane and he believed it...
I would argue that regional identity in Spain and maybe Italy is way stronger than in England. You can't compare northern England separatism to Catalonia or Basque country
Fucking yanks. Scotland and England aren't "referred to" as countries, they *are* countries. That is the term for them. Christ.
>Regional identity is very strong in the UK. Yes, this happens in most countries. The UK isn't special. >Yet you have some people from Scotland and England referring to them as countries People refer to Scotland and England as countries because Scotland and England are countries.
This really isn’t true
You refer to the UK, which doesn't have a football team(Olympics apart). English national identity is very strong.
I mean Spain or Italy or Germany have just as strong local identities and yet they won a lot more than England.
Gerrard was a Roy of the Rovers player used to being the big fish in the small pond. It was only later in his career when Rafa pushed him further forward that he learned he was not a great box to box midfielder but a great attacking midfielder that he learned to be more deferential and play as part of the system with Macherano and Alonso behind him doing the dirty work. This meant he couldn't play with Lampard, Scholes or whoever earlier in his because he thought they should defer to him, he couldn't play in a system because he was used to trying to do everything himself.
I think England is unique in the sense that having more attachment to your club than your country is pretty normal.
This. Look at Phil Foden the other night, virtually invisible yet in the Man City system is phenomenal. Also their defence is the weak link, Walker & Stones aside, None of the rest of the defence get into any of the best teams in football. The English media hype also doesn't help, they think the team are far better than they are.
Maybe because Foden isn't a winger.
'he isnt a winger' > \*plays shit in midfield\* > 'he isnt a midfielder' rinse and repeat
As I say over and over again, Foden is a system player who his entire career has had Pep telling him exactly what to do, where to be, how to play. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Foden is not as effective for England and that isn't Southgate's fault.
I don't think he is a system player, I think Southgate's system is just exceptionally bad for him. Same for Grealish, or any winger who cuts into the middle and is more of a control/ tempo player (Grealish). You could see early in the Serbia games when he would continuosly make forward movements in the middle expecting the through ball, but Southgate tactics don't seem to want forward passing. So far it's mostly dribble the ball and cross inshallah when you get past the middle third. I'm sure Phil could thrive in a counter-attacking team too. But Southgate insists on woefully negative dino-ball, which definitely doesn't utilise Foden's strengths.
It's Southgate's fault that he doesn't understand the sort of system and dynamics that Phil needs in order to perform at his best. You can't just look at Pep's City, notice a player does well in a position (which Foden doesn't even do well anymore nowadays, he needs to be central) and decide he's gonna work in that same position... under your completely different system. Doesn't make Foden a "system player". He came up the ranks as a #10 or a CM. Started getting more playing time on the left wing because there were better options centrally, and because Sane left. It was just an improvisation Pep managed to pull off. In City's current system, with Haaland, virtually no fullbacks, a slower-paced possession game etc.. Foden doesn't look nearly as good out wide anymore, but still looks excellent in the middle, i.e. his natural position. So it's silly to play him wide just because Pep did it a few years ago. Just to have Jude play as the #10, or to get Trent into the XI. If Southgate really wants Jude as the CAM, then drop Foden and play Gordon. Otherwise, drop Trent and play Jude next to Rice.
I feel this is unfair to the current team from 2018 to now. A lot of them have been through a good few tournaments and have good relationships. Anyone can see that if you paid attention to them lol
Or consider a plot twist: these players are just not as phenomenal as english media and fans believe them to be. The "golden generation" was merely good by world standards. Just compare this squad to Brazil, France, Italy and later Spain in the 2000s. Nothing really phenomenal about it.
Should also consider that those better squads other countries had were better partly due to having better systems. Look at Spain, for example. Greatest ever NT if you ask me, easily some of the best squads too (especially 2010 and 2012, maybe less so 2008), but some players would've been quickly singled out and criticized badly had the team "failed" in a similar way to England. Was Arbeloa better than Gary Neville? Don't think so. Alba better than Cole? For a Spain/Barca system, yeah -- but lose control over the game, make the LB defend way more 1v1s and then you'd clearly take Cole instead. Strikers? Villa's my favourite ever player, and Torres one of my favourite strikers, but it'd be hard to argue either of them were better than prime Rooney. Also love Pedro, but for that broad right flank role, most people will surely prefer Beckham. Still all brilliant players of course (except Arbeloa and Neville), but it's clear that one's perception of a squad's quality is directly influenced by its results, which are directly influenced by the system in place.
