Re: FIFA World Cup 2010 : Thu Jul 01, 2010 9:07 am  

Mugwump wrote:

It's hard to say. I lived in countries which struggled to put up a team for the World Cup qualifiers, let alone make it to the finals. Look, unless you're some weird kind of morbid fatalist - i.e. Dutch, it's human nature to big up the national team's chances. In my experience, there's nothing that goes on in England which doesn't take place - in some form - abroad. But there IS something distinct - perhaps it has something to do with the level of intensity. I do think we English are natural worriers who lack self-confidence (we tend to view games against Spain, Italy, Germany, Brazil etc. as an excuse for failure rather than an opportunity to succeed).

I remember Alan Ball working as a commentator for either ITV or BBC on the Portugal (I think) game a few years ago. At half time he made a sterling speech along the lines of "If I were in the dressing room now I'd be telling the lads that this is THEIR TIME. Their chance to become HEROES!". It really made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and I just wanted him in there instead of dour, monotonous Sven.

I'm pretty sure Spain went through something similar during their seemingly interminable period of underachieving (decades). It wasn't that they lacked ability. They always had that. But self-belief - the ability to function under intense pressure - was another issue. IMO, you can't coach self-belief. It's something innate and singularly mysterious. Some might call it cockiness. Whatever it is it is every bit as important to success as strength, athletic prowess, the ability to dribble past an opponent in the box etc.

There may be other factors at work also to do with attitude.
A thing that sticks out, when I watch England play, is that they aren't prepared to graft enough. If graft is involved, they are too idle. They don't come off the park looking drained physically.
Perhaps it's part of our 'something for nothing' culture....and we are not used to grafting for a living.
When footballers once grafted for England, which I think they once did, their dads were like as not grafters in their jobs, miners,steel workers, railway workers etc...
I could be wrong....

Re: FIFA World Cup 2010 : Thu Jul 01, 2010 11:47 am  

Stand-Offish wrote:

If you can't see that there is an area in all these positions where someone has to say 'Ooh that's close...was it?, wasn't it?' then there is nothing left to say.

Where do my posts say I can't see that? Yes, it can be close, that's the entire point of technology being introduced isn't it? If it isn't close the ref should be spotting it anyway (although they don't always as we've seen).

My point is that they are not areas of opinion where it is dependent upon an individual applying his own interpretation of events, as that is the ref's domain. We're talking which side of a line is the ball/player on? Like with cyclops at Wimbledon, where a ball is either in or out.

FFS there are white lines painted on the pitch precisely for making these decisions (with the exception of offsides). All we're talking about is cameras giving a better view than the referee might have had.

[Wigan6/Leeds1 Andy]

Re: FIFA World Cup 2010 : Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:43 pm  

It's all a Commie conspiracy I'm assuming it's a pee take - but you can never be quite sure with small town America rednecks.

It's all a Commie conspiracy I'm assuming it's a pee take - but you can never be quite sure with small town America rednecks.

Re: FIFA World Cup 2010 : Thu Jul 01, 2010 1:05 pm  

Wigan/Leeds Andy wrote: It's all a Commie conspiracy I'm assuming it's a pee take - but you can never be quite sure with small town America rednecks. From the comments: This is comedian Paul Day, doing a parody of a dumb, bigotted redneck...complete with John Deere cap. He's created this character called Billy Bob Neck and he's so good at it, many people think he's for real. Hilarious stuff.

Wigan/Leeds Andy wrote: It's all a Commie conspiracy I'm assuming it's a pee take - but you can never be quite sure with small town America rednecks. From the comments: This is comedian Paul Day, doing a parody of a dumb, bigotted redneck...complete with John Deere cap. He's created this character called Billy Bob Neck and he's so good at it, many people think he's for real. Hilarious stuff.

Re: FIFA World Cup 2010 : Thu Jul 01, 2010 1:26 pm  

carl_spackler wrote:

Where do my posts say I can't see that? Yes, it can be close, that's the entire point of technology being introduced isn't it? If it isn't close the ref should be spotting it anyway (although they don't always as we've seen).

My point is that they are not areas of opinion where it is dependent upon an individual applying his own interpretation of events, as that is the ref's domain. We're talking which side of a line is the ball/player on? Like with cyclops at Wimbledon, where a ball is either in or out.

FFS there are white lines painted on the pitch precisely for making these decisions (with the exception of offsides). All we're talking about is cameras giving a better view than the referee might have had.

Don't get hot under the collar.
That's all I want too.
Christ, if you had read my posts you would have grasped that much.
I know I am being pedantic but they are not absolutes. There will be cases, few granted, when it is not as clear as say discrete values like integers are. These are continuous variables.

The cyclops device is a stylised thing...the lines on a real tennis court aren't that solid, how could they be when blades of grass are involved?

There will be occasions when someone has to make a judgment when we are talking millimetres. So although they are pretty damn near perfect...they are not absolutely so.
That's what I am saying...you can see that can you?

Re: FIFA World Cup 2010 : Thu Jul 01, 2010 1:50 pm  

Stand-Offish wrote:

There may be other factors at work also to do with attitude.
A thing that sticks out, when I watch England play, is that they aren't prepared to graft enough. If graft is involved, they are too idle. They don't come off the park looking drained physically.
Perhaps it's part of our 'something for nothing' culture....and we are not used to grafting for a living.
When footballers once grafted for England, which I think they once did, their dads were like as not grafters in their jobs, miners,steel workers, railway workers etc...
I could be wrong....

