I must admit I find this whole concept of retiring only from international football a bit strange.
When growing up any kid who wants to be a professional footballer wants to play for England.
No doubt Gerrard was the same.
But now he is saying: "I don't want to play for England anymore."
Which kid who plays for any junior football team or even if its just in the playground would ever answer: "I want to be a professional footballer but I will refuse to play for the country!" It just does not happen.
I must admit I find this whole concept of retiring only from international football a bit strange.
When growing up any kid who wants to be a professional footballer wants to play for England.
No doubt Gerrard was the same.
But now he is saying: "I don't want to play for England anymore."
Which kid who plays for any junior football team or even if its just in the playground would ever answer: "I want to be a professional footballer but I will refuse to play for the country!" It just does not happen.
Very true apart from one thing, Steven Gerrard is not a kid
It's not surprising that Steven Gerrard has resigned from international football. His heart isn't in it any more.... if it ever really was in the last few years.
I watched the recent world cup in utter dismay for England. I have never seen a more disinterested, gutless performance from any England team. Ever. And I've watched a lot of world cups. Not one of them showed any real commitment or desire. Not really. It just wasn't there.
As much as we don't like to say it, for professional footballers, the Champions League is far more important to them. Unfortunately (from their point of view) European Championships and World Cups are verrrrrrrry important to fans. For fans, read consumers. And it is the businesses that make a lot of money out of football fans that pay footballers large sums of money for endorsements.
It's all about money. Many top players would rather not play international football at all but when they sign a deal with some computer games company or other multinational corporation, there is often a clause that says the money a player makes out of the deal can be affected if they don't take part in major international tournaments.
A case in point:
Before the last European Championships, playing for England, Wayne Rooney threw a wild kick at an opponent and was quite rightly red carded. He expected a two match ban which would have kept him out of England's first two games of the forthcoming Euros. At first, the prospect of a ban didn't seem to bother him one little bit.
Instead, UEFA handed him a three match ban and that bothered him. A LOT.
He would not play in England's three group games and if they didn't qualify from their group, he wouldn't play in the tournament at all. There was an immediate appeal, not against the red card, but the three match ban. He was happy to accept a two match ban, but not three. UEFA were put under a phenomenal amount of pressure from the FA, at the behest, it was suggested in some quarters, by Rooney's financial backers,
It had an air of utter panic about it.
The undercurrent running beneath it all was that if Rooney didn't play in the Euros, he could possibly lose millions in endorsement income. The message from sponsors is quite clear. If you don't play, we don't pay.
But what does that say about Wayne Rooney? Here was a player who committed a totally unnecessary foul in a match that was in its closing minutes. Why did he do that..? The usual ban for that offence is two matches and he would have known that. It wasn't until he was given a three match ban that he became "dismayed at missing the European Championships". More likely, his only "dismay" was at the prospect of losing a lot of endorsement money.
Of course, hints that he may have had a monetary motive for getting his three match ban reduced to two were quickly dismissed as groundless. You can make your own mind up on that.
Wayne Rooney isn't the only player who, I suspect, cares more about his wallet than his country, but he is the most high profile. He is the template that other players coming into the game will follow and for that reason the future for England in international tournaments is quite bleak.
Thank goodness for that, maybe we'll keep the ball a lot more now.
This.
Steven Gerrard was once a good player, but he is so obviously past it that it's much better for England that he retired. He should have been forced to retire before this World Cup. Maybe England could have had a chance. He was by far England's worst player and he had some competition there!
As for people who are dismayed at his retirement, would you prefer players played until 40? How would that benefit England if he can't even play at 34? Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney - the so called "big stars" - should all retire. With a young team and a good manager maybe England will become competitive sometime in future.
It's not surprising that Steven Gerrard has resigned from international football. His heart isn't in it any more.... if it ever really was in the last few years.
I watched the recent world cup in utter dismay for England. I have never seen a more disinterested, gutless performance from any England team. Ever. And I've watched a lot of world cups. Not one of them showed any real commitment or desire. Not really. It just wasn't there.
As much as we don't like to say it, for professional footballers, the Champions League is far more important to them. Unfortunately (from their point of view) European Championships and World Cups are verrrrrrrry important to fans. For fans, read consumers. And it is the businesses that make a lot of money out of football fans that pay footballers large sums of money for endorsements.
