FIFA World Cup 2014

Just watched on tonights news the 2nd goal by Suarez. it all happened very quick,but he looked to me to be very slightly offside. 

Anyone got any views on this folks ??

Mista h

Do you mean Theatre?

Whats going on kevin.one minute your scoffing Pie n Mash at some dump in Tooting,now your drinking G & Ts at the threatre(theatre)

Mista H

Looks like this slipped past moderation !! Just noticed the flag bottom row 2nd from the right.

Mista H

Only if appropriately football related  - and not sexist or exploitative.

Mista,

Just watched on tonights news the 2nd goal by Suarez. it all happened very quick,but he looked to me to be very slightly offside. 

Anyone got any views on this folks ??

 

You don't think that Gerrard played him onside?

jim

+1 ... Played on by Gerrard's glancing header 

Passing to a team mate?

Germany 1 Ghana 2 

2-2 

Congrats to Ghana and Germany for serving up a very entertaining second half. Could have gone either way.

I think that's the one that ewemon was referring to in his earlier post.  Concise if colourful comment on England's performance 

What a fabulous game of football Ghana v Germany.

Best game so far for me, especially the second half. Ghana played their socks off and thoroughly deserved their draw, and with some late chances they could have taken all the points. 

+1 Steve.  It would have been a travesty if Ghana had taken nothing from that game.

Jim

Bum - is the tournament still on? Hold on Germany drawing - no clearly a tactical allegiance 

So Le Tiss says.... or talented footballers  like Adam Lallana?  ...(who just happen's to play for Matt's beloved Southampton strangely enough!)

Seriously though I like Lallana ...a player who really could be a worthy successor to Gascoigne in his pomp eventually,he wasn't brilliant in the last couple of friendlies he started though so criticism of Welbeck now is very much with the benefit of hindsight.  Welbeck was one of our best players v Italy
These youngsters have genuine potential and should all have Champion's League experience by the time the next World Cup (or the Euros) comes around. 

Yes. Le Tiss is hardly objective, and while a hugely talented player when at Soton, he couldn't replicate that on a bigger stage and was pretty useless for England.  I always felt he lacked work-rate and courage - qualities Wellbeck seems to possess in abundance.

In any team you need a mix of flair and work-rate.  Although Wellbeck doesn't look a natural predator as a forward, I think he brings a lot to both Man U and England. He's a reasonably good target man, has pace and power, and  defenders must hate playing against him as he never lets them settle. Lallana is still unproven at international level. Indeed, he's really only blossomed in the Premier League last season.  One for the future but not the 'real deal' just yet. 

And talking of Soton, James Ward-Prowse was mentioned very favourably by Tim Sherwood in yesterday's Indy as being the kind of player who can make a telling pass, yet England would automatically overlook at senior level.

Fair warmed my heart.

Chris

Ross Barkley will be a superstar ………… hopefully for United too 

HT   Belgium v Russia

Have to say Mertens on the r/w for belge looks good. As for Lukaku,he looks a waste to me.

Mista h

THat was a rubbish, game, except for the last 10 minutes, when the Belgians woke up.

I move between high and low brows, Mista H, as happy at Tooting's finest pie 'n' mash emporium as I am at the Gavroche, as comfortable with 'erberts as I am with poshos, as capable of enjoying a Carry On as I am a Dreyer. I am the very exemplar of social mobility

MDS, at what point in history have England's top/world class players eagerly plyed their trade in a foreign league? The simple answer to that is they never have in any significant numbers. And certainly not significant enough to put any weight on the argument that England don't produce enough WC talent in this current team.

And it would be fair to say that those that have, very, very few have made a real success of it. Lets be realistic regarding why any top class English player would want to ply their trade abroad when they would probably be payed more in the EPL. There are only a few teams in the European leagues that are willing to pay the huge salaries that the EPL pay. You mention Germany, why would a top English player seriously consider playing in the Bundesliga when they can be paid just as much or more by staying in the UK. Let's face it, not many footballers are seriously going to consider a move to Germany, with all it's cultural upheavals, moving family, learning a new language, not having many friends, etc, etc just for a few years, it's just not worth it in that context, the footballers aren't exactly hungry for the grand experience of foreign culture enough.

If you are going to use this argument then you are saying that at no point in history have England had a talented enough team to get anywhere near winning a major tournament. in 1966, no English player was playing in a foreign league, in 1990, when England lost to Germany in the Semi-Final in a game in which they were clearly the better team, only Chris Waddle (Marseille) was playing for a foreign team. In Euro 96, only Paul Ince (Internazionale) was playing football in a Foreign league.

So by that argument, no England player in the 66 team was world class and only Chris Waddle and Paul Ince can be considered World Class in those two teams.

There are a lot of important cultural and financial reasons why non-English players play in the EPL and very few English players play in European leagues. Probably the two obvious ones are salary and language/culture.

I think you a using this very oversimplified example to underpin the whole "foreigners" debate. As Mark says, it's way too convenient for me.

I can't see any significance in it, unless you say that England have NEVER  produced any WC players, and then I would disagree with that too.

Jason.

P.s. Having said all the above in my last two posts, I don't discount the "foreigners" issue, I just simply believe that it's 'over emphasised' as a convenient excuse, when in reality the issues are far more complex. And there's nothing worse than a propagation of a simple generalisation to make the whole circus go round and round whilst not actually addressing the problems.

Jason.