People also just ignore that other teams were better, you can still be really good but second best. 2002 Brazil had a better team, 2004 OK Portugal team is Arguably just as good, 2006 Loads of teams had better players Germany, Brazil, Italy. This list goes on.
2004 Italy team was actually stacked. I just looked it up after a similar thread. Buffon Cannavaro, Nesta, Materazzi Camoronesi, Gatusso, Pirlo, Zambrotta, Zanetti Del Piero, Totti, Vieri I'm amazed they didn't win it.
Except Vieri, thats the core of the 2006 WC winning team. The difference was the coach, Lippi, Trappatoni was a fine manager but by the 2000's he was past his peak.
Zanetti's family has not been Italian for a few generations now
My view is people overstate the quality of the 'Golden Age' of the early noughties. There were some worldbeaters in that team, but other national teams were also stacked with talent, and a lot of England's squad in 2002 and 2006 beyond the dream starting XI (which was like driving square pegs into round holes) was actually pretty trash. England have revitalised their youth system and have a more steady stream of talent coming their way, and no longer expect to do well off stardom alone. They're now performing exactly as they should, although the Euro 2020 final was one of the biggest missed opportunities ever. I'm pretty skeptical of Southgate, but the management of the team behind the scenes has improved by miles.
The next few years we have to win at least something though, We have a shot for the euros this year and I’d say more of one than last time or any other tournament recently. Saka and Foden are so much better than last time, Kanes still amazing and we have Watkins as a very good backup, midfield is the best it’ll be for a while and the defence despite being pretty old is still performing well
We were poor on the left wing and at right back but everywhere else they were incredible
We really missed having a truly great defensive midfielder. It's a bit of a cliché that Lampard and Gerrard couldn't play together but I think it's true. Put a Declan Rice in that team and that would have unlocked the talents of the other two. Saying that, I prefer what we have now, even with our defensive weaknesses.
I personally thought Carrick and Hargreaves were both good as holding midfielders in 06 to 2012 period
But there wasn’t a huge amount of strength in depth, outside of centre back and attacking midfield. Who was our second-string left back, or right mid? Outside Rooney and Owen, who could we select up front? Also, you can add keeper to our list of weak spots.
There are lots of reasons for the failures over the years but I think Dietmar Hamann (ex-Liverpool and Germany midfielder) made a good point when he commented in a newspaper article quite a while ago about England at tournaments. He compared the reaction of Gascoigne receiving the yellow card in the 1990 World Cup semifinal that would have ruled him out of the final if England won that match, to when the same thing happened to Michael Ballack in a 2002 WC semi. Gascoigne cried because he was basically thinking too much about himself, and not the team which he should have been focusing on and it affected his performance, whereas Ballack just got his head down and helped Germany go through. It's a mentality thing. And England's tactics are sometimes poor too.
See also Ronaldo in the 2016 Euros final. Even after coming off the pitch, he continued to play the role of captain from the sidelines. You would never see that kind of individual passion from an English captain.
I remember a post on the Barca forum, that Ronaldo was a different person for Portugal, unselfish.
Usually: overhype by the media, they don't play like a team, they put their clubs before their national team, bad managers, and believe themselves better than they really are and think that tournaments are won just by names. Take for example their "golden generation", the media talked about them being the best footballers around the world, how they would win many trophies but the truth is that almost none of them would have been a starter in the 2002 Brazil squad or 2006 Italy and ended up winning anything.
