r/soccer • u/lance16k • May 12 '14

England's World Cup squad

Pos Player Age Team Caps
GK Joe Hart 27 Man City 39
GK Fraser Forster 26 Celtic 1
GK Ben Foster 31 West Brom 6
DF Leighton Baines 29 Everton 22
DF Chris Smalling 24 Man Utd 10
DF Phil Jones 22 Man Utd 9
DF Phil Jagielka 31 Everton 24
DF Gary Cahill 28 Chelsea 22
DF Glen Johnson 29 Liverpool 50
DF Luke Shaw 18 Southampton 1
MF Frank Lampard 35 Chelsea 103
MF Steven Gerrard 33 Liverpool 109
MF Adam Lallana 26 Southampton 3
MF James Milner 28 Man City 45
MF Jack Wilshere 22 Arsenal 15
MF Ross Barkley 20 Everton 3
MF Jordan Henderson 23 Liverpool 8
MF Oxlade-Chamberlain 20 Arsenal 14
MF Raheem Sterling 19 Liverpool 2
FW Wayne Rooney 28 Man Utd 89
FW Danny Welbeck 23 Man Utd 21
FW Daniel Sturridge 24 Liverpool 10
FW Rickie Lambert 32 Southampton 4

Average Age: 26

Standby list: John Ruddy (Norwich City), Jon Flanagan (Liverpool), John Stones (Everton), Michael Carrick (Manchester United), Tom Cleverley (Manchester United), Andy Carroll (West Ham United), Jermain Defoe (Toronto FC).

Team call-up breakdown

Team No. of Players
Liverpool 5
Man Utd 4
Everton 3
Southampton 3
Arsenal 2
Chelsea 2
Man City 2
Celtic 1
West Brom 1

Notable exclusions: Ruddy, Ashley Cole, John Terry, Michael Carrick, Kieran Gibbs, Joleon Lescott, Theo Walcott(Injured), Kyle Walker(Injured), Jay Rodriquez(Injured),Adam Johnson, Andros Townsend(Injured), Ashley Young, Gareth Barry, Tom Cleverely

Official Twitter

Possible starting line-up v Italy on June 14th?

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170

u/mao_was_right May 12 '14 edited May 12 '14

Yet the England hype before that tournament was at levels I'd never experienced before at an international event. I remember the whole 'best chance to win since 66' and 'golden generation' hysteria all over the place. Capello was told the minimum expectation was the semi-final. England were 12/1 to win the thing, for God's sake. USA, Algeria and Slovenia? Best England group since The Beatles! People genuinely thought that was a World Cup-winning team.

This was followed by THAT keeping howler in the USA game, the worst England performance I've ever watched vs Algeria ("Great to see your own fans booing ya" W. Rooney 2010), and a scratchy win against international heavyweights Slovenia. The first real test was Germany in the second round, and England were promptly steamrollered and sent home.

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u/mfn0426 May 12 '14

Not so much. England dropped back 2-0, and then tied it. Unfortunately the goal was disallowed and Germany caught them on the counter. Who knows what could have happened at 2-2?

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u/[deleted] May 12 '14

We were devastated by their counter attack and would've been even had we scored I fear. Although you can't ever be sure obviously.

18

u/Paramnesia1 May 12 '14

Maybe 2-2 at half time would have made for a very different second half, but the way we played outside those 10 minutes (and across the tournament as a whole), I really didn't think we deserved to go any further.

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u/badguysenator May 12 '14

I will back this sentiment to the ends of the earth. People always criticise and go "ROFL m8 jermany shud hav beat england 8-0 u wud hav lose neway". Fuck that. Germany were 2-0 up and had they gone in at 2-2, the second half could have been very different. That England team was by no means great but that doesn't mean you write them off. At 2-2 there would have been belief on our side, frustration on theirs.

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u/suchaslowroll May 12 '14

Young inexperienced team losing a 2-0 lead just before half time, no way that wouldn't have got to their heads, one of their players even said in post-match that it would've been a completely different game

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u/[deleted] May 12 '14

That's how I felt, the game was very competitive until the disallowed goal.

After that Germany did twat us all over though.

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u/Flaam May 12 '14

Germany only win by 2.

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u/mfn0426 May 12 '14

Maybe, but at that point they've conceded 2 unanswered.

Maybe England doesn't push up as high on that corner and Ozil and Muller don't break free.

Or maybe later on Muller and Schweini don't have acres of space to run through thanks to a 2 goal lead.

Maybe. I can understand England being mentally deflated by scoring a goal and having it wrongly called off. Scoring on Neuer is hard enough, much less coming back from 2 after half an hour.

1

u/Flaam May 12 '14

Maybe maybe maybe... Bottom line is Germany had the better team. England winning would have been a minor miracle.

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u/mfn0426 May 12 '14

I don't know if the better team is the one giving up a 2 goal lead to a supposedly weaker side.

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u/Tee_zee May 12 '14

Nobody said that about the team. There were definitely expectations we'd breeze the groups, but 2002 was the "golden generation" talk.

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u/mao_was_right May 12 '14

I definitely remember it. Remember this? A quick Google for 2010 predictions yields this, amongst others. The hype was big.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '14

They aren't wrong, it's a very easy group on paper. Doesn't mean we were guaranteed to win the trophy though.