It's all about money. Many top players would rather not play international football at all but when they sign a deal with some computer games company or other multinational corporation, there is often a clause that says the money a player makes out of the deal can be affected if they don't take part in major international tournaments.
A case in point:
Before the last European Championships, playing for England, Wayne Rooney threw a wild kick at an opponent and was quite rightly red carded. He expected a two match ban which would have kept him out of England's first two games of the forthcoming Euros. At first, the prospect of a ban didn't seem to bother him one little bit.
Instead, UEFA handed him a three match ban and that bothered him. A LOT.
He would not play in England's three group games and if they didn't qualify from their group, he wouldn't play in the tournament at all. There was an immediate appeal, not against the red card, but the three match ban. He was happy to accept a two match ban, but not three. UEFA were put under a phenomenal amount of pressure from the FA, at the behest, it was suggested in some quarters, by Rooney's financial backers,
It had an air of utter panic about it.
The undercurrent running beneath it all was that if Rooney didn't play in the Euros, he could possibly lose millions in endorsement income. The message from sponsors is quite clear. If you don't play, we don't pay.
But what does that say about Wayne Rooney? Here was a player who committed a totally unnecessary foul in a match that was in its closing minutes. Why did he do that..? The usual ban for that offence is two matches and he would have known that. It wasn't until he was given a three match ban that he became "dismayed at missing the European Championships". More likely, his only "dismay" was at the prospect of losing a lot of endorsement money.
Of course, hints that he may have had a monetary motive for getting his three match ban reduced to two were quickly dismissed as groundless. You can make your own mind up on that.
Wayne Rooney isn't the only player who, I suspect, cares more about his wallet than his country, but he is the most high profile. He is the template that other players coming into the game will follow and for that reason the future for England in international tournaments is quite bleak.
I'm not totally convinced football forums are for you...
It's not surprising that Steven Gerrard has resigned from international football. His heart isn't in it any more.... if it ever really was in the last few years.
I watched the recent world cup in utter dismay for England. I have never seen a more disinterested, gutless performance from any England team. Ever. And I've watched a lot of world cups. Not one of them showed any real commitment or desire. Not really. It just wasn't there.
As much as we don't like to say it, for professional footballers, the Champions League is far more important to them. Unfortunately (from their point of view) European Championships and World Cups are verrrrrrrry important to fans. For fans, read consumers. And it is the businesses that make a lot of money out of football fans that pay footballers large sums of money for endorsements.
It's all about money. Many top players would rather not play international football at all but when they sign a deal with some computer games company or other multinational corporation, there is often a clause that says the money a player makes out of the deal can be affected if they don't take part in major international tournaments.
A case in point:
Before the last European Championships, playing for England, Wayne Rooney threw a wild kick at an opponent and was quite rightly red carded. He expected a two match ban which would have kept him out of England's first two games of the forthcoming Euros. At first, the prospect of a ban didn't seem to bother him one little bit.
Instead, UEFA handed him a three match ban and that bothered him. A LOT.
He would not play in England's three group games and if they didn't qualify from their group, he wouldn't play in the tournament at all. There was an immediate appeal, not against the red card, but the three match ban. He was happy to accept a two match ban, but not three. UEFA were put under a phenomenal amount of pressure from the FA, at the behest, it was suggested in some quarters, by Rooney's financial backers,
It had an air of utter panic about it.
The undercurrent running beneath it all was that if Rooney didn't play in the Euros, he could possibly lose millions in endorsement income. The message from sponsors is quite clear. If you don't play, we don't pay.
But what does that say about Wayne Rooney? Here was a player who committed a totally unnecessary foul in a match that was in its closing minutes. Why did he do that..? The usual ban for that offence is two matches and he would have known that. It wasn't until he was given a three match ban that he became "dismayed at missing the European Championships". More likely, his only "dismay" was at the prospect of losing a lot of endorsement money.
Of course, hints that he may have had a monetary motive for getting his three match ban reduced to two were quickly dismissed as groundless. You can make your own mind up on that.
Wayne Rooney isn't the only player who, I suspect, cares more about his wallet than his country, but he is the most high profile. He is the template that other players coming into the game will follow and for that reason the future for England in international tournaments is quite bleak.