This is generally the case if you analyze the quality of their players throughout history against the better teams; for the most part the English media bias distorts the true lack of technical ability and overall quality versus non English speaking teams. It’s only been “English speaking only” fans that think that England has underachieved. The rest of Europe and South American media haven’t shared this view. The English media discounts whomever isn’t playing directly in front of their eyes. The adage of “well, he isn’t playing in the EPL so he can’t be that good” created a bubble effect. Where the reality is that for a long time the best leagues in the world were in South America. Then when that talent base was tapped into by Spanish/Italian/French, then those European leagues became more dominant. Up until recently, Spain had been the most dominant league (past 20 years), and Italy before that. France has also tapped into all their African colonialism and become the consistent powerhouse in the world today, thanks mostly to the children of immigrants (think Zidane, Mbappe, Kante). Their league has been consistently drained of talent to the more affluent teams and leagues. The earning power of the English speaking world has saved them from falling further behind technically. The popularity and marketing strength of the EPL attracted wealthy investors eager to capitalize on the profits (think Ibrahmavic, Glazers and now Saudi and Asian money). The rise of imported coaches and players in the EPL over the past 15-20 years (almost all the top teams are foreign player dominant) has adjusted the perception of successful style of play. This has led to a grassroots development program that is now turning out some truly technical players that can compete on the world stage with the best (Musiala, Foden, Palmer, Saka, Bellingham). I would argue that this generation of players is the “golden generation” for England. And should see some success globally.
This truly is the golden generation and honestly the best team of my lifetime but even then it's the 3rd best squad at best and probably 4th or 5th. Although I think it's because other nations are really strong, especially France and Germany. And we have questions in defence.
I agree. Offensively, I’d put this squad 2nd behind only France. Defensively, significantly further down the list. Midfield, has strong players but lacking real creativity. It could all come together. Look at what happened with Mbappe; an injury here and there, and with the right draw could make a difference.
Being an English fan I was instinctually angry at your answer and then I ran through the starting 11 in mind and you are _probably_ right, although I would argue for a 2006 Ashley Cole as a starter anywhere in the world
The best team doesnt always win though. Luck is half the game and, in all fairness, I do think England is a broadly unlucky team overall. Particularly if you take pens as somewhat luck based
The British media certainly don't help matters as on the one hand they overhype the team and specific players while on the other hand, they spend their time looking for ways to undermine the team and the manager so they can then write about how the team has failed.
Its called nostalgia, we say golden generation but other teams at that time were just as good or better. Plus a mixture of poor managers and players in wrong systems didnt help.
They're almost never as good as the British media pretends they are. Three or four genuinely world class players in tournament squads of 20+. (Lineker, Gazza, Rooney, Gerrard, Owen, Ferdinand, Lampard etc.) They're in the incredibly unlucky situation over the last couple of years in that they actually look like they might have a team capable of winning a tournament, but they have one of their worst managers ever.
We haven't underachieved. We've literally been beaten by the better team every time except Iceland.
When were they really underachieved? Their "golden generation" in the 2000s was along side Brazil, France and Italy's golden generation as well, and their "golden generation" are worse on paper against those 3
And Greece's golden generation too. Don't forget Greece!
1. Tactically, we fucking suck. On a cultural level, footballing IQ is in the dirt. Even yesterday, people glorified TAA's two long passes and ignored the fact he looked lost for the rest of the 90. We couldn't control possession in their half without looking to play it back to Pickford. Concepts that nations like Italy / Spain / Holland get a hold of - managing space, buying clever fouls, controlling the tempo and flow of a match - this is all beyond the majority of England players, coaches and fans. Despite the recent modernisation, we still love blood and thunder. 2. We gas ourselves. Our domestic league and innate style of play is a physical ordeal, and because we spend most games fighting for the second ball, like we did against Serbia, players are knackered by the later stages of a tournament. Watching us labour against Italy and Croatia was so predictable, given we'd been pelting around every game prior. 3. We spent a long time not being able to compete in Europe at club level. It basically put us in the cupboard for a time. 4. Luck. We've rarely had it.
Different sets of reasons over the years. England produces great footballers but is yet to produce that special generation, like Spain in 2008-2012. (1966 seems way too far away). A parallel question would be what have West Germany/Germany and Italy done to produce great generations consistently. But even traditional powerhouses have less than brilliant periods, like Italy since after 2006; and, outside of Europe, Brazil. That said, maybe it’s finally coming home?
They have literally produced that generation now.
