Can England qualify for the 2010 World Cup?
Trevor Brooking thinks that the talent pool in England is so shallow that thinking about semi-finals is the stuff of fantasy - England players and fans must buckle down and focus on qualifying for South Africa first.
The FA have (ambitiously) aimed for the semi-finals of either the World Cup or Euro 2012. The press bashed the FA for setting such a ‘low’ aim, but it’s high enough to be a challenge and low enough to be realistic (especially with Scolari having gone to Chelsea).
There are many reasons why England have not lived up to the expectations, although some will say that the fault lies with the unrealistic expectations as well as the biggest frack-up by the FA in recent footballing history. For an organisation that has taken a decade to start talking about a central footballing academy, wrongfully banned certain players in their misguided efforts to ’set examples’ and failed to administer the law in a just and fair manner (or at all, in some cases) and been bullied by FIFA into turning on its own (Game 39), to make a mistake of that magnitude with a nation’s footballing dreams is cruel.
But thankfully the past is behind us and England start with a new manager and a new challenge - World Cup qualification. Their qualifying fixtures - despite being several long-haul trips to Eastern Europe - are relatively easy with the exception of Croatia, although a Capello-powered, fully-fit England will surely be able to beat Croatia at home (where have I heard that before?).
Can England win their group? Will Rooney and co. travel to South Africa in the summer of 2010, or will they again be off to the beaches posing for the paps?
i don’t think they will qualify because they havn got any world class players to master teams like argentina brazil and croatia.
Plus if they couldn qualify for euro 2008 with less teams and easy teams how are they going to beat foriegn much beter teams.
PLUS WALES ARE THE BEST
there is no reason why we can’t qualify. However certain players now believe they are pop stars and are more worried about being photographed with a pretty girl falling out of a posh bar in London than worrying if they win or lose. The players shouldn’t be paid to play for england either, they should play because they want to.
I think they’ll qualify. Will they do anything? Eh, who knows. They should make it in though. The idea that they don’t have any world class players is laughable though.
They will make it, they have enough players for that… And they have 2 years to imporve before de WC… who knows.
Ukraine will also not be so easy.
It’ll be tough… especially as there is only one automatic qualification spot for the group winners. Then the BEST 8 runner ups out of 9 groups play each other in a play-off to qualify.
Ouch!
We are surely good enough to qualify from that group (said that before i think and been proven wrong).
I think it’s a good think that Trevor Brooking is being realistic, although i’m sure when we do qualify he will be amongst the first to say that we can go on and win it!
Quite simply our pool of top quality players is nothing compared to the other top nations. Spain in the Euros had a whole handful of top attacking players, and could afford to leave the likes of Raul at home. In contrast we have Rooney, Crouch, Owen, Defoe… Semi finals? no chance!
I know people like to pour criticism on England and I’m sure there were some here who probably weren’t shedding tears when they failed to qualify for Euro 2008. But let’s not forget that this national team, despite its recent hiccup, has made it to the quarter-finals in the last two World Cup competitions. With Fabio Capello, who will instill a correct mentality in these players (who are world class players folks), I think these enunciated goals are more than realistic. We all saw the importance of belief only weeks ago in Euro 2008 with Turkiye’s performance, and now with Capello, a man who works to win, England will definitely qualify. I’m not a fan of England, but objectively, I can’t see them slip any further after Capello’s appointment.
I think they qualify with ease as they did in 2006.
It’s Croatia for having been seeded that should be concerned, being drawn in with two WC quarter finalists from 2006.
Here in CONCACAF we have a big problem as four of our top five sides from a talent standpoint have been grouped together in Mexico, Canada, Honduras and Jamaica. In reality the first three nations I mentioned may have three best staring XIs in the region yet one of them will not advance to the final round of qualifying. Tragic.
I’d say it’ll take at least that much time for the whole England squad to be replaced by the Arsenal English reserves. Just wait a few years. Arsenal will turn out obe the saviour of English football…
James, Richards, Rio, Terry, Cole, Beckham, Hargreaves, Gerrard, Cole, Rooney, Owen.
Carson, Green, Foster, Downing, Agbonlahor and many more yet to develop.
Jogr how stupid are you??? Have you ever watched football? Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, Owen, Ferdinand, Terry, Cole, J.Cole, etc…. and besides after years of playing with Eriksson when McLaren came it was really hard to get used to him and besides he was not as good a coach as Eriksson… and Capello… they will get at leats to quarters and depending on who they play agains even to semis… or more with a bit of luck..
