Entertainment For Lively Minds
Thinking the unthinkable
Disclaimer: I reserve the right to utterly revise this opinion at any point in the future without prior warning. Your home is at risk etc...
Watching Spain last night include seven Barcelona players, and the none-more-Catalonian Carles Puyol powering home the header that took them into their first ever World Cup Final, a previously unthinkable (at least for me) notion began to take shape. Could a UK football team actually be (gulp) a good idea?
Can’t speak for Wales or Norn Iron, but for Scotland, right now even qualification for a World Cup is, to use football-speak, a big ask. But even if we qualified, realistically we would be looking at an Algerian or Slovakian level of pluckiness before the return flight home. Not exactly a prospect to ‘set the heather alight’. For England, qualification is pretty much a given these days, but quarter finals seem destined to be the glass ceiling for the foreseeable future.
Now I’m not suggesting that if the present England team had an injection from the present celtic fringe they/we would be world-beaters, but arguably that has been the case in the past. I’m beginning to wonder whether the glory of a Puyol type scenario (we can dream!) might actually be preferable to ‘proud’ mediocrity.
This of course is entirely hypothetical and almost certain never to occur. That said, if Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continue to fail to qualify for major tournaments for many more years, and England do not suddenly make a miraculous breakthrough, perhaps truly radical measures might be contemplated.
Already arguing against myself – I mentioned Algeria and Slovakia above, but of course there’s Greece and Denmark, two small countries who have actually won a major tournament in recent years. Anyway, too late, I’ve put the thought out there and can never erase it ;-)
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Small beer
Seeing as the population of England makes up about 85% of the population of the United Kingdom, I can't see it making much difference.
I also can't think of any non-English UK players who would walk into the first team.
And I don't think the non-English nations would be particularly keen on the idea.
Jim White made a very good point on the last podcast -- it will take a crisis along the lines of a financial collapse (and many foreign players upping sticks) to improve the standard and number of English players.
We've already had that in Scotland
with the collapse of Setanta. Can't say its made anything any better. Rangers seem to be mainly buying Scottish mediocrity and Celtic are buying any mediocrity they can lay their hands one.
I know what you mean
but I actually found Rangers winning the title last season was more rewarding than in the cash rich Advocaat era. Financial constraints ensured a level of squad togetherness and team spirit that would almost certainly not have existed in more fiscally generous times. I took more pleasure in the good performances of the likes of Whittaker, Miller and McCulloch than I did in the likes of van Bronkhorst, Arteta et al.
I'd vote for it
The Union Jack is a much better flag to get behind. I'm London born and bred, but think of myself as British. (and it says something like that on my passport).
At the olympics I'll be British so why not the major football tornaments?
What non English players would get in the team?
As pointed out earlier, are there really many players from Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales who would get in the team?
In the past, the likes of Giggs would, obviously. And further back, Souness, Dalgliesh and Hanson plus the likes of Rush would probably have walked into the team. Now? Gareth Bale and Craig Bellamy? Sorry, but I can't think of any Scots or Ulstermen...
Bellamy? No.
Bale is the only current non-English player I can think of who would be considerd. However, the Welsh do seem to have one or two youngsters who might be there or thereabouts in 4 years time (Ramsey, and Ledley spring to mind)
Bellamy is a Class A idiot
But he has speed that nobody up front in the England team can match. Can be a matchwinner.
I think you are right but not sure if you should be
for example, Darren Fletcher would have given England a much better option than Gareth Barry and keeps Michael Carrick out of the side at Man United.
Is Craig Gordon a better keeper than Green or James? I think he probably is, it is at least debatable.
Alan Hutton is not a great right back by any means, but he is better than the over-hyped Glenn Johnson and has always performed well for Scotland. Internationals seem to suit him better than the week-in-week-out league games.
It will never happen, but it is a pub perennial.
Ulstermen
well, here's one. Could be similar to James McFadden in that he's more recognised for his international exploits than his club career, but that's presumably a plus point when considering a player for an international squad?
I like
David Healy a lot.
Rush...
... could never have "walked" into the team.
They're Canadian.
Why not?
I'm not interested in the Olympics but I'm sure I recall hearing that they plan(ned?) to do just that for the 2012 games.
