So ... Who could England have beaten???

[Dyl]

I think we could have beaten any of the remaining quarter finalists on our day apart from Brazil and france,

I'd fancy us maybe 1 in 15 against every team in the second round. We were, without any doubt, one of the bottom 5 or 6 teams in the competition.

[nickkarkie]

Not really, I think England would have had a chance even playing the way they were in this tournament, awful and avoidable defensive errors cost them, I really don't think there are any outstanding teams but France have the best midfield 3 of Matuidi, pogba and cabaye,

[Toulouse_Iron]

Not really, I think England would have had a chance even playing the way they were in this tournament, awful and avoidable defensive errors cost them, I really don't think their are any outstanding teams but France have the best midfield 3 of Matuidi, pogba and cabaye,

2 of whom should already have had red cards....

[AndyCarrollsBarber]

With the back 4 we put out I think we'd struggle to beat anyone. It has been an unusually attacking World Cup, and they were exposed time and time again.

Exchange them for Cole, Rio, JT and Gary Neville in their prime, and I think we would have a good chance against most of the teams. Uncertainty at the back spreads through the whole team.

I don't think we're too far away from being a decent team. The defence is a big concern though, as is Roy's continuing insistence on playing the likes of Gerrard and Fwanky Lamps.

[nickkarkie]

So we have 30m Luke Shaw to play left back, 18m Glen Johnson at right back, 8m cahill, 5m jagielka, 17m Phil Jones, 10m smalling and yet none of them can defend, shows English players are overvalued

[nickkarkie]

I think our biggest mistake was going with 2 in midfield, a 3 would have been much better

[AndyCarrollsBarber]

The premium placed on English players is pretty embarrassing. Luke Shaw may end up being a great LB, but £30m for an 18 year old is ridiculous.

Situations like this are at the heart of England's issues. You're 18, you've got a massive contract, and you've pretty much made it to the top without doing anything other than showing a bit of potential. Where's the incentive to improve and develop your game? It was the same with Glen Johnson... He hasn't improved as a player since the day he left us.

English football has gone mad, and until we regain a basic grasp of reality we're doomed. No coaching will make up for a lack of hunger.

[WHUJohn]

In this tournament ?

Maybe the Cameroon, maybe Iran, maybe South Korea but I can't think of anyone else off the top of my head.

And with 18 year olds getting paid £160k per week by Manchester United, it's not gonna get better any time soon.

[vietnammer]

We were average. Not bad, not good, just average and so,on our day, we could have beaten or lost to just about anyone. The margins of defeat or victory are getting smaller and matches can turn on one lapse of concentration or one pieceof skill.
This world cup has had a lot of other average teams in it. Some of them have one "World class" player who can change a game, some don't but have an outrageous work ethic and great attitude, some are less than the sum of their parts, some are more.
England don't have a world beater and seem to drift in and out of games. If we showed the heart of the Americans or the teamwork of Chile, we would be possible quarter finalists. These 2 qualities were always our trademarks until the rise of the "Golden generation" and the sense of entitlement it brought with it. Maybe the current squad can learn from the examples being set by other countries.
Maybe.

That's a lot of waffle meaning Thank f*** Algeria have gone out so I can get a good night's sleep and not have to hear their crappy Rai music again and again :lol: :

[Clucking Bell]

And then we have this strange world where Wayne Rooney gets paid more in a week than Zusi, Beckerman and Gonzales together do in a year.

[Cellar-door]

I think the homegrown player rules actually hurt England.
The Premier League is an international league, it should attract the best players. Making teams bring in a bunch of English players who couldn't really compete if it wasn't mandated does them no good. They'd be much better off going overseas to a league where they could compete and play in the first team. Look at how many players on other National teams have gone abroad.

[AndyCarrollsBarber]

Why would you go overseas when you could stay in the uk, sit on the subs bench and earn 3x more than you would in a European league. The prem is the best paying league, and that's a big problem. All comes back to hunger and desire, which a lot of young English players (and mercenary overseas players) are sadly lacking.

[bobcar]

We could beat any team there - that is answering the question in the thread title.

Who would we beat more often than we lose against is more difficult and impossible to say based upon the tournament so far. I do think we would have qualified for the last 16 if we had the luck of France or Argentina with the draw, we could have easily qualified from our group with a little luck or at least basic defending.

[bobcar]

I think the homegrown player rules actually hurt England.
The Premier League is an international league, it should attract the best players. Making teams bring in a bunch of English players who couldn't really compete if it wasn't mandated does them no good. They'd be much better off going overseas to a league where they could compete and play in the first team. Look at how many players on other National teams have gone abroad.

There is no doubt that the likes of Man City buying up young English talent and then never playing them is a real problem. What level would Rodwell be at now if he had stayed at Everton? If the young English talent that isn't good enough for a top PL club instead played for a lower placed PL club or even better for a Spanish, Italian etc top league middle table club.

[westham,eggyandchips]

I know they were friendlies, but we couldn;t even beat two of the teams people are saying (Ecuador and Honduras) less than a month ago, which is a sobering thought.

This.

But on the flip side, we did qualify for the WC unbeaten.

[Clacton-ammer]

What we really lack is a world class player who can turn a game. Without that we are just ordinary.

Was talking to a mate about this, it's sooo clear that we do not have that one "special" player that many of the other teams do. Perhaps over the next 2/3 years Barkley or Sterling may make that step up, but in fairness to them, it as a huge step to take.

[beckton]

Italy, Uruguay and Costa Rica.