Yes you are.

If those players were lazy and didn't work, they'd never have got to be professionals in the first place.

Re: FIFA World Cup 2010 : Thu Jul 01, 2010 2:02 pm  

Billinge_Lump wrote:

Yes you are.

If those players were lazy and didn't work, they'd never have got to be professionals in the first place.

Well that's nice to know.
I was talking about their England performances and not how they became footballers. I was observing that other nations seem to run around and graft more....but if you know better....that's that sorted.

Re: FIFA World Cup 2010 : Thu Jul 01, 2010 6:42 pm  

Stand-Offish wrote:

Don't get hot under the collar.
That's all I want too.
Christ, if you had read my posts you would have grasped that much.
I know I am being pedantic but they are not absolutes. There will be cases, few granted, when it is not as clear as say discrete values like integers are. These are continuous variables.

The cyclops device is a stylised thing...the lines on a real tennis court aren't that solid, how could they be when blades of grass are involved?

There will be occasions when someone has to make a judgment when we are talking millimetres. So although they are pretty damn near perfect...they are not absolutely so.
That's what I am saying...you can see that can you?

You're not being pedantic mate, you're being wrong. You seem to be mistaking absolute for clear-cut. My points, by their very definition, are absolutes, because they all fundamentally consider whether something is, or is not, independently of any other influences. You either are offside or you're not, you can't be more offside than someone else, nor justify it as permissible.

At no point have I said there won't be somebody making a judgment, I said it wouldn't be dependent upon their interpretation of the rules, and other contributing factors.

And if we're now talking about blades of grass shifting making enough difference we've gone far beyond the issue we began with.

Re: FIFA World Cup 2010 : Thu Jul 01, 2010 8:15 pm  

carl_spackler wrote:

You're not being pedantic mate, you're being wrong. You seem to be mistaking absolute for clear-cut. My points, by their very definition, are absolutes, because they all fundamentally consider whether something is, or is not, independently of any other influences. You either are offside or you're not, you can't be more offside than someone else, nor justify it as permissible.

At no point have I said there won't be somebody making a judgment, I said it wouldn't be dependent upon their interpretation of the rules, and other contributing factors.

And if we're now talking about blades of grass shifting making enough difference we've gone far beyond the issue we began with.

I'm with you now...if you are saying that the criteria are absolutes.
It looks like I was getting the wrong end of the stick and thinking you meant there would either be off-side or on-side and that there would be no grey areas were someone would have to say 'crikey, looking at that video...I am not sure'....hence a judgment call. And that video would actually eliminate this.
That's another one sorted.
Unless I have misunderstood again.

Re: FIFA World Cup 2010 : Thu Jul 01, 2010 8:57 pm  

Stand-Offish wrote:

There may be other factors at work also to do with attitude.
A thing that sticks out, when I watch England play, is that they aren't prepared to graft enough. If graft is involved, they are too idle. They don't come off the park looking drained physically.
Perhaps it's part of our 'something for nothing' culture....and we are not used to grafting for a living.
When footballers once grafted for England, which I think they once did, their dads were like as not grafters in their jobs, miners,steel workers, railway workers etc...
I could be wrong....

I don't think a lack of graft is the problem. When we aren't terrified of the ball through nerves we're trying to play Premiership football i.e. a five pass maximum limit before the ball is launched forward - often aimlessly. Add to this an inability to play the ball out of defence (when was the last time you saw an English centre half carry the ball past the half way point with intent?) and a succession of goalkeepers who seem to think there is a parallel competition taking place in which you get points for how far you can punt the ball. The latter's depressing nadir was during the tenure of Paul Robinson who in the last World Cup (the one where he hit the PA suspension rig - a hundred feet in the air!) turned EVERY goal kick into catching practice for his opposite number!

The major European and South American outfits figured this style of play out twenty years ago. Now all the second tier and a good deal of the third have too. All you need do is apply pressure to any Englishman with the ball and he'll hand over possession like a penny gum machine. Then they just play little triangles around us and it's three or four minutes before we see the ball again.

"Basketball football" is a fundamental weakness in our game. I mean, when you have Arsenal - the best passing side in Britain by a country mile - finishing a match against Barcelona with a 33 percent possession rate the alarm bells are ringing.

Yes, the Premiership is played at a high standard and yes our sides have achieved great things in Europe - but you take the foreign contingent out of the English game and our teams would be lucky to qualify from the Champions League group stages.

It goes back to the same old issues that arose under the Graham Taylor reign - a youth system which prizes size, athleticism and a "good engine" (FFS!) over skills. Making eleven year-old kids play on full size pitches. Elevating competition over fun etc. etc.

You look to the FA to address these problems - but, aside from Trevor Brooking, there are no "football people" operating at the strategic planning level. And even if there were it's not like the FA is in a position to demand anything from the Premier League, which is the only show in town. Might is Right. I mean, last week you had Dave Whelan saying youth development should be placed firmly within the control of the Premier League.

Too many divergent interests working against each other. And it's the national team which suffers every time.