Is this supposed to be a parody, because you've done a damn fine job if it is.
It's not surprising that Steven Gerrard has resigned from international football. His heart isn't in it any more.... if it ever really was in the last few years.
Or he's in his mid 30s and just didn't play that well. Sometimes players just don't play well rather than it being PASHUN AND MUNNEYS
I watched the recent world cup in utter dismay for England. I have never seen a more disinterested, gutless performance from any England team. Ever. And I've watched a lot of world cups.
You can invent things to say anything you want if you're determined enough.
Of course, if it transpires that all these things you're telling us Rooney thinks are as a result of him personally confiding in you, please accept my humble apologies, although you're a terrible friend to betray him in this way.
Of course, hints that he may have had a monetary motive for getting his three match ban reduced to two were quickly dismissed as groundless. You can make your own mind up on that.
Already have. Hints and things you suspect? It's bollocks.
I love the old "we get beat because modern footballers don't try at international level" argument. It's funny how this disease manages to miss the Germans and others. Maybe we (and I mean the UK nations) just aren't all that good - either individually, technically, tactically, or (importantly) as a team. That would account for results too (which are by no means the worst in international football but are at least a level below the true international giants).
I love the old "we get beat because modern footballers don't try at international level" argument. It's funny how this disease manages to miss the Germans and others. Maybe we (and I mean the UK nations) just aren't all that good - either individually, technically, tactically, or (importantly) as a team. That would account for results too (which are by no means the worst in international football but are at least a level below the true international giants).
It's the easy excuse. Rather then look at the hugh and deep issues and put in the hard work that needs to be done we waste time talking about players "not wanting to play" or "they earn to much money" and worrying about who the captain should or should not be
I love the old "we get beat because modern footballers don't try at international level" argument. It's funny how this disease manages to miss the Germans and others. Maybe we (and I mean the UK nations) just aren't all that good - either individually, technically, tactically, or (importantly) as a team. That would account for results too (which are by no means the worst in international football but are at least a level below the true international giants).
Yep, that is basically it in a nutshell.
We can't live with the big boys of international football because our players just aren't good enough. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
The main problem is the lack of good coaches in England. Germany's main investment was into training up coaches who trained at youth level. Without coaches, how do people expect the academies to produce good players?
We can't live with the big boys of international football because our players just aren't good enough. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
But why..? Why are we no longer good enough..? this is the matter at the whole crux of the problem. Within a generation (which most certainly hasn't been a golden one) England have declined despite having (allegedly) "the best league in the world".
When the Premier League started in 1992, England had been recent semi finalists in a world cup and had the players that would take us to a semi final in the European Championships. Would anybody ever argue that Paul Gascoigne didn't care..? I certainly wouldn't.
Anybody want to say Terry Butcher wouldn't give blood for his country..?
I was talking about Wayne Rooney and he responded to that.
Anyway.... I'd be interested to hear a view about why England's decline is becoming free-fall. Let's move on.
No.
He quoted this:
It's not surprising that Steven Gerrard has resigned from international football. His heart isn't in it any more.... if it ever really was in the last few years.
When he said this:
Or he's in his mid 30s and just didn't play that well. Sometimes players just don't play well rather than it being PASHUN AND MUNNEYS
The bit he quoted was talking about Gerrard. You mention Gerrard in the very part that he quoted.
I was talking about Wayne Rooney and he responded to that.
Anyway.... I'd be interested to hear a view about why England's decline is becoming free-fall. Let's move on.
He wrote Steven Gerrard and you responded with Rooney's details. If you were intending a discussion about Rooney you should probably have said "actually, I'm talking about Rooney here" rather than responding in the way you did. So I'll keep the cigar....but, anyway, it hardly matters. I just thought I'd point it out because I thought you must have misread his post.
I don't really agree with your analysis about England's style of play. You say England are playing too continently and passing it around too much and they should revert to their natural game. That's not what I've watched recently (or in fact for many years). I'd argue that it is their inability to play a modern, short passing, possession game that hinders them in international tournaments and they should seek to adjust their style of play because football has evolved beyond them.
