Mar 26 2007
The poor performance of the English soccer team
The English soccer team??were right to follow??no goals against Israel with no words as they boarded the plane.There was nothing they could say about the lack of passion and success in their latest overseas adventure that would have helped.
We are told we have one of the best competitive leagues in the world, where good games are often played with great skill and commitment. When it comes to the performance of England, I am left wondering if:
1. They play together often enough as a team to get used to their differing styles, and to hammer out a way of understanding between the different players.
2. If the huge sums they earn from club football blunts the motivation to play well for their country. They know that their fame and fortune rests on the club contracts, and the commercial contracts which flow from that.
3. If the fact that the English clubs now have so many foreign star players means that there are not enough good English players who have regularly played for the very top clubs that have the best coaching and the strongest competition.
Of course when there are too many poor performances in a row we should ask if a different coach and/or captain would make a difference. It maybe time to look at the whole organisation of the game and the league in England to see if an overseas player rule would give English talent more chance – and curb the costs for clubs.
7 Responses to “The poor performance of the English soccer team”
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Please God, keep politicians away from football. Feel free to screw-up welfare, health, and defence but please leave football alone. It never ceases to amaze me that politicians believe they can fix anything even when the all the evidence points in the opposite direction.
“The English soccer team …”
With respect Mr Redwood, no subject for a politican to be bothering about. We should leave the selection of the English soccer team to the England selection board. If England looses at soccer in the World championships, too bad. The department of Culture, Media and Sport should drop Sport from its portfolio, then Media and finally Culture. One less minister on the governments Parliamentary payroll, that minister can go back to representing his constituents.
You do realise how totalitarian the whole buisness of government involvement in sport is, don’t you?
Don’t even get me started with the government health ‘advertisments’. They have totally inverted the whole purpose of the Health service, we are now to look after our health for the benefit of the tottering NHS.
Government involvement, has posioned Health Care provision and posioned Sport. Increasing the number of MPs on the government payrol has pretty much destroyed democracy too. By and large, government is a bad thing, that is why we should have a little of it as possble.
It’s ‘football’, not soccer!
[...] The poor performance of the English <b>soccer</b> team [...]
I’d have to agree with most of the comments above, John, unless you are a football supporter.
I’ve supported Arsenal since 1959 and there were times that you may have been forgiven for thinking that they were an Irish side, likewise the Wolves.
If English players are any good they can play abroad – Hargreaves, Beckham. etc.
The problem is the manager – that will be coach by your soccer terminology – third choice and third rate. He is starting to make Sven look a genius.
I think football has a critical part to play in the English culture so it is right that politicians should get involved at a high level but maybe not the playing side. Unless they know a bit about the game of course!
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Unfortunately I think politics should not interfere with sports too much, especially with many politicians not having a clue how to improve things in the area in the first place. What could the government have done at that time which everyone else in the world would have known already (get rid of the manager then). One thing they could have helped with though is to put things in place to pump more resources into the development of the game.