A GB team would have won a shitload not because of the extra players (although that would have been nice), but because we could have had a Scottish manager.
Countries that should be better at football
- Thread starter RedDevilCanuck
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A GB team would have won a shitload not because of the extra players (although that would have been nice), but because we could have had a Scottish manager.
Icy cold comment!Nothing prevents England to have a Scottish manager, or French, or Italian, or Spanish, or whatever. You don't need to prevent Scotland and Wales having their own teams, just because FA are a bunch of clowns...
Also, chilling reminder that Ashworth was the one that promoted current clown, Southgate...
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Also the Serbian youth teams seem to perform quite well in tournaments, it's a shame it never translates to the seniors. Football manager regularly dropping Serbian gems like it's nothing but they never really break out (I know it's a game, but still). So much potential, but they never fulfill it. I'm jealous of Croatia.
Have you ever had a conversation with a Scot about the England football team? Someone like Sir Alex would rather manage North Korea.
I don't think any proud Scots like Jock Stein, Alex Ferguson. Bill Shankly or Matt Busby would have managed England.
Serbia does well in many sports like Tennis, Basketball etc. I know their natural height is an advantage here.
It's obviously a pointless argument but if Yugoslavia had stayed together they'd be a phenomenal team.
Sir Alex didnt end up managing Scotland either...
I agree that Scotts have (for a good reason) particular hesitation to managing England, but my point was: England can be manager by a foreign manager, it has been in the past, albeit unsuccessfully, and it could be done again. Plenty of non-Scott managers that are far better than Southgate
Excuse me?
Someone doesn't know their Ferguson lore. He absolutely did manage Scotland for a little while. Took over at a world cup because of the death of Jock Stein.
Plus we might still have had a 16 nation Euro's if that was the case
The majority of eastern European countries (from the baltics to the Balkans) are actually suffering population decline with no signs of it reversing so I think lots of them will struggle in the future.
Romania and Bulgaria in particular will have quite sharp population decline.
It's inevitable the Balkan countries will join the EU also so this could accelerate it.
Not sure that’s true at all. Lots of kids who are average when younger make it based off coaching and arguably the best player ever has a genetic ‘disadvantage’ (ignoring the hormone treatment). Most random footballers aren’t genetic freaks at all, who would you say is compared to something like the NBA or NFL?
Yes that doesn't help. Still, they could still rep their country. If the Netherlands had all the Moroccans that chose for Morocco instead of the Netherlands at their disposal they would have great depth, but the Moroccans are too proud of their roots (and rightly so). Good chance players would still rep Serbia and Croatia even if they moved away. Especially if they move to big countries where it's hard to get into the team.
Well they do and that's just the way it is.
I don't know, it was and still is kinda odd to me. When I asked my brother in law(who's a Gala fan), "why are your rival fans so happy??" The answer I got was "It's good for Turkish UEFA points" and all that. But that logic doesn't make sense, when they act differently when other European teams beat their rivals.
More like "we"(Turkish teams) beat a big team. So kinda glory hunting.
That’s investment though, we agree on that. Interest no, people are into football just as much as GAA or more, shows up in surveys and in general just living, the energy goes into Liverpool and Man United rather than League of Ireland though. Irish soccer team does well too and it’s bigger than anything - GAA, rugby or whatever.
Does he? He plays and looks like a champion triathlete - guy's engine has been unreal throughout his career!
He's short, skinny and slow.
One of the greatest players ever but the idea that his career is "50% genetics" is crazy.
Lack of diversity could be a factor...
He isn't slow, and his engine is top percentile for a midfielder, which is why he was still buzzing around at the 90th minute of games as it was for the 1st.
He's about prototypical for that kind of midfielder.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree that his genetics played a large chunk in making him the player he was.
eh, that's exactly why we should be better.
Drop in talent since Gen Z has been monumental.
It's like somewhere at the turn of the millennium we instantly forgot how to raise footballers
I don't know whether they did or didn't, but I know he'd shit on most in fitness tests. In fact, of his type, you're going to struggle to find many who could go as consistently hard throughout a game as he did.