You also seem to think Gazza and co were significantly better than I do. Yes, they were a much better team than their modern equivalents but they were by no means the greatest football side, that year or any other. The World Cup is a knockout event and occasionally a smaller team like Belgium, Romania, Croatia or England will make the semis. 1990 was England's turn to get a run. With home advantage a smaller country might even win an event but that doesn't stand up to the achievements of better countries like Germany or Italy. In my adult lifetime (let's say since 1990) I can't think of a time when England were genuinely a better team than either of them (and I'd add Spain, France and Netherlands to that, and Brazil and Argentina too).
So I don't think there is really a free fall. A slight decline more likely but England have always been second rate (in my viewing). Hoddle came the closest to actually forming a side that played a bit of football (which is what the real problem is for all the talk of individuals - their team play and tactics are abysmal).
I also don't think the premier league is the best league in the world. It's a line often trotted out as though it's an uncontested fact ever since Sky Sports started pushing that idea (£££££) and people found they liked the idea so they copied it.
Which was pretty much what I'm doing now. Having an opinion. Which is allowed. That's what forums are for.
Everything I stated as fact was, in fact, fact. Point 1: WR did kick out at the opponent
Look at the video. Does that look like the face of a man who thinks "Oh my God, what have I done..?" He doesn't look at all bothered about it. Rather, at first, there is almost the hint of a smile there. At least he didn't give us a wink eh?.
Point 2: He was, in fact. given a three match ban which would, in fact have resulted in him missing all of England's group games had he not, in fact, had ,it reduced to two matches. With me so far..?
Does anybody challenge either of these facts..?
The rest is, as I said, speculation and that is fair play. I did try to find a clip of a news item that referred to the speculation over his financial wheelings and dealings but I'm afraid I was unable to do that. Hey-ho. Perhaps nobody pinned that to You Tube at the time. Some you can produce and some you can't. If anybody wishes to challenge the speculation, that's fine. But challenges are best mounted with articulate, reasoned argument. Which again, is what Forums are for. Is anybody up for that..?
In the same post you say everything is fact but the rest of what you say is speculation. No one disputes that he kicked an opponent and received a three match ban. The bits that you've made up have been expertly highlighted.
But challenges are best mounted with articulate, reasoned argument. Which again, is what Forums are for. Is anybody up for that..?
I would challenge what you say by confirming that there is no evidence that he didn't give a toss and no evidence that the ban reduction was connected to financial dealings. I don't have any evidence to back it up but it's my opinion that he was mightily disappointed and it's my opinion that the influence of financial backing was most unlikely.
I doubt you will challenge that with anything other than a waspish, sarcastic response regardless of evidence.
Actually, he isn't, Celesti old chap. He's not even 30 yet, let alone in his mid-30's.
Wayne Rooney was born on 24 October 1985, which would have made him 28 years old during the 2014 world cup.
That puts him pretty much in his prime as a footballer. He should be at his physical peak just about now.
Before you attempt to rubbish other people's arguments, you should first get your facts right, young man.
I like everyone else read this as you talking about Gerrard, not Rooney. You should simply have said if you were referring to Rooney.
The specific response that he is now in his mid thirties directly quotes your comment about Gerrard and even despite being corrected you have insisted it isn't true.
If you are unable to accept that you are wrong when corrected over matters of fact it would be surprising to find you are capable of meaningful discussion where matters of opinion are at stake.
You are basically by this stage inventing non-existent discussion points.
Butcher cut his head open and bled, does that means he cares, or does it mean he got a bad cut? You know full well in modern football there are rules governing players not being allowed to continue in such circumstances.
You reference those players from the 90s but people are quite quick to forget they were also part of teams that bounced in the 1988 and 1992 Euros, failing to win a single game in six attempts.
Though I suppose the fact that they cared outweighs those performances and history can therefore be reinvented accordingly.
Actually, he isn't, Celesti old chap. He's not even 30 yet, let alone in his mid-30's.
Wayne Rooney was born on 24 October 1985, which would have made him 28 years old during the 2014 world cup.
That puts him pretty much in his prime as a footballer. He should be at his physical peak just about now.
Before you attempt to rubbish other people's arguments, you should first get your facts right, young man.
This is made all the more sweet by the fact that is in fact, fact, that I clearly and obviously quote you talking about and naming Steven Gerrard and then reply directly underneath it so there's absolutely no confusion possible (unless you're inexplicably both an old chap and young man in the space of a post).
