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Listening to the truly awful Clive Tyldesley droning on last night, I wondered why it was that I ended up celebrating the Iceland goals almost as much as I do one by Wales. I've always disliked the way the media approach England games by assuming that we will all be supporting what we have to call the three lions nowadays, but, at the same time, that attitude has always struck me as a hypocritical one because Welsh football coverage and analysis is right up there among the most biased there is. How can I be so anti English when the media covering my team show so many of the same traits that make me feel the way I do about England's football team?
The truth is though that the coverage of Wales by the Welsh is subtly different from that of England by the English (or should that read the English and Northern Irish in recognition of the odious Alan Green?). When someone like Rob Phillips goes way over the top when Wales do something well there is a sense of wonderment to what he says because, being Welsh, he knows that we shouldn't really be doing this. We are "little" Wales, have suffered for fifty years on the football pitches of Europe and now we want to get the absolute most out of what might well be our very brief moment in the sun.
Contrast that to the sense of entitlement which Tyldesley and so many others display, when they commentate on an England goal against "minnows" like Iceland and Wales, they sound as if we are watching a restoration of the natural order of things.
It's not just during matches you get this either. Listening to Radio Five's preview of the game last night was to listen to one of the biggest examples of misplaced pride before a fall that I've heard in my life - Iceland were made to sound like a bunch of Sunday morning players for whom just getting out of their group was the realisation of some sort of impossible dream.
The truth was that Iceland in beating the Dutch at home and away in their qualifying group had achieved a pair of results that England could only dream of when it comes to competitive football (Wales taking four points off Belgium are also the sort of outcomes over two competitive matches that England don't get), they were very dangerous opponents if underestimated.
However, this was England we are talking about, you know that giant of world football which were about to take part in a mini tournament with Italy, Germany and France to see who would face the sacrificial lambs that came through the other half of the tournament to earn the honour of being beaten finalists.
This was England, the country which has this great historic rivarly with the Germans when it comes to football - the last half a century has seen no end of classic battles between these two giants of the game, nearly all of which have been won by the team that isn't England and all the while the Germans mouth a few platitudes about this traditional rivalry after they've won before getting on with preparing for proper challenges against someone who they class as truly dangerous opponents.
It's the totally misplaced arrogance which does for England every time - there are people who were born after 1966 who have lived into middle age and died without seeing England achieve anything truly meaningful on the world, or even European, footballing stage and yet, still, there is this sense of entitlement, why?
Last edited by the other bob wilson; 28-06-16 at 04:28.
I have a German satellite system and often prefer to watch the same televised games on there as the commentary is far less jingoistic, much more objective and far less patronising to the smaller footballing nations.
'Illusory superiority' is a term I have recently become familiar with.....
For me it's the media tobw.
Your average English person is pretty decent, but the media goes overboard, you mentioned entitlement, and I think that's the key. The media like to build England up into thinking they are much better than they actually are, and when they inevitably get found out, destroy them.
The difference with Wales, is that nobody in Wales EXPECTED us to progress this far, the fact that we have has create this excitement and sense of disbelief at how well we're actually doing.
German satellite system ,nudge nudge wink wink #horseporn
Just been having a look around for a few minutes and found these articles which either demonstrate or point out the sort of arrogance I talked about
http://metro.co.uk/2016/06/27/peter-...-dier-5969538/
https://www.theguardian.com/football...ngland-iceland (the bit about the England scouting staff punching the air when Iceland scored the goal which earned them the tie with England is so revealing).
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...-a7106591.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...-a7106711.html
This attitude ensures that we all get a good laugh every couple of years, but it's at the heart of why England just don't punch their weight on the international occasions that really count - hubris and an ignorance born of arrogance holds them back. Lee Dixon copped some flak on here for keeping on about how England defended those Gunnarsson throw ins, but he was right - again, the insufficient precautions taken when defending them and the failure to do anything to correct the faults revealed by Iceland's equaliser goes right to the heart of England's problem. They are not going to get anywhere until they recognise they have this problem and start behaving like all of the other fair to middling teams which exist below an elite of five or six countries who have earned the right, but seldom utilise it, to act like England have been doing for the last half a century.
Last edited by the other bob wilson; 28-06-16 at 07:03.