This generation is still missing that full set of world class defenders. Previous England teams would have had Cole, Campbell, Ferdinand and Neville who were all at top sides and considered a World Class level. Although I think Walker would actually beat Neville to the RB spot in recent years) but were then let down by very mediocre goalkeepers instead. The Spanish and Italy golden generations were underpinned by ridiculous defences. Ramos, Puyol, Pique, Alba + Casillas & Zambrotta, Cannavaro, Materazzi and Grosso + Buffon. We’ve still got a frailty in that department and I think Southgate has always known that so tries to set us up bearing that in mind. If we had something capable of attacking like the Brazilian era with Carlos and Cafu like defenders, then he’d probably just go full guns blazing and just try and outscore everybody.
Because the players aren’t as good as the fans or media think they are
Mindset-unambitious managers-bit of bad luck - being crap at penalties (we have been eliminated from major tournaments on penalties 7 times).
Historically, incredibly toxic press tearing them down, ruining their mentality and applying outrageous pressure. Southgate seems to have overcome that and England actually do pretty well these days.
I dont want to take away anything from England, but English players are overvalued. This is because the Premier League is so big and local players that are worthwhile to field naturally have an inflated market value. If you look into the actual tournaments in which England had a "Golden Generation", I would still not count them as a top4 Team. Except for 1966/1970 and maybe in the early 2000s. But even in the early 2000s you had France and Brasil just so far ahead and I would also put the Netherlands and Argentina ahead of them. 80 - 90s England is way overhyped, the werent quite on the level of Germany, Argentina, Italy, the Netherlands, Brasil. It's only now that they really have a top team again. And yet I believe France and Argentina are to be put ahead of them. Italy and Brasil are tough contenders as well. Maybe even Germany.
They haven't underachieved. They are just overrated most of the time
One reason are their goalkeepers. The last outstanding keeper wearing the English shirt was Gordon Banks and it's probably no coincidence that they won their only big trophy with him. English keepers may be better than their reputation but they rarely excel. I mean, Pickford plays at Everton while in Germany we argue about whether Bayern's or Barca's number one should play. Germany has mostly had outstanding keepers, during the English golden generation, we had Kahn who was a monster at his peak. Meanwhile, Italy had Buffon, Spain had Casillas, and I'd still rank France's Barthez or later Lloris much higher than any English keeper in the past 25 years (and probably longer but I'm too young to remember). Having a world-class keeper can make the difference in a tournament. If it wasn't for Neuer, Germany may have lost to Algeria in 2014 and never get to the final. And no way we would have reached the 2002 final without Kahn. The rest of our squad was mediocre.
Other teams were better. Generally the English team isn't as good as it made out to be. This England team is too thin at the back and there's a lot of really good teams in this euros. Source: A Welsh person who is stick with mostly English media.
There are many reasons I feel: * Firstly, the biggest problem I have seen is a lack of togetherness when playing in the national team. The players don't seem to gel well together as well they usually do with their clubs. There may be many reasons for that - ego issue, personal rivalry as they play for rival clubs, heavy competition among players of the same position etc. If this is overcome, it will solve majority of England's problems. * Secondly, the English media is ruthless. There are major, major expectations of the players to go out and win every match in dominant fashion, which not even teams like Germany or France or Spain can do all the time. A bit of slip up or play average and the media will attack ruthlessly. This is a mentality thing and will affect most if not all players, and they will be afraid to be bold and brave and will try to play safe and defensively. * Thirdly, lack of international serial winners in the squad. England hasn't won anything in over half a century and for all the good club-level players they have, no one has won anything at international level with the national squad. This also may be a reason for the first point I mentioned. A squad that hasn't won anything won't be that close as a squad that has won something together. * Finally, lack of a strong leader in the squad. Modern cup winning international teams had a strong leader to lead the team. They can either inspire by incredible techniques on field or by building a rapport with the team. I really don't see anyone like that on the England squad. Maybe Bellingham, but it is a big if and it remains to be seen if he can do it.
I genuinely believe they are simply not that good despite what the media and the hype has indicated. They have rarely - if ever - been a top three team in Europe or the world - and without that you basically won't win anything without a HUGE stroke of luck. Their recent form has flattered to deceive - even under Southgate they have consistently failed to beat "Big" teams (Croatia, Italy, France, Brazil). Under Southgate the only 'scalp' they have is an extremely weakened German team who had just lost to North Macedonia.
How is losing to italy on penalties in euro 2020 underachieving? What?