Semifinals? Please… They’re not good enough even to pass the group stages. England are overrated and they SUCK. They’ll struggle to even QUALIFY for the world cup, especially with Croatia in their group…
They should qualify. Let’s remember that before the 2006 WC many people were tipping England to go all the way (neutrals and non English pundits and journalists).
Most of the same personnel are still there. Richards, Rio, Terry, Cole, Gerrard, Lampard, Hargreaves, Carrick, Cole, Rooney.
I think there are a couple of positions England need someone to emerge in for them to be rated as real contenders:
Goalkeeper: they could really do with Foster or Carson establishing themselves and ‘owning’ the position.
Wide right and wide left both have had promising options without anyone really making their mark.(Bentley, Downing, Cole, Barry?)
Rooney needs a partner up front. I believe that Owen is gone as a major force and the other names are not world class. Someone needs to rise from the ashes fast.
But overall they should have more than enough to qualify. Capello should be capable of making them perform at least to the sum of their parts if not beyond, which in itself will be a major advance on the underperformances of recent times.
Jogr, GT, both of u’re anti-england squad. don’t u know that England’s revival occured since Capello came. he knows well how to win. and, who’s croatia? they re (just) turkey’s victims. don’t forget that it’s also a flop.
i think england’s greatest problem is the lack of talent in their country. as cruel as it sounds, they have no talent in football. many teams easily outplay them and the best they do is produce a highly physical. i do hope they can break some jinx and reach the SF so that their fans are happy. but i doubt them winning the WC anytime soon ahead of the likes of france, germany, argentina, italy, netherlands, brazil. if an outsider wins the WC, it might be a surprising spain, czech republic or portugal. but england? you gotta be kidding me.
gerard, lampard, terry, are a big joke in football. they produce crappy players they think are ‘world class’. cmon man, even spain are better than england. there is a REASON why they did not qualify for euro 08.
but i think they can definitely qualify for 2010 WC, maybe get knocked out in KO or QF by argentina.
Sandro, I take your points on board but what was your feeling before the last WC when England were rated a chance?
On the players, A.Cole, Neville, Rio, Terry, Lampard, Gerrard, J.Cole, Hargreaves, Carrick and Rooney all play for clubs which have been dominating Europe in recent seasons. They have all been major influences for their clubs and most would be of great interest to the top (non English) clubs in Europe if they were available, so your assessment of them is disingenuous.
we surely can qualify for world cup if we find a good position for rooney.I sincerly think capello should urge scholes to be a part of the team for we lack any sort of creativity in the middle to support gerrard’s runs.Our real problem has been down the flanks…except joe cole we dont have a skillful player down there. Beckham is not a starter and bentley is overhyped ,i think so….Ashley young and walcott can used for pace on a flank and we can use our fullbacks to a great effect(cole,neville,richards,baines).The fullbacks should be given the license to overlapp to enhance our quality down the flanks and their positions will be taken care of by hargreaves who(i think is the most underrated player in the squad…he is really world class and is better than gattuso in attack and is a great ball winner as he is) has been the best player for england for a while now. We have a great backbone aka James/Foster(Foster will surely be our casillas come the world cup) Ferdinand ,Hargo, Rooney. With this we can surely qualify and pose a good challenge for the cup.
For finding a position for rooney we should have a good target man.Right now only Dean ashton fills the bill…he surely can be our Luca Toni, if not better.The next point is barry shouldnt be really starting….I acknowledge he is a great player but his type of play is similar to that of hargo….he can be picked if hargo is injured….
we have to pick a midfield having spine and creativity….it should have the spine of hargo/barry , burst of gerrard/johnson and the main thing is creativity of scholes/carrick. scholes and carrick have to be rotated as scholes cant last long….we sorely miss them.The other attackers should be cole/young starting on the right and rooney playing on the shoulders of ashton(crouch and frazier campbell can be back ups for ashton is injury prone)
Our ideal starting eleven would be Foster A.Cole Woodgate Ferdinand(C) Neville/richards Hargo Scholes Gerrard Rooney Cole ashton
our formation and play should be similar to manchester united’s 4-5-1 while defending and 4-3-3 while attacking.
englnad probably can make it
wit capello incharge its possible, he did lead AC milan to be european champions why cant he lead england to be world champions?
and the guy tht said the team doesnt hav top players, well lets jus see it!