Quote Originally Posted by LA Bluebird View Post
It's the opposite though. In terms of individual players, England are by far the more accomplished side. One from City, one from Real and one from Barca in the Spain team (and the Barca player was 16 for most of the tournament, as good as he is) - over half the side tonight won't be playing for a team in the Champions league next season. But what they did have was a manager who knew what style he wanted to play, which players would fit it and then left out more highly rated players for the ones that fit his squad.

England had one of the top players in the world, Premiership player of the year, the top scorer in the Bundesliga... on paper talent throughout the 26, but they weren't a team and they were thrown together in a style that was the same timid crap with 2 holding midfielders and 7 men behind the ball until they go behind the manager has been playing for years. It has been obvious the entire tournament it was a collection of square pegs in round holes... slightly better once he went with wing backs, once Shaw was fit and once he dropped the ridiculous TAA experiment, but still an utter disaster in terms of tactics and they were totally outclassed by the first quality team they played... yet again.
The hype surrounding the Premier League blurs the lines in my opinion, it’s England based but is so successful despite the English players not because of them. History doesn’t lie, one World Cup win (on home soil & every game at Wembley) is sure proof that English players aren’t quite at the same level as Germans, Spanish, French, Italians not to mention the South Americans. In tournament terms they rank alongside The Netherlands, Greece, Denmark etc, tournament winning history can’t be changed, there’s no ‘ah, buts’ or ‘they were lucky’ alongside the winners names.