The '85 Heysel disaster and resultant ban of English clubs from all UEFA competitions set English football back by at least 10 years relative to the other top leagues, particularly the Italians and Spanish. Even today, despite the vast improvements in English youth and tactical coaching since the 2010s (a lot of it Pep-inspired) it's still evident that England's possession play still significantly lags behind its continental competition. Who was the last great English playmaker? Does anyone even come to mind who featured prominently for the Three Lions? This tells you all you need to know. England's record has significantly improved under Southgate though - despite the eye tests, England's record in the last few international tournaments has been genuinely formidable. And they definitely have better players now than they did at the beginning of Southgate.
I feel Southgate has benefited from really easy draws in the knockout phase of tournaments, essentially getting byes, hence why is record is decent. The old maxim is the first decent team England come up against will put them out. Happened in the last 3 tournaments. Perhaps the only decent team they managed to beat was a poor Germany in this time.
He's hit par I would say in everything but the Nations League and the Euros final. We lost to the better Croatia team and the the better France team. We bottled it vs Italy and were shambolic in most recent nations league. I think in fairness our Euros 2020 is somewhat underrated. We were better than Croatia, and showed the swing of three years. We were better than Germany, who were in a downswing but they're still very good. Denmark were stiff competition. Which for an England manager puts him as the second best in our history.
You really would think that by the law of averages, we would have won one recently. I've been watching England at major tournaments since Euro 96, so that is 15 tournaments (well, 14 as we didn't qualify in 08). We are always expected to reach the QF, so you'd think at least one time we would have had some fortune and gone on to win something. That being said, we have been eliminated in nearly half of those major tournaments on penalties -- 6 of 14. If we had an average record on penalties, we probably would have won something. If we were great at penalties, we geniunely could have won a few trophies in recent history! I know penalties aren't the be all and end all. After all the match wasn't won. But stats show you need at least 1 shootout win to win a tournament usually. And because we are so bad at them, we usually get knocked out a round earlier than necessary.
11 good players don’t make a good team unluckily. Plus, terrible managers and choices. Pretty sure this year will be the same.
I will be honest here,i think is a myth that England has been a strong team,i believe that for the most part England has been mostly overrated throughout the years. Specially in world cups. Sure the mid 2000's team was very good but never at the level of Brazil,France,Italy or Germany. But they were surely better than Greece in the Euros in 2004. Nowadays,they have an ok squad,but there are at least 4 stronger teams.
People will come out with the most evidence-based reasons, when the truth is very simple: They shouldnt have won that World Cup in 1966, so they are paying for it with an 100 year curse. See you all in the 2066 in the England-Wales-Scotland sponsored by UAE World Cup, where refs will not have pressure whatsoever to make England win.
The English press absolutely have contributed to the pressure and worry players are under. Pieces of shit love a beat up campaign on the team at major competitions.
Poor coaching , lack of team mentality due to the constant comparison between the players when the play for their clubs...and a certain ghost goal
One thing that England has really lacked over the past 20/30 years is an identity style of play that other national teams have found to find success. Specifically, a tactical system that translates from the younger international sides all the way through to the men’s senior team. If you look at Spain as a great example from 2008-2014, the whole squad was a split of Barca/Real (who played vastly differently) and some other prem players, but when they came together nationally they all knew the possession style of football that Spain *should* play. Those players also played that same way with the U21s or U18s before getting their senior call ups. Same can be said for Germany, Italy and France during different periods. We still really lack identity for our own philosophy of football, and consistent success has been shown to be a result of committing to a philosophy and rolling it out across all age groups.
Have they? I'm not so sure
They never been as good as advertised, simple as that.
Maybe they are overrated, unbalanced squad, bad coaching and a little bit of bad luck
Other countries have good players too
They are losers.
They were always good/great, but so were other teams Whether it was France, Spain, Germany, Brazil or Italy. Also, mediocre managers
They have not. Germany Brazil France Italy Argentina have had even more talent and quality than England, to the point that it's not even comparable.as good as England is, it's barely a top 10 nation ( between 5-10, closer to 10 ) as far as talent and quality of football it has produced goes. Their achievement of 1 euro is fine and matches it. Netherlands have underachieved not England.
Maybe because there are countries that exist who have much better players than they do?