Nigeria is not bad but they should be better, football's in the genes (particularly attackers) -
So many players of Nigerian parentage littered all over - Saka, Olise, Eze, Musiala, Akanji, Adeyemi, then talents like Noni Madueke and Carney Chukwuemeka coming through, ... That's added to the talent actually playing for Nigeria's attack like Lookman and Oshimen
So many players of Nigerian parentage littered all over - Saka, Olise, Eze, Musiala, Akanji, Adeyemi, then talents like Noni Madueke and Carney Chukwuemeka coming through, ... That's added to the talent actually playing for Nigeria's attack like Lookman and Oshimen
Countries with low consumption of meat will always struggle at physical sports no matter how big the population.
Think it depends what we're talking about when we're referring to genetics. It might be the completely wrong word, but I'd include mental attributes within that. The ability to easily grasp and understand how to manipulate a ball in the perfect way and for your mind to control your body to do it reliably. There's so much more too such as spatial awareness. People have very different levels of natural ability when it comes to these sorts of things.
If we somehow invented time travel, went back into time, froze it and replaced a newborn baby Messi (or Modric/Lampard) with a newborn me or you then gave us the exact same upbringing and same desire to play football with nobody knowing there's no way we'd turn out as good. Strongly doubt we'd even be professionals.
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I think is global, the fall in talent. Most EU countries are dependent on 2nd generation immigrant kids to boost their talent pool.
Hell even Spain have got some two young talents on the wings yesterday.
And this is not even restricted to Europe, there is just no talent coming through.
Brief stint as interim, before he joined United, is not really something I am considering as consequential, but OK - technically you are correct
England
Managing at a world cup isn't exactly interim you know
ok. Fair enough
Yeah, the money just isn't there and that's because people don't have the interest to invest in the local game the same way they do with GAA.
If you look at the LOI, there's only a few counties where there are decent clubs, Louth, Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Longford, Galway, Sligo and Donegal. There's massive areas of the country where poeple have no team to support in LOI. Whereas nearly every small town, village and area has a gaa team and there's a county team to support for 8/9 months of the year. They are happy to pay to be non playing members or pay 10/20e at the gate for whatever club game is on.
I know people from Drogheda who will go to England for a game more often than they would a Drogheda game(never). Even though they could probably attend a years worth of LOI games for the same price.
I don't see many countries that will get 80,000 spectators into a stadium to watch 2 amateur teams compete for a trophy. Not many will get 30,000-40,000 regularly for single events like championship matches.
GAA is probably the largest amateur sporting organisation in the world in terms of membership and turnover. If soccer had the same level of organisation, interest and investment Ireland would probably be on par with the likes of Croatia, Uruguay etc in terms of competitiveness with other teams.
Many times i been wondering why Russia is so weak in sports. Football included.
They are big, and they really try to get better at sports. But its not very impressive.
They are big, and they really try to get better at sports. But its not very impressive.
They're excellent in some areas, and they certainly used to be a dangerously strong football team for sure. I think generally their issue is the sheer distance their teams have to travel in their league. Imagine going from St Petersburg to Rostov on Don every week!
A part of it seems to be the mental side of it. So many of them struggle to adapt to top European leagues for some reason. Even when the talent is there.
And aside from Moscow/St Petersburg, the rest of the country is kinda poor. One would think that sports is a way out of poverty for many young Russians like for South Americans or Africans. They do have some notable clubs CSKA Moscow and Spartak Moscow and Rubin Kazan who competed in European tournaments so some degree of infrastructure & investment is already there.
Good at one time in other sports but I think it's taken as granted that they had a lot of artificial help!
I don't think climate helps. Can't think of any great footballing nations that have such long and harsh winters as they do.
Former Eastern Bloc countries aren't amazing at football as a general rule. Economy?
They also have very low population density, think that could affect things to a degree.
They do have plenty of sizeable cities but knitting everything together could be difficult due to the vast distances between some of them. Lots of travelling for young players to meet up with the other best players in the country, or even regionally. I'm guessing everything is fragmented and you might need to build more top class training facilities compared to some other countries if you want all your promising players to use them. Novosibirsk, their 3rd largest city is a 52 hour train ride to Moscow for example.
Mind you, St Petersburg and Moscow combined have more people than the Netherlands do altogether. That's enough people to potentially do well if focusing on just those 2 cities.
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The last time they invested heavily into sport they got stripped of 50 medals and banned from competitions for 4 years.