England World Cup thread - the thread of certain disappointment

Nawwww!

England 0-0 v Honduras this morning in a strange "friendly". After 30 or so minutes a lightning storm nearby forced a suspension of play for about an hour. On the resumption, the Honduran players seemed intent on kicking lumps out of any player in red, which lead to Hodgson subbing off Gerrard and Rooney, and then spending the next 50 minutes having kittens about the rest of his team. Lots of possession for England, but all very low key. Barkley and Wilshere were a spark I thought, and Henderson did well too. Sturridge missed 3 good chances and was very frustrating. A bit of a "ball hog" as my boy would say...Our RB was again poor and can't believe he's even in England's team HOTEL, let alone the team...a stuck record over Johnno ain't I?

I think Barkley and Wilshire are going to be weapons off the bench, especially when running at tired legs

Was getting a bit worrying with all those tackles flying in. The left back should have been sent off for kicking the ball at Sturridge after fouling him too.

With all the talk about the European teams not being able to handle the heat and conditions, the thought occurs that most of the top South American players play in Europe too and have done for years. Is it possible then that they may also be more used to European conditions as they don't play in this type of heat regularly? People like Suarez and Aguero for instance must be more accustomed to playing in the north of England than the Brazilian heat at the moment.

"Get us into the final, I'll give you a knighthood. Win the thing, I'll give you Scotland."

Is Scotland better than a knighthood?

"It's a heavy fucker, Roy! Solid gold. They should practice holding it more, like - so. Just my opinion, old son."

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/11/ian-b...

The Lightning Seeds' Ian Broudie: 'People didn't know what was on the England badge before Three Lions'

what a load of rubbish, people not knowing what was on the England badge. All I can think of is that he was hanging out with upper class luvvies and musos.

Also the Kiwi Band that thought England won the World Cup all the time - Ian they were taking the piss mate.

You used to get a notification if there was a new posting in a thread you've posted in and the new forums don't do that, so I generally forget to come back unless I'm already coming on to look at something - and the number of wind-up-merchants have meant I haven't been on the forums much in the last few years as the wanton stupidity is too much.

I don't know if Harry is still around. I didn't even see him at the Phoenix last season.  

The maths was always wrong. We won in 1966 and the song assumed "the hurt" immediately started. There wasn't any hurt, world cup wise, until four years later when West Germany knocked us out. The lyric should have been "26 years of hurt" and now 44 years.

You could argue for "28 years of hurt" (and now 46) if you pick it up from the next tournament, so that our Euro 68 semi-final exit to Serbia becomes the starting point.

I guess a mathematically sound lyric wouldn't have scanned as well.

68 semi-final exit to Serbia

Er...that should be Yugoslavia I think(aren't they the same thing? Oooo naughty naughty...). Famous game in which Alan Mullery was sent off.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27800681

the pitch is shit which won't suit our game ffs. Why do they give world cups to places that can't get their sh*t together?

Yes, a shit pitch will really suit the likes of Pirlo.

i think i saw HarryH early in the season

Good point... oops. I tend to think of them as the same thing, given they Serbia inherited the Yugoslavia records, but I guess that's quite wrong and does a disservice to the the other ex-Yugoslavian countries.

Didn't know that Serbia inherited the Yugoslavia team records. Thought they would have remained separate and Serbia, Croatia etc would start from scratch. Interesting...

Harry is still here, using HH as his name now. In England news...

On latest England news from Brasil... I just read that the England football team visited an orphanage in Rio today.

"It was so heartbreaking to see their sad, forlorn little faces, with no hope..."

...said little Miguel, aged 6.

I know these are all doing the rounds in various forms but they are quite funny anyway.

Come from behind to win 3-1
Cmon England!

Bad omens:

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/25285071

"The class of 2014 are England's second-youngest World Cup squad in history, behind the squad of 1958 squad - which was one of just two occasions the Three Lions have failed to make it out of the group stage. The other, of course, was 1950, the only previous time the World Cup was played in Brazil..."

• The only previous World Cup meeting between these two nations came in the third-place play-off in 1990 when Italy won 2-1.
• England have only won two of their last 11 internationals against Italy, losing six plus the penalty shootout defeat at Euro 2012.

On the other hand:

• England have only lost two of their last 16 World Cup games (W7, D7), excluding penalty shoot-outs.
• England have lost only one of 15 matches played overseas under Hodgson (W6, D8).

Come on England!!!!!

Come on England.

Becoming the thing in this comp to score first and lose

Croatia

Spain

Uruguay

Heres hoping to add Italy to that list

What would i know

Well...very disappointing but not surprising when playing top quality opposition. Thought England played really well and created a lot: we just couldn't deliver that final ball. Sterling was excellent and the pace and movement of Sturridge, Welbeck created problems for Italy. On the downside, I thought Bainesy was poor:dummied too easily in the lead up to the second goal and seemed nervy and lacking confidence. Gutted to lose, but the overall performance was very good. Two wins will put us through...gulp

Johnson was much better today. I thought Baines and Welbeck were pretty average. It was poor defending by Baines that led to the second goal.

Agreed but where was Johnson defending at the back from the opposite side as well.  Missing in action

Really exiting game today edge of the seat for most of it.Nice to see England have a good go at playing today rather than sitting back and defending.

Rooney is so dam frustrating in an England shirt he had 2 good opportunities to score and missed!

Thought that Sturridge was good up front (won me some money from the TAB) and Sterling was awesome and a constant pain for Italy.

Not sure if it was just me but Hart looked really shakey and uncomfortable.

I thought that should be retaken as the ball never entered the field of play?

it starts in the field of play basically. The corner is taken on or inside the goal/sideline. It's throw ins your thinking of. 

Oh of course it starts in the field of play, that makes sense.

Other than the cross for a well taken goal, what else did Rooney actually do? Still no goals in the finals for him.

Similarly, Russia officially inherited USSR records and Germany officially took West Germany's, with Saar and East Germany going into the "discontinued" status. Oh and Czech Republic has the Czechoslovakia records and the united Yemen has North Yemen's with South Yemen's discontinued. 

The nation on which there is a less clear status is whether the united Vietnam inherited South Vietnam's records. There probably is an official FIFA ruling on that, but I've never found it. I only care as I have a database of every WC game ever played and I have classified Vietnam as the successor of South Vietnam's history (applied to enter in 1954 but were denied, failed to qualify in 1974, entered and withdrew before playing a match in 1978). 

You weren't the parent on the sideline of a junior match I was reffing a couple of years ago that tried to claim the very same thing when I awarded a goalkick :-)

Bollocks. I thought they had plenty of notches they can turn it up from there. They don't seem to be quite familiar with where every body plays as the Italians did. 

Also their defensive organisation seemed shakey.

Enjoyed the game, sad they couldn't find the finishes. No easy games in the WC.