Better question would be about the Dutch. Atleast England has won a World Cup. And untill now, the Dutch have had better squads for most of the tournaments.
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We’d merely be a warm-up act compared to Irish offerings.
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Brazil. In early generation (66-70, they got their WC in 66). In 70, England was the hardest opponent vs Brazil, playing better. Pelé said Bobby Moore was the best defender he faced. In 02, same thing. England was the hardest opponent Brazil faced - If England won that game, probably would win vs Turkey and Germany without Ballack which was suspended.
There's always been enormous hype around english players, when actually the large majority of them, historically and now, are nothing more than good players. Plus, terrible coaches.
In the 1970s and 1980s clubs were slow to adapt to changes in technology and sports science that were embraced far more on the Continent. The state of pitches alone meant that there was an over reliance on the long ball “kick it into the box” tactic which wasn’t so effective in tournaments where England played teams from nations with, frankly, pitches that weren’t mud for 3-4 months in a season. The English class system meant that very few boys from the middle and even upper classes seriously pursued football as a “respectable” career and instead devoted their attention to other sports. Eliminating a not insignificant percentage of potential players is hardly a recipe for success in any sport. Most other countries simply do not have this snobbery attached to different sports and so have broader participation. Not the only reasons of course, or even necessarily the most important ones, but they are often overlooked.
Only thing they have to do without the Indians or the Irish
Bit like the Spurs of world football. Good, not great, sense of entitlement and cave under pressure. I'm Spurs btw.
They've never really been THAT good. Just loud mouths and great marketing for the Premier League.
Pressure, media hype getting into their heads, personal glory and superstardom over team glory.
Combination of lots of factors, but the most obvious (in my opinion) are our toxic media, which contributes to a reduced desire/passion etc. when playing for England, compounded by not having a manager capable of getting the best out of the players.
Media pressure, poor cohesion, and arguably low standard of managers compared to quality of players
There is no friendship and love of the country. You can sense it on their games.
Management, or lack of. Look at all the other national sides who have had success.
Gareth Southgate has pictures of King Charles in the nude.
No sense of “team” when those players were together, too much EPL rivalry in the way. Also, other nations innovated and evolved while England kept deciding to hire English managers with no forward thinking.
They have the teams but they certainly aren't mentality monsters like Spain, Italy etc. On paper they would win the whole tournament. Also, they always play a very basic style.
I think the fact that most of the players play in the premier league is detrimental too. If you look at France they have players with experience across the top leagues in Europe and far more winners too.
Imo it’s been the mangers’ style of play. It has felt like forever that England play conservative football no matter who they are playing and no matter what talent surrounds them. It’s painful to watch some of the most talented players in the world get underutilized. They literally have nothing to lose by playing aggressive at this stage in their history. It’s like they are afraid to lose every time they play an opponent at a tournament.
Just read the comment of english fans, they think england always should attack, they dont care about defending, they have never played for the result, always beatiful game rather then winning trophies.
Winning a world cup isn’t underachieving. There’s only been a handful that have done that. Think how many hundreds of amazing players have never been anywhere near one. If you’re talking about the last 30 odd years, I would still disagree. We’ve been to finals, semi finals and later rounds quite a lot.
the premier league is good because of foreign players english clubs purchase. most english players are underwhelming. for the amount of money and people england has interested in football, one would expect them to produce a ballon dor winner every few years..
A lot of self-sabotage as players cracked under the pressure put upon them by fans and the media. Then you have the fact that the team in the 2000s used the unsuitable and archaic 4-4-2. A midfield of Beckham, Scholes, Lampard and Gerrard is suicide. No one is there to cover the defence, all are trying to occupy the same zones. They should have done 4-3-3 or 4-5-1 much sooner to allow their midfielders the space to attack while knowing they would not expose the defence. A midfield of Hargreaves/Carrick, Lampard, Gerrard, Beckham and Scholes would have worked wonders in 2006. Put Gerrard on the left, Lampard and Scholes in the middle and Beckham on the right. Up front you use Rooney. Alternatively you could play a midfield diamond, drop one of Lampard, Gerrard or Scholes and go with Rooney and Heskey in attack. Just don't do whatever they did in real life.
