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Group C: Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England

DuncanPatterson said:
It's simple arithmetic

Germany 83,294,633
France 64,756,584
Italy 58,870,763
England 56,550,138
Spain 47,519,628

Serbia 7,097,028

In fact that makes the point perfectly where European football is concerned

Rugby is the national sport in New Zealand and not particularly popular in many other countries so it's a totally different situation
Click to expand...
What does the popularity of it amongst other countries matter when you rule out India and China because football isn't popular to them?
 
DuncanPatterson said:
It's simple arithmetic

Germany 83,294,633
France 64,756,584
Italy 58,870,763
England 56,550,138
Spain 47,519,628

Serbia 7,097,028

In fact that makes the point perfectly where European football is concerned

Rugby is the national sport in New Zealand and not particularly popular in many other countries so it's a totally different situation
Click to expand...

Mate half of Scotland’s squad is English and born in England so why on earth are you bringing population into it? Scott McTominay for example counts as part of the English population figure and not Scotland’s, as do Che Adams and Angus Gunn.

Plenty of teams with populations lower than Scotland have been out of the group stages at a tournament at some point in their entire existence. It’s a pathetic excuse really.
 

And just to illustrate political indifference to all of this is across the spectrum, last Wednesday I was trying to get my mother-in-law to the Hauptbahnhof in Berlin so she could catch her train to Munich after a stay with us. Naturally, you can understand how keen I was for her to complete that journey successfully, but when we turned up at our local station we were greeted with the news that our route was broken because of a state visit. Trains were not running and people going to work, etc., were left scrambling. Now, normally a state visit is something that people are informed of in advance, and can plan for, but this time it was President Zelenskiiy who was visiting, so the information was much slower to come out for security reasons and the German police were shutting down multiple areas of central Berlin so that these locations would act as decoys for any Russian assassination attempts.

Clearly Olaf Scholz thought Zelenskiiy visiting would be a good photo opportunity to distract from his horrendous European election results, but such contempt for ordinary people and how they go about their daily lives seems par for the course now. People simply couldn't get to work in Berlin on Wednesday morning as a result. I'm not sure how such lack of planning or concern for ordinary people helps the Ukrainian popular cause either.

Germany is a marvelous country in many ways, and some of these issues are "first world problems", but I laugh when I am sometimes asked about German efficiency and productivity by people back in Ireland. As I have told them many times, I have nothing to learn from the Germans about productivity. They are miles behind on things like digitalisation.
 
DuncanPatterson said:
It's simple arithmetic

Germany 83,294,633
France 64,756,584
Italy 58,870,763
England 56,550,138
Spain 47,519,628

Serbia 7,097,028

In fact that makes the point perfectly where European football is concerned

Rugby is the national sport in New Zealand and not particularly popular in many other countries so it's a totally different situation
Click to expand...
Hmmm. Are you trying to unsubtly justify Scotland's bumming?

Population size is a variable for sure. But you've also got to consider how seriously the country takes football, the infrastructure at the grass routes, and inherent ability of the Population.

I think Scotland do very badly given it has a well developed league comparable to the Scandinavian countries or former Eastern bloc.

So the grass routes and development must be off. Maybe the inherent football ability too.

England should be ashamed though. Size of the league, investment etc. The Dutch are tiny but do fantastically well in terms of punching above Population size, league quality and so forth.
 

Daveysgingerlovechild said:
Hmmm. Are you trying to unsubtly justify Scotland's bumming?

Population size is a variable for sure. But you've also got to consider how seriously the country takes football, the infrastructure at the grass routes, and inherent ability of the Population.

I think Scotland do very badly given it has a well developed league comparable to the Scandinavian countries or former Eastern bloc.

So the grass routes and development must be off. Maybe the inherent football ability too.

England should be ashamed though. Size of the league, investment etc. The Dutch are tiny but do fantastically well in terms of punching above Population size, league quality and so forth.
Click to expand...
Your'e right. Grass roots and development is the problem. Lack of investment in young people over the years and we've got Mrs T to thank for that in England as well as Scotland.
 
It was a solid enough performance against a team who aren't terrible, poor second half but seeing Davek rewrite history as 'Serbia had England on the ropes for two thirds of that game' is hilarious.

I wouldn't really make any judgement based on that, lots of tournament finalists have had underwhelming starts and then picked things up... just look at Argentina in the world cup when they lost to Saudi.

Not that i think England will win, but no need to get the bleach out just yet.
 
Last edited:
BlueStevie35 said:
Which proves my point, the media and bookies have to calm it down, that’s why the Jocks, Welsh and Irish and the other ABEs get giddy at England’s misfortune and wound up so easily when they do well

A good 75/80% of England fans know the team has major faults and aren’t getting hopes high, just taking it game by game
Click to expand...
The media are the focus here.

They'll hype this bang average England team up - especially Bellingham - and then they'll see them knocked out at the round of 16 or QF stage and then slaughter them.

It's part of the Great British summer since I can remember. It's a wonderful spectacle.
 
longers said:
It was a solid enough performance against a team who aren't terrible, poor second half but seeing Davek rewrite history as 'Serbia had England on the ropes for two thirds of that game' is hilarious.

I wouldn't really make any judgement based on that, lots of tournament finalists have had underwhelming starts and then picked things up... just look at Argentina in the world cup when they lost to Saudi.

Not that i think England will win, but no need to get the bleach out just yet.
Click to expand...
I said Serbia weren't great but they were the technically superior footballing team for most of that game.

England are huff and puff and reliant on a burst of individual talent. That'll get them KO of this tournament as soon as they play any sort of decent team.
 
DuncanPatterson said:
It's simple arithmetic

Germany 83,294,633
France 64,756,584
Italy 58,870,763
England 56,550,138
Spain 47,519,628

Serbia 7,097,028

In fact that makes the point perfectly where European football is concerned

Rugby is the national sport in New Zealand and not particularly popular in many other countries so it's a totally different situation
Click to expand...
India should absolutely walk the next World Cup then.
 

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