[Hambrosia Stu]

We were average. Not bad, not good, just average and so,on our day, we could have beaten or lost to just about anyone. The margins of defeat or victory are getting smaller and matches can turn on one lapse of concentration or one pieceof skill.

Just about spot on
I don't buy all the hand-wringing and overly emotive dismissal of our entire team.
As you say, we were average. But we were also a tad unlucky. Tiny margins and all that. One mistake against Uruguay, unlucky to not get a draw vs Italy.... I'm not saying we'd have gone on and won the thing, but had either of those games swung even slightly in our favour, we might even still be in the tournament.
We could have beaten every side we played. We didn't, we didn't beat any of them, but the margins weren't so big that you'd have to say we couldn't have

Had we sneaked through the group, we may well have started to gel as a side. Who knows?
A lot of the WC is about momentum. We never got any going, but who knows what might have happened if we had. It was a tough group, and we were never disgraced, only marginally beaten by 2 sides ranked higher than us.
Look at Costa Rica. Their first game was against Uruguay, something of a nemesis to them. They'd never beaten Uruguay before that game. So having come out victorious, their tales were up, and they took that confidence into the Italy game. It gave them the belief that they could beat Italy (or anyone, really). Had they not won their first game, I think it unlikely they'd have had quite the positive mindset for the Italy game that served them so well.

Sure, we were disappointingly average. But to suggest we couldn't have, on our day, beaten anyone in that tournament is laughable

[anjado]

We didn't beat Honduras in the last friendly before the World Cup because their mandate was to injure as many players as they possibly could in that game and in the tournament proper.Which meant our players didn't really want to get injured and pulled out of challenges and rightly played with self preservation in mind.

We weren't that bad we had more shots on goal than any of our group opponents and conceded less shots on goal than any of them too.

We played really well in the first game but got tired due to the conditions, Italy won because if all games were played in Manaus they would have won the group with their style of football.

Uruguay game we stuffed it up by moving Rooney back in the number 10 role when Sterling was our best player in the first game gets shunted on the wing. This meant we were basically playing a 4-4-2 and got overrun in midfield. Rooney moved back out to the left and scored

Costa Rica game we were the better side and missed a few chances and should have won.

Some of the people on here bemoaning England for not playing tight and compact and fight like America were the same people moaning at the end of Euro 2012 that England weren't adventurous enough, both teams performances were pretty similar one get's massive praise and one gets abused.

England at this World Cup if they picked the right team in neutral conditions would beat the following teams more often than not in my opinion.

Cameroon,Australia, Ivory Coast,Japan,Greece,Costa Rica, Ecuador,Honduras,Nigeria,Bosnia and Herzegovina,Iran,Ghana,South Korea,Algeria,Russia.

I think i would back us to win over all those sides if we picked the right side and formation like we did against Italy. All things considered i would also back us to at least draw with. Mexico, Croatia, Chile, Italy, Uruguay, Switzerland, Portugal, USA, Belgium.

We weren't as bad as people made out they just look at the results we suffered from 2 defensive lapses and weren't quite clinical enough in front of goal. Conceivably we could have won all the games we played in with better finishing. so saying we are the worst is utter b*llocks i am afraid.

If it were a neutral side that no one had any attachment to, no one would think they are the worst they would claim they were a bit unfortunate not rubbish.

It reminds me of England at the last under 20's world cup when they dominated all but one of their games but were let down by 1-2 lapses in defence and poor finishing. Which meant they didn't win a game when in reality they really could have won all 3 games. They drew with Iraq which led to wide spread condemnation when in reality England dominated the entire game gave away a stupid penalty and panicked and the Iraq side featured a big chunk of the full side which nearly held Australia in their last world cup qualifier.

Same as this World Cup people just cant wait to slag the team off. The person who deserves the most blame is Hodgson who changed the team from the Italy game where we had our highest ever pass completion rate at a world cup and created many chances and really played well but badly tired. We changed the team to accommodate Rooney in the middle for some reason he played worse in the number 10 role and up front than he did on the wing where he was actually effective. We also needed to protect Baines which was worthless because he was never good enough defensively for England and should have been back up to Ashley Cole.


For England to improve as a footballing nation it will require many many steps here are a couple of basic ones which would help.

(1). Have a footballing philosophy we don't have one we are always too busy worrying about copying or mimicking others Spain,Italy, France,Belgium. We should have our own philosophy first try and perfect it and add bits and pieces from other teams or adapt it accordingly to how football is being played at that time.

(2) Pick a team which fits that philosophy and don't just pick players based off of reputation at club football or which club they play for. If this World Cup has shown us anything the team is always greater than the individual which is basic stuff but true.

Teams at this World Cup who relied massively on one individual talented player

Brazil (Neymar),Uruguay (Suarez),Italy (Pirlo), Argentina (Messi).

None of these teams have been particularly impressive though Argentina are improving. England when they moved Rooney into the number 10 role. It was for him to play this role and compared to the other players listed you can see why it fails. Rooney is just not as good as the other 4 players whereas against Italy whilst we did come up short we played as a team had a higher pass completion rate and looked like a team with a set way of playing and a style of play.




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[QuintonNimoy]

It doesn't take long for the "positive" re-assessments to start kicking in, and to think we blame the press for inflating expectations.

We were dire, if Costa Rica had needed to win to go through in the last match we probably would have lost to them as well.

I don't think we have earned the right to assume we could have beaten anybody, even Honduras would probably have forced a draw.