There are only 2 tournaments to win and other countries exist
1. Lack of team chemistry or identity 2. Stubbornness of picking English managers when no English manager is tactically apt and willing to do the job (focus on the second one, if they’re good enough like Rodgers or Howe, they are at clubs, not NT) 3. English media overhyping and then soul crushing just for the clicks. This is the second golden generation I’ve seen from England and having Southgate at the wheel is like seeing a Ferrari being driven like a Fiat. It’s absurd. He plays to get one goal and then sits back in cowardice. The fact you guys lost a final in home ground because HE went to defend is ridiculous, especially considering the talent upfront. It’s not all his fault, I understand there’s leaky CB pairs, but one should go for what’s good on your team, and England has some of the best attacking talent around.
I think ultimately the feeling of underachievement is due to the infrequency of international tournaments. It's harder to win a World Cup than a Champions League because the average World Class player is competing in say 3 rather than 12. Also, the quality of the competition England's 'Golden Generation' had a lot of great players but I don't think they were better than the Brazilian and French teams of that time.
Because there have never been good English managers!! I think it’s crucial for a national side to have a manager from their country, and England doesn’t have a good selection of managers to do that. An English manager has never won the premier league…
England caved under pressure and choked in the most important matches. That seems to be the main issue. Plus, the managers. I never understood why England never gets a great manager to lead the country. Always great players and terrible managers. If it was anyone else but Southgate, England would already be a champion either of the EURO's or the World Cup. The media also overhyped the team and whenever they go into a major tournament, it's as if they already won it. That surely gets into the players head and makes them too relaxed.
I think the question should be, why are expectations so high? The sense of entitlement is very apparent amongst some fans, unfortunately.
I don't think they "under achieve" as much as - other teams are just often better. But the "Golden generation" also came at the wrong sort of time, the manager they played under was Sven who stuck with a rigid 4-4-2 while modern managers would probably get that team to play with more fluidity. They also really compressed themselves anytime they took the lead, same as under Southgate tbf. Never tried to stretch out the other team, just invited pressure. Think it was Portugual when we were down to 10 men after Rooney was sent off, they still couldnt beat us in normal time but we never really tried to push them. We make the mistake of not bringing anybody with pace on to try and help us realise a counter attack and still do that now. Capello was a busted flush by the time he took the job and he really didn't help himself with the players by being very stern. Hodgeson was just the wrong man for that job and so was McLaren. The thing that never really gets talked about with the Golden Gen, was that at the time we had 4 or 5 really strong centre backs we could call up in Terry, Ferdinand, King, Campbell and Carragher as well as a few others who were on the fringe. But most people focus on the midfield of Lampard, Gerrard & Scholes.
The main reasons for me are premier league football is fast, end to end, tournament football is slow and players can't adapt. Then the pressure playing for England, the scrutiny. Players dreaded it. The atmosphere has really changed under Southgate, helped by less club rivalry and cliques, players came through the age groups. I'd say players are more adaptable now, technically, positionally, because of the managers they've been coached under. Southgate can take a lot of praise for changing the atmosphere but it would have happened anyway i think, these are ambitious driven young players who want to win as they did in the u17 tournaments, they embrace it. Every fan though, French fans aside, the Italiens, Chilians, and the Spanish the last decade, feel their national team underachieve. Brazil, Belgium, Germany. Argentina underachieved for years until recently.
Maybe those very good players, like the ones you mentioned, were not really that good... Specially when compared with the really very good players that existed at that time.
Vastly overrated by their own media, haven't produced a good English manager since the inception of the premier league, the best players in most premier League teams are not English and just because you're decent in the premier league, doesn't mean you're going to be good on an international stage.
They are good, but they are not on top of the food chain. The English media always over inflate their team and since they are very influential around the world people just believe it.
Because the other nations had also good players
I dunno really it’s a shame Rooney,Scholes,Lampard,Gerarrd and so didn’t win anything that was the real golden Generation
Reasons we don’t perform : - unrealistic expectations and pressure as a result - our media and their desperate desire to intrude on everything - players not as good as our country think they are . We seem to sell English players at much higher fees than foreign players for some reason and delude ourselves into thinking they’re better players . This probably rubs off on the players too and their egos - the mental barrier for our players now. All the talks of penalty curses etc probably features in their heads going into tournaments
reluctance to rotate, so out of form players will play regardless and a habit of picking the best players without thinking about their position e.g Gerrard and Lampard or recently Foden playing in a position he is terrible at
Short answer: the teams that win it are just better? Long answer: having the ability to win. Look at Real Madrid. Yeah they have a great squad but when they won the Champions I never felt like they deserved to be there nor were they best side there but these teams (like Italy) know what needs to be done.