Personally I don't see what's wrong with the idea but similarly I don't see why England supporters seem to feel that England should be world beaters. One outcome would be that the manager could then be a Scotsman and there have been a few over the years that might hav ewanted the job (not that there's any official bar at the moment). I'm very pleased when England does well but first and foremost I'm a football fan that doesn't really care who's playing as long as the football is good. It was quite fortunate that England didn't meet Spain because I my loyalties would have been divided.
It wouldnt change the team too much.
Definitely Bale. No others - litmus test - Kris Boyd, the top scorer in the SPL in recent years signs up for Middlesborough. Apparently no premier league clubs rate him. Is there a better Scottish goalscorer?
Having said that Barry Ferguson was arguably best player for Birmingham last season - age is against him now.
Boyd
is an interesting case. As an out and out goalscorer he, even at Rangers, fell victim to the fashion for 'non-scoring strikers' of the Heskey variety. Walter Smith often left him out of starting line-ups in Europe and against Celtic. I'll be watching his season with interest and I wish him well at Boro. He did develop his overall game considerably over the last season at Ibrox but he's a natural born striker above all and no bad thing imo.
As for Barry - I reckon he could definitely have made a UK team at several points over the last few years. He's underrated in my view. Homesickness apparently ended his first stint in England with Blackburn and he himself admits it was a mistake to leave. But he definitely wasn't a failure (player of the year at Ewood Park) and he's also acquitted himself well second time around with Birmingham.
Others? Surely there's a case for Darren Fletcher (at least in the hypothetical squad), and certainly Scotland is blessed with two high quality keepers at the moment in Craig Gordon and Allan McGregor. James McFadden could also be a contender, albeit in a 'maverick' role.
In the relatively recent past, the likes of Richard Gough, John Collins, Gary McAllister, Mo Johnston and Ally McCoist could have made strong cases for inclusion.
Anyway, I've already gone off the idea. I'm now just considering it as an academic exercise...
EDIT - I found the link I was looking for: a Boyd screamer:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7666869.stm
Good lord, Dougie, I thought we knew one another
I hope drink was taken or you were just feeling unduly magnanimous at the time of writing - even allowing for the disclaimer.
Once the Premiership calamity happens, as I am sure it has to now, they will be looking to the old colonies for talent again, and developing it.
Saying that, give Scots clubs about five years to start developing their own talent due to the financial breakdown (which has seen the only overseas talent coming from Latvia/ Lithuania) and there may be more better players coming through.
I think me and you hit on the head ages ago saying that the last crop of top SPL talent find their level, mostly, in the English second flight. It'll be interesting to see if Boyd, Skippy, Robson, Killen et all do something this season.
Killen looked great at the end of last year, but Robson looked a player transformed, which begs the question why Strachan used him so sparingly at Parkhead?
It will be interesting to see the reverse in action with Joe Ledley, who has looked pretty handy any time I have seen him.
Why not?
have a Commonwealth team, or at least the 15 countries that the Queen is still Head of State of? None of them are any good at football but I bet we could get a decent squad together. And we could qualify through the Concacof groups or whatever it is, we'd walk it - not sure exactly who 'we' would be though...
5 Catalans
were in the starting line up last night. Puyol.Pique,Capdevila (money grabbing git),Xavi and Sergio Busquets, Despite what certain newspapers would have you believe. Pedro (Tenerife),Iniesta( Castilla-La Mancha) and David Villa (Asturias)are not Catalan. I don't think any of the 3 would be happy with being referred to as Catalans either. Hello Daily Mail and that bloke on Five Live.
As for the Basques
A national broadsheet writer of my acquaintance asked Basque member of the current squad about fronting a Spanish campaign despite being a Basque.
He was met with a non-committal 'Don't go there, we are promoting something here', followed by a short pause and 'But, I'll take the c*nts' money, it's the least I can do after...'
Thereafter he regaled the interviewer with a litany political sores which ran for several minutes.
Just the 5 then?
Still, it's interesting to ponder what the feeling would be among the English public and media in the admittedly far-fetched (at the moment at least) scenario of at least half of a UK team being non-English...
Some would argue that many of the great club teams to have played in England over the years represented the ideal UK team (Liverpool being the obvious example, but also including Leeds, Man U and even Notts Forest at certain points), although the presence of several Republic of Ireland players in the mix lessens the impact somewhat I must admit.
Get Craig Bellamy
in the England squad, just to see John Terry's face.