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England
- Thread starter pedro91
- Start date
I find international qualifiers and (particularly) friendlies boring these days, and rarely watch them. The only time I appreciate international games is during the close season tournament play - and yes I do realise you have to qualify as such.
In general I just see international breaks as a disruption to the domestic season - this from someone who would religiously follow any England game as a youngster. I know I'm not alone.
In general I just see international breaks as a disruption to the domestic season - this from someone who would religiously follow any England game as a youngster. I know I'm not alone.
International football has lost its appeal since the 90s.
It used to be that you'd only see these players once every four years - the crazy African defending, the jaw-dropping skill of the Brazilians, the ruthlessness of the Germans and the Italians, the unpredictability of the Koreans. Now it's all become so homogenised. Channel 4 introduced the idea of regularly broadcast foreign football and from there on, we became swamped. The top players all appear in the same leagues and we watch them all the time. A lot of them play the same kind of football. You see Messi everywhere now. You'd have to wait four years to watch Pele, Maradonna or Socrates, and that made it all so much more exciting.
Qualifying has always been a humdrum affair, to be got through with as little fuss as possible. England has a tendency to make a pig's ear of it, which gives the impression that qualifiers are exciting, dramatic and nail-biting, so it actually feels a bit anti-climactic when we make it in such unspectacular fashion. But qualifiers are inherently unspectacular.
It used to be that you'd only see these players once every four years - the crazy African defending, the jaw-dropping skill of the Brazilians, the ruthlessness of the Germans and the Italians, the unpredictability of the Koreans. Now it's all become so homogenised. Channel 4 introduced the idea of regularly broadcast foreign football and from there on, we became swamped. The top players all appear in the same leagues and we watch them all the time. A lot of them play the same kind of football. You see Messi everywhere now. You'd have to wait four years to watch Pele, Maradonna or Socrates, and that made it all so much more exciting.
Qualifying has always been a humdrum affair, to be got through with as little fuss as possible. England has a tendency to make a pig's ear of it, which gives the impression that qualifiers are exciting, dramatic and nail-biting, so it actually feels a bit anti-climactic when we make it in such unspectacular fashion. But qualifiers are inherently unspectacular.
England have been qualifying pretty easily for years now haven't we? We ballsed it up under McClaren before Euro 2008 but since then it's always been straightforward. Even Roy Hodgson didn't manage to make a mess of it.