Nice one BobOriginally Posted by the other bob wilson
The worst piece of arrogance last night was at half time when the ITV studio anchorman asked the panel " do you think Roy should drop Hart for the quarter final" you've got to beat Iceland first muppet
Interesting points, which surely ring true.
I feel genuinely sorry for the regular England fans as they have to put up with this from the (supposedly British) media , time and again.
And they have to endure a team / Association that genuinely ought to be able to be in contention, but are way better at shooting themselves in the foot .
The crazy thing is, we all already expect that an unsuitable / lacklustre managerial appointment is on the horizon, and at the very next opportunity, the exact same pattern will start again.
Maybe that assumption is equally guilty of presumption. We'll see.
nail on head.
The English media and pundits big up their team so much it must affect the players, they get told, and believe, that they only have to turn up and the other side will be so awestruck that they will gift England the victory before kick-off.
Ian Wright was dead against Arsene Wenger becoming England manager last night, he didn't say why, but I'd have thought Wenger would be the best appointment they could hope for, they'd be lucky to have him.
He practically tied himself into a knot trying not to say no foreigners.
There is something deeply wrong with England in major tournaments and it is not just in Football, this has happened in the last Cricket world cup and the last Rugby world cup that we have seen.
If you ask me those players last night looked scared, scared to try anything incase it led to blame for failure.
If you look at the England cricket side at the last world cup the message was similar, however after that failure it has turned to being more successful and has rebuilt, there is talk in the cricket that the attitude changed and expression was encouraged, and that mistakes when trying to make things happen where not followed by a row in the dressing room.
If you look at a player like Harry Kane, he's a great player at spurs and the type of young player that England should be looking to build their side around for years, however this tournament he has gone from a must pick, to a liability in 4 games, that's to much, that players development has taken a hit, that may never recover.
If you compare that to Wales, in some ways we have to throw our youngsters in, but we have more of an environment where the mistakes are not the end of the world and the success is celebrated in the extreme.
England will never produce a Gareth Bale, they will never have a player that will get to his caps at the age that he is. If Gareth Bale was English they would have never brought him out of the left back position, he would have been dropped early in his career and never allowed to develop the experience at the national stage.
There are talented English football players, they certainly have more depth than a lot of teams in this tournament, however they play with a paralysis of what will happen to them when they fail.
Most of them have been millionaires from their early 20's and never had to work hard before. Money has spoilt them.
No difference from Bale, or a lot of players playing for France, Spain and Germany.
Craig Bellamy nailed it in one 3 weeks ago:
England have the better squad of players but Wales have the better team.
Thats pretty much a given, however the reasons behind this are environmental, and in essence you can fix that.
Looking at squads i believe that the England squad could achieve what the France and Italy squad are.
That's quite a good analysis.
I got the feeling Wright stopped short of saying something which would he might have regretted, along the lines of 'I wouldn't want Wenger to be thrown into this Lions Den that is the England manager's post', possibly worse and a lot of what has been previously said in this thread was on the tip of his tongue.
He normally shoots from the hip does Wrighty, perhaps he's saving it for another, more appropriate, time?
He reminds me of Ian Botham when he had a pop at the cricket "establishment" back in the late 80's early 90's.
The masses respected him as a great player but also as one who won't toe the line so to speak.
The knives were out for him I remember and most thought he wouldn't be around long but Sir Ian is still alive and kicking.
I personally like Ian Wright and I hope there's more to come from him à la Beefy.
Good observations by the OP and contributors by the way
He had a massive foreigner rant when Sven took the job. I'm quite surprised he's got the awareness to realise that now is not a good time to repeat it.
This is definitely true. He has reached his potential (way exceeded what many of us thought his potential was) and his nationality is a lot to do with that.
Take a look at Rashford. Hes decent enough but let's be honest, he hasn't shown natural talent and ability that you don't see in other players. He's scored one in two since he broke into the Man Utd team, which is very good of course, but he hasn't made the kind of impact that Rooney did a couple of years ahead of him.
And yet, when I googled him to find out his scoring rate, this was the first hit on Google:
England may have found a genius in extraordinary Marcus Rashford
http://www.eurosport.com/football/eu...26/story.shtml
He looks a good player but he's neither extraordinary nor a genius.