Feel free to check it because I find that before you attempt to rubbish other people's arguments, you should first get your facts right.
I also don't think the premier league is the best league in the world. It's a line often trotted out as though it's an uncontested fact ever since Sky Sports started pushing that idea (£££££) and people found they liked the idea so they copied it.
Out of interest where do you think is then? There may better sides then the PL's top teams no league has the depth all the way through.
Comments
When growing up any kid who wants to be a professional footballer wants to play for England.
No doubt Gerrard was the same.
But now he is saying: "I don't want to play for England anymore."
Which kid who plays for any junior football team or even if its just in the playground would ever answer: "I want to be a professional footballer but I will refuse to play for the country!" It just does not happen.
He isn't Stephen Ireland.
Very true apart from one thing, Steven Gerrard is not a kid
I watched the recent world cup in utter dismay for England. I have never seen a more disinterested, gutless performance from any England team. Ever. And I've watched a lot of world cups. Not one of them showed any real commitment or desire. Not really. It just wasn't there.
As much as we don't like to say it, for professional footballers, the Champions League is far more important to them. Unfortunately (from their point of view) European Championships and World Cups are verrrrrrrry important to fans. For fans, read consumers. And it is the businesses that make a lot of money out of football fans that pay footballers large sums of money for endorsements.
It's all about money. Many top players would rather not play international football at all but when they sign a deal with some computer games company or other multinational corporation, there is often a clause that says the money a player makes out of the deal can be affected if they don't take part in major international tournaments.
A case in point:
Before the last European Championships, playing for England, Wayne Rooney threw a wild kick at an opponent and was quite rightly red carded. He expected a two match ban which would have kept him out of England's first two games of the forthcoming Euros. At first, the prospect of a ban didn't seem to bother him one little bit.
Instead, UEFA handed him a three match ban and that bothered him. A LOT.
He would not play in England's three group games and if they didn't qualify from their group, he wouldn't play in the tournament at all. There was an immediate appeal, not against the red card, but the three match ban. He was happy to accept a two match ban, but not three. UEFA were put under a phenomenal amount of pressure from the FA, at the behest, it was suggested in some quarters, by Rooney's financial backers,
It had an air of utter panic about it.
The undercurrent running beneath it all was that if Rooney didn't play in the Euros, he could possibly lose millions in endorsement income. The message from sponsors is quite clear. If you don't play, we don't pay.
But what does that say about Wayne Rooney? Here was a player who committed a totally unnecessary foul in a match that was in its closing minutes. Why did he do that..? The usual ban for that offence is two matches and he would have known that. It wasn't until he was given a three match ban that he became "dismayed at missing the European Championships". More likely, his only "dismay" was at the prospect of losing a lot of endorsement money.
Of course, hints that he may have had a monetary motive for getting his three match ban reduced to two were quickly dismissed as groundless. You can make your own mind up on that.
Wayne Rooney isn't the only player who, I suspect, cares more about his wallet than his country, but he is the most high profile. He is the template that other players coming into the game will follow and for that reason the future for England in international tournaments is quite bleak.
This.
Steven Gerrard was once a good player, but he is so obviously past it that it's much better for England that he retired. He should have been forced to retire before this World Cup. Maybe England could have had a chance. He was by far England's worst player and he had some competition there!
As for people who are dismayed at his retirement, would you prefer players played until 40? How would that benefit England if he can't even play at 34? Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney - the so called "big stars" - should all retire. With a young team and a good manager maybe England will become competitive sometime in future.
I'm not totally convinced football forums are for you...
Neither am I, he needs to go back to what he was doing before the World Cup started.
Is this supposed to be a parody, because you've done a damn fine job if it is.
Or he's in his mid 30s and just didn't play that well. Sometimes players just don't play well rather than it being PASHUN AND MUNNEYS
Clearly not the last one though.
You've made this up.
You've made this up.
You've made this up.
You can invent things to say anything you want if you're determined enough.
Of course, if it transpires that all these things you're telling us Rooney thinks are as a result of him personally confiding in you, please accept my humble apologies, although you're a terrible friend to betray him in this way.
Already have. Hints and things you suspect? It's bollocks.
It's the easy excuse. Rather then look at the hugh and deep issues and put in the hard work that needs to be done we waste time talking about players "not wanting to play" or "they earn to much money" and worrying about who the captain should or should not be
Yep, that is basically it in a nutshell.
