International Football - Page 16

to be fair its little wonder germany walked that tournament looking at their team

they had 2 current real madrid and a dortmund player in midfield for the final, we had mark noble, cattermole and muamba.

quote Jmste

he plays *bleep*ing mancienne in midfield ffs

just on that basis he shouldnt be anywhere near england manager

Yeah, Pearce had an obsession with Mancienne being in the side. Which will either prove a long term visionary move or, far far more likely, one of the most baffling. Whatever the problems of Rodwell and Muamba, they would have been far better picks to protect the defense.

didn't one of those wins come after we *bleep*ed up a huge lead against sweden and had to win on pens as well?

quote D I O S

Fine I supposedly gloss over the good parts. But you're doing the same for the bad. Explain any major decision at the most recent tournament. Crucifying him for one thing would be harsh but Michael Mancienne shouldn't have even been in the squad and yet was captain. Nothing worked, he showed a complete lack of tactical nous, so many players were played in the wrong way and he never settled on a best team, arguably the most important part of international football. Knowing your best 11 players and putting them out there is rule 1, and Pearce, much like Capello, McClaren, Hoddle and Keegan (Sven actually normally did it quite well) couldn't do that.

Also the previous two were reasonably fluky at times. That's not really hand-waving. When your keeper is winning you games by scoring you sudden death penalties there's a lot of luck there. Also semis sounds impressive as hell until you realise that all he did was qualify from the group. In 2009, his greatest tournament England won two games. One of them against Finland. In fact he's won a total of three *bleep*ing games at tournaments, and he's worthy of one of the most important and prestigious jobs in world football suddenly?

No I'm not. I agree the last tournament was disappointing, though we did go in with delusions of grandeur. See above post, I agree Mancienne was a poor choice. As for the others, depends what judgements your referring too. I can see why he went for the defensive Rose over Sinclair, whose record at international tournaments is not great to be nice, to cover the leftback rather then agree with it. Agreed with most of his team but yes, he failed to settle on a midfield. I was really really glad when Muamba played and maybe if Lansbury had remained fit that would have helped. His failure to settle on a midfield (plus his choice of dm) was a bad mistake.

When your captain is injured, forcing you to play extra time with ten men and he has to take a penalty, is that unlucky? Also Hart took the second penalty I thought, which since it worked should probably be in Pearce's favour. Whereas blowing a 3-0 lead does not do Pearce, or the team, any credit.

Pearce has got us qualifying with a regularity unknown since Sexton, and which other teams struggle for, and got a finals record of 3 wins, 7 draws and only 2 defeats in open play. A bad manager would not have got us to a semi, only two finals defeats (since we are going open play) in 3 tournaments with sides that ranged from the poor (2007) to the inexperienced (2011). A great manager of course would have a better finals win rate but nobody is saying Pearce is great.

All he did was qualify from the group? More then some England senior managers (at least in the Euro's) and most England U21 managers manage.

I don't believe I have called for Pearce to be manager of England? I think that would be bad for England and for Pearce himself.

Edit:

quote D I O S

No. I was only counting 90 minute wins. If counting that then 4 games. Against Serbia, Sweden, Finland and, fair play, Spain. I mean this glorious semi we reached was because we qualified from a group with Italy, the Czechs and Serbia in. 2 of those teams finished bottom of their group in 2010, the other didn't qualify.

In the interests of fairness, that Spain team were poor. As in their best player was their keeper Asenjo poor. Beating them looks far far better then it actually was.

The future Italy teams didn't have Balotelli and the 2009 Serbia side were talented but 1) unlucky with injuries, 2) ill disciplined. Also in fairness to Pearce, our U21 side in the semi year was hardly great quality, suffered player withdrawals and Pearce only took over in... January I think?

Of course the problem for U21 (and other youth level) managers is you are partly reliant on the quality you get each tournament. You can have one or two great batches and years were your team is simply poor.

Brazil were bloody lucky tonight.

as if football could not get anymore corrupted

Bahrain needed a win against Indonesia, 8+ goals and hope Qatar lose to Iran to qualify for the next stage of the Asian qualification

Bahrain winning 10-0 in the final few minutes against Indonesia who fielded a team with over half the team never having played for the national team and with Iran beating Qatar 2-1 in the final minutes. it looked like Bahrain were going through. until Qatar wait for it..... score a last minute equaliser to draw 2-2 and go through to the next stage ffs!

madness!

Not a bad goal that ^^^^

just seen France now leading Germany 2-0. Malouda scored... did not see that result coming.