I agree Bob.
Last night's result was being compared with America beating England 1-0 at Belo Horizonte in 1950. America won that game with very little in the way of international results in the past. Iceland have some pedigree, and deserve more respect.
Iceland have always been seen as a whipping boy - although they have pulled off some very respectable results over the last few decades. The English media could barely contain their excitement when they realised that they would be playing Iceland instead of Portugal. First point - Iceland finished ABOVE Portugal over three group matches featuring Hungary (ranked 20th) and Austria (ranked 10th).
The English media went into stereotypical overdrive. "I'm happy with Iceland", Rio Ferdinand said, "They have just defended through the tournament." Iceland had scored 4 goals in 3 difficult games against teams ranked much higher than they were. England managed 3 against teams they were expected to beat - including an injury ravaged Russia.
Reports about pitches that were unsuitable for playing on in the winter months. A population the size of Leicester (they failed to see the irony), this was an easy passage to the quarter-finals. Much easier than out of form Portugal right? Roy, brilliant work in not beating Slovakia. Wales could get the Czechs, it looks like England will get the easy game against Iceland. Who wants to win a group? Not us.
Iceland kicked off qualifying with a 3-0 win against Turkey. Turkey are in a transitional period, people were expecting a tough game for Turkey, but no-one expected Iceland to win so comprehensively. Iceland scored 2 goals in a minute, maybe a moment of madness flattered them, but they quickly followed that up with a 3-0 win in Latvia a month later - a nice warm-up for their home match against the Dutch. Iceland won 2-0. Played 3, won 3, no goals conceded, two big nations brushed aside, a win at a tricky place in Latvia.
In ten games, they lost twice, 2-1 away to the Czechs, and 1-0 away to Turkey (they had already qualified by that stage). The only blot marks being home draws with Kazakhstan (0-0) and Latvia (2-2), having led 2-0. They won in The Netherlands too. So what if the Dutch had 65% posession, 17 shots on goal, 9 on target? Iceland had the only clear-cut chance, took it. 1-0.
In three group matches in France, they didn't lose at all. Played 13, lost 2. Let's not forget, Iceland almost made it to the 2014 World Cup finals too.
"This is a Championship side" - Chris Waddle, faux-grumpy as ever. "If we can't beat these, there is something fundamentally wrong". Ferdinand was already trying to work out France's weaknesses and how Kane and Vardy could upset the home nation in the quarters. "Hang on Rio, there's still the Iceland game to come" said Gary Linekar, almost convincingly.
"This side wouldn't win promotion from the Championship" - Waddle again, in disbelief that the mighty England (winners of one solitary World Cup on home soil) could be losing to Iceland. Iceland are playing England, not Barnsley Chris, and they're 2-1 up and in control. I doubt if the England team could survive in the Premier League either.
The media in England were lazy - Alan Green "A population the size of Leicester and no professional league. This is embarrassing". Green probably didn't know any Icelandic players either (having admitted to not knowing much of Wales and Northern Ireland). Had he done some research on things other than populations and league structures, he may have realised that England were in for a tough night.
Last edited by Badly Ironed Shirt; 28-06-16 at 09:36.
In retrospect, 'Arry would have been a far better appointment - dodgy knees 'n all.
At the very least he would have given it ago - and how much credit should he have for developing Welsh talent?
If Rashford was Welsh he would not have had those headlines, and its difficult to live up to those headlines.
Also by being Welsh he would be up in the 10s of caps now and if he hadnt scored in any of those games there would be no fuss we would simply look at the potential look at the good things he had done.
The simplistic theory on how to succeed at international football is to get your young players to 50 caps as soon as possible, and at Wales we have hit that point now. At England by the time you've got 20 caps you have already moved from a legend to a liability, you are expected at an early stage of your international career to win games on your own.
Gareth Bale came through English systems, he has not received any different coaching or set-up from any English player in his formative years, yet he has reached a level that many others cannot achieve. I would say similar about Ramsey performances in this tournament.
This suggests that the issue is environmental, Harry Kane looked broken last night, i do not believe he has less desire than other teams, and he certainly has ability, but the problems stems from the English environment, which will have factors from the fans, the press, the management, and the FA.
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