Group C: Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England

[Noisy noise annoys]

It was not on where I am - Was it a good performance? Any standout players? Need a match thread I guess with player rating etc

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

India should absolutely walk the next World Cup then.

China will
Smash the cricket

 

[Kurt.]

I don’t know why we sit back and let inferior teams onto us like that.

Never mind mate, you’ll win your next two games and win the group, england will struggle though

#goserbia

 

[DuncanPatterson]

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.

Are you joking?

Please tell me you're joking...

The English players who play for Scotland aren't the Jude Bellinghams or Harry Kanes now are they

Even Elliot Anderson from Newcastle seems to have turned his nose up at representing Scotland at a senior level despite having played for them at youth level for years

Realistically the English-born players in the Scotland squad are about 10th in line (or lower) to any position in the England squad

 

[DuncanPatterson]

India should absolutely walk the next World Cup then.

India isn't a footballing nation so why on earth would they?

 

[MikeH72]

Are you joking?

Please tell me you're joking...

The English players who play for Scotland aren't the Jude Bellinghams or Harry Kanes now are they

Even Elliot Anderson from Newcastle seems to have turned his nose up at representing Scotland at a senior level despite having played for them at youth level for years

Realistically the English-born players in the Scotland squad are about 10th in line (or lower) to any position in the England squad

That’s not the argument. The argument you’re trying to make is lower population means you have less footballers to pick from, but you’re picking players from outside of that population so that renders that point irrelevant.

 

[MikeH72]

India isn't a footballing nation so why on earth would they?

Brazil are a footballing nation, why haven’t they been past the quarter finals of a World Cup since 2002? England with a much lower population have outperformed them at world cups since then.

 

[DanB90]

That’s not the argument. The argument you’re trying to make is lower population means you have less footballers to pick from, but you’re picking players from outside of that population so that renders that point irrelevant.

Probably doesn’t help that any half decent player you produce chooses to play for Ireland because their home country is so crap.

 

[Lloydaldo11]

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.

100%

If you see that Sam Blitz article on SSN with the player ratings and the utter nonsense in the athletic praising Trent, this is why England always fail. The media pick the team and when they fail, they blame the manager.

Quick scroll onto twitter and Trent was getting slaughtered bar the few RS trying to justify one interception and a shot in 70 minutes

 

[DanB90]

India isn't a footballing nation so why on earth would they?

Scotland don’t look much of a footballing nation either.

 

[Drico]

Lower population does mean you have fewer footballers to pick from. I mean, that's a fact. The granny rule is the same for all nations, so picking "outside" your own country is irrelevant in this discussion as every country can do it. Low football culture means you have fewer quality footballers to choose from.

And, yes, having a football culture is a critical determinant in whether or not a country can be successful. If every country had the same strength of football culture, then yes, population will then largely determine the pecking order.

Scotland's record overall is poor, when compared with Uruguay, Denmark, or Croatia. But it's reasonable when compared with Norway, Finland, Austria, or Ireland, all similarly-sized small nations. Where Scotland can be criticised is they never really capitalised on their greatest generation in the 1970s. That said, making two World Cups when only 8 qualified from Europe was an achievement that seemed to get blown away by hubristic notions they could win it. A bigger criticism I would have - one that can also be levelled at Ireland - is they have not produced anything like enough quality players over the last 25 years. That's a coaching failure, in my view.

 

[DuncanPatterson]

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.

At last a sensible response

Scotland did very badly the other night

Scotland has done poorly at tournaments historically

The fact still remains that the group of highest-population countries in Europe that I posted above are regularly in the top 10 men's internatrional teams in the world and have won masses of tournaments

It's not by random chance that's the case

If you have a much larger pool of players to choose from and football is your national sport then

 

[MikeH72]

Lower population does mean you have fewer footballers to pick from. I mean, that's a fact. The granny rule is the same for all nations, so picking "outside" your own country is irrelevant in this discussion as every country can do it. Low football culture means you have fewer quality footballers to choose from.

And, yes, having a football culture is a critical determinant in whether or not a country can be successful. If every country had the same strength of football culture, then yes, population will then largely determine the pecking order.

Scotland's record overall is poor, when compared with Uruguay, Denmark, or Croatia. But it's reasonable when compared with Norway, Finland, Austria, or Ireland, all similarly-sized small nations. Where Scotland can be criticised is they never really capitalised on their greatest generation in the 1970s. That said, making two World Cups when only 8 qualified from Europe was an achievement that seemed to get blown away by hubristic notions they could win it. A bigger criticism I would have - one that can also be levelled at Ireland - is they have not produced anything like enough quality players over the last 25 years. That's a coaching failure, in my view.

Every other home nation has progressed past the group stage at a tournament at some point in their existence, all have a lower population than Scotland. It isn’t an excuse.

 

[MikeH72]

At last a sensible response

Scotland did very badly the other night

Scotland has done poorly at tournaments historically

The fact still remains that the group of highest-population countries in Europe that I posted above are regularly in the top 10 men's internatrional teams in the world and have won masses of tournaments

It's not by random chance that's the case

If you have a much larger pool of players to choose from and football is your national sport then



View attachment 261132

You have a much larger population and pool of players to choose from than Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland, and they’ve all outperformed Scotland at tournaments.

 

[DuncanPatterson]

That’s not the argument. The argument you’re trying to make is lower population means you have less footballers to pick from, but you’re picking players from outside of that population so that renders that point irrelevant.

Don't be ridiculous

It doesn't make it irrelevant as the players on offer are way below the standard of the players England can pick

England get first pick, then the potential England hopefuls wait it out to see if they can get a game

Scotland are left with 10th choice and even they need to pull a Scottish grandparents out of the closet

So really we're not picking from the whole English population at all. In fact a very tiny percentage of it