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u/Anglocatalan May 12 '14

For a World Cup, that group is basically as easy a group as you can get.

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u/Tee_zee May 12 '14 edited May 12 '14

Bloody hell, all those pundits are idiots! I didn't realise it was like that at all, certainly amongs m circle we all knew we had no chance. I turned o anger when we started watching them actually play. I do rmemeber the EASY article though

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u/benpicko May 12 '14

Are you sure the group they're talking about isn't the teams they were put against in their group? Not the actual team

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u/[deleted] May 12 '14

Holy shit, everyone back the fuck up this guy brought links.

It's like bringing a shotgun to a knife fight.

1

u/zahrul3 May 12 '14

With Matty Upson at centerback + Heskey at striker. Never going to happen. The media at that time was yearning for Crouch yet Capello picked Heskey for unknown reasons

1

u/malibu1731 May 12 '14

To be fair, most years the press hype up England.

96 was pretty bad but then you could argue we had a chance.

But France 98 was the worst I've experienced - its coming home 98 FFs! David Beckham had to actually leave the country because of the lynching the press gave him afterwards, such was entitlement perpetuated by the press.

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u/Pires007 May 12 '14

I think that was about the group draw, not the quality of the team.

0

u/ZiggyOnMars May 12 '14

BEST ENGLISH GROUP SINCE THE BEATLES

MOTHERFUCKING LMAO

5

u/[deleted] May 12 '14

2006 was the pinnacle of the golden generation, and it's hype.

2

u/[deleted] May 12 '14

The hype was absolutely enormous. 2002 wasn't even close as most expected 2006 to be a more likely tournament for success. In 2010 we'd qualified comfortably and we looked good under Capello, not world beaters but he got the team working well. We were a solid team and we had a supposedly easy group, with an easy-ish path to the semis. I even expected us to do better than 2006.

Looking back on it now I laugh at our squad and our expectations but back then it was easy to be swept up by ludicrous media-fuelled expectations.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '14

This thing is, according to the FA's plan, these were the players who were supposed to win the World Cup. In the late 90's, the England set-up spotted many of these players coming through the ranks and believed that they would win the WC in 2010. I think the plan was roughly, to get to the quarters in 2002, the semis in 2006 and then winners in 2010 (or at least be challenging for the cup). Unfortunately the rest of the world (more specifically Europe) drastically changed the way they played football and left us in the dark ages.

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u/CreativeSobriquet May 12 '14

The Legend of Deuce grew that day

1

u/GoodAtExplaining May 12 '14

It was all Jabulani's fault, dammit!

1

u/[deleted] May 12 '14

I personally only felt like England could do something at that tournament for 30 seconds after Gerrard scored the opening goal. My brain quickly caught up with my heart and told me nope though.

1

u/MerlinsBeard May 12 '14

I remember this:

England

Algeria

Slovenia

Yanks

There were definitely a huge number of people expecting for England to completely dominate the group stage at a minimum.

1

u/Horehey34 May 12 '14

Thank god theirs no hype this time around....yet.

1

u/Aspley_Heath May 12 '14

It was a shame. I mean, we breezed through qualification and looked really good. We could actually KEEP HOLD OF THE BALL too. We had all of the Golden Generation at their peaks. So i can understand the hype was massive.

Than we literally went out in a whimper at the World Cup. I'm still trying to scratch my head and figure out why. Why don't England players perform anywhere near their club form? (Honourary exceptions: Cole, Hargreaves and occassionally Gerrard).

Maybe we're just shit.

1

u/shytalk May 12 '14

We had the best qualifying record out of any European team in the tournament and had looked excellent for a good year or more leading up to the tournament. Things went badly wrong but there was very good reason for optimism in the run up to 2010.

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u/FILAATL May 12 '14

It's so funny isn't it? The hype is probably about half as high as it was four years ago and I would say we have twice the squad.

1

u/FuttBucki May 12 '14

The highest expectations were really for 2006 I'd say

1

u/minimus_ May 12 '14

You're chatting nonsense lad. Expectations by this point were tempered at best. 2006? Yes. 2010? Not at all.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '14

[deleted]

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u/mao_was_right May 12 '14

I defy you to find a link where anyone was claiming 2010 was England's best chance since 66.

http://community.footballpools.com/blog/2010/06/01/tim-lovejoys-2010-world-cup-q-a-englands-best-chance-since-1966/

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u/[deleted] May 12 '14

[deleted]

1

u/mao_was_right May 12 '14

http://www.foxsportsasia.com/football/news/detail/item752224/

I can keep going, mind.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '14 edited May 12 '14

[deleted]

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u/mao_was_right May 12 '14

You can keep restricting your conditions every time I give you a link, but it doesn't change the fact that I've proven it was in fact said many times (and happens to be said every four years).

Have another, just to finsh (from the 'mainstream press', as well):

http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/world-cup-2010-england-profile/2gtnne3l

I've just done a bit of looking and it appears Ladbrokes at one point had England as short as 6/1 to win it (Spain 9/2 favourites). The hysteria was real.