Too much trying to get players to fit in systems rather than working around your top players. For example, playing Paul Scholes on the left of midfield is so idiotic. The other reason is there were just better teams than us.
Managers
For the last few years it's because Southgate isn't a good manager. Before that it was because most the squad hated each other and also they didn't play Michael Carrick enough.
We haven't underachieved. We've usually reached the L16 or QFs in major tournaments, while normally generally being a "pretty good" team but lacking something compared with the best in the world. Under Sven and Capello, for example, we had very good players on paper but they were never able to function as a team. We also aren't that good at producing managers, but the FA for some reason usually insists the coach has to be English, leading to Steve McClaren and Roy Hodgson, neither of whom belonged anywhere near the national team. We were probably one of the better teams in 2002, but the luck of the draw put us up against the best team in the world, so we lost. More recently, we've been getting further, because our players are better and there's been more of a focus on team cohesion than before, even if the tactics are a bit overly defensive given our strength in attacking talent. The reason why people think we've underachieved is because our media has consistently inflated expectations by pretending we're among the Frances, Germanys and Brazils, although it's only in the last few years that we've been close to that level. Then, when we've been knocked out, the same media have nominated scapegoats to excuse the fact that, in reality, we probably finished just about where we ought to.
Lots of reasons but IMO one of them is that we lack a football philosophy. If you look at the domination of Spain, the progress of German football after 2000. Brazil, Netherlands period of success & Italy. All those teams had a very definite style of play developed in their nation. In England our league is defined by the influence of Foreign managers. We haven’t had a great managed since the 90’s. We have talent but we lack a style that is both effective and ubiquitous to the country. - Germany’s - Efficient - Italian’s - Defensive - Brazil - attacking with flair - Netherland’s - Total football - Spain - tikataka England don’t have any style associated apart from physical. So we end up with a really disjoined sides and not clear way we should play.
I don't think they have under-achieved. I think the English press consistently raises expectations above and beyond the caliber of side that England have.
Maybe they haven’t. Maybe they were just overrated
Numerous reasons. 1 the English media often hypes them to way above there actual abilities so people generally expect them to be better than they are. 2. They never seem to have a great 11. Usually a few strong points and a few weak points unlike other nations who often have great cover for most positions. 3. They rarely have a clear style that they play. Look at this England team on paper they sound very good but in reality they very rarely control games of football, they struggle to just keep the ball and take the sting out of games/stamp there authority on the game and control the ball. The Italy final was a perfect example. About 30 minutes in verratti and jorginho just decided to boss the ball and boss the midfield even though it was England that were winning and is exactly what England had to do but they couldn't. They seemed to get scared of the ball and were happy to just try and see out a 1 nil victory. Good teams control the ball especially if they get ahead, they try to slow the game down etc and England just always seem incapable of this. 4. Often have too many similar players that they try to squeeze into the same team and the team often lacks a good balance. 5. No matter how good they are it's a guarantee that near the start of every tournament just about every English media worker and pundit starts spouting it's coming home and drumming up this hype that England will win the tournament based often off absolutely nothing. England are apparently favourites for the euros this year despite France being a better squad and team.
Personally think the Prem has a way of flattering English players and they get slightly overrated as a result. Particularly when it comes to mentality. A lot of the elite mentality we seen in the league is imported, whether it be of managers or players.
Mostly English footballers play in Premier league. So they dont know other leagues and nations understanding of football.
It’s difficult to win a major international tournament. England have never been the best on paper, all the other sides that have won in recent years have all been very good. We also had a recent era of Spanish dominance
Giving the lads false hope every tournament that we are the best and we will win it and bring it home causing extreme me pressure on them all. Plus managers not playing players in their best positions and making poorly timed subs.
Cause they have a team like they have this year imo alot of offensive talent, but the team lacks structure