We can't live with the big boys of international football because our players just aren't good enough. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Actually, he isn't, Celesti old chap. He's not even 30 yet, let alone in his mid-30's.
Wayne Rooney was born on 24 October 1985, which would have made him 28 years old during the 2014 world cup.
That puts him pretty much in his prime as a footballer. He should be at his physical peak just about now.
Before you attempt to rubbish other people's arguments, you should first get your facts right, young man.
The bit Celesti quoted was talking about Steven Gerrard. Gerrard was born 30th May 1980. He's 34.
He was talking about Gerrard (unless I'm misreading).
But why..? Why are we no longer good enough..? this is the matter at the whole crux of the problem. Within a generation (which most certainly hasn't been a golden one) England have declined despite having (allegedly) "the best league in the world".
When the Premier League started in 1992, England had been recent semi finalists in a world cup and had the players that would take us to a semi final in the European Championships. Would anybody ever argue that Paul Gascoigne didn't care..? I certainly wouldn't.
Anybody want to say Terry Butcher wouldn't give blood for his country..?
A roll call of names from the 1990's should be enough: Lineker, Platt, Gascoigne, Shearer, Waddle, Pearce, Adams. Nobody could say they didn't give a damn. Of those, only Gascoigne would be called a truly "technically gifted" player. And yet, they got close.... so close..... Only falling at the penalty shoot out hurdle, the curse of English football.
Now we can't even qualify from a group that includes Costa Rica. Pathetic.
English football has declined while the English league has flourished. Why is that..? Some argue that it is because we don't have enough coaches. I would argue that ever was it thus so. We never did have enough coaches and it didn't harm us that badly before. In the 1950's Tommy Lawton said of coaches:
"Do we really need some Hungarian schoolteacher to tell me how to head a ball, or tell Stanley Matthews how to dribble? We don't need them". Ten years later, England won the World Cup. With a manager. Not a coach (Alf Ramsey hated continental coaching techniques).
Perhaps the malaise is due to English footballers nowadays trying to play like foreigners instead of Englishmen. In the madcap desire to show that we can pass the ball between ourselves twenty times in the centre circle and not move one yard forward, we've lost that happy knack of putting it in the goal, which after all, is the object of the exercise.
We've forgotten how to play like Englishmen. OK, it was always clear that continental players had a technical edge over us, We knew that, but we countered it by doing what we knew we were good at, and they feared us for it. They respected us and we could sure as hell beat Costa Rica.
Who respects England today..? Not the Germans any more, that's for sure. The South Americans think we're a joke and even some of my American friends tell me that they'd just looooooooooove to see a match between USA and England right now. They'd whup our ass good, so they tell me. There was a time when USA beating England was regarded as a freak result. Not any more.
But come next season none of that will matter. The Premiership will go on making wads of dosh for foreign imports and the gravy train will roll on. And Sky commentators will scream into their microphones that Dwayne Fatwallet is a "world class megastar". And the young fans who have never known any different (and some older ones who have, but have forgotten) will believe it.
And English football.... that is, in the way that Englishmen used to play it.... will become an even more distant memory.
Nice try but no cigar.
I was talking about Wayne Rooney and he responded to that.
Anyway.... I'd be interested to hear a view about why England's decline is becoming free-fall. Let's move on.
No.
He quoted this:
When he said this:
The bit he quoted was talking about Gerrard. You mention Gerrard in the very part that he quoted.
He wrote Steven Gerrard and you responded with Rooney's details. If you were intending a discussion about Rooney you should probably have said "actually, I'm talking about Rooney here" rather than responding in the way you did. So I'll keep the cigar....but, anyway, it hardly matters. I just thought I'd point it out because I thought you must have misread his post.
I don't really agree with your analysis about England's style of play. You say England are playing too continently and passing it around too much and they should revert to their natural game. That's not what I've watched recently (or in fact for many years). I'd argue that it is their inability to play a modern, short passing, possession game that hinders them in international tournaments and they should seek to adjust their style of play because football has evolved beyond them.
You also seem to think Gazza and co were significantly better than I do. Yes, they were a much better team than their modern equivalents but they were by no means the greatest football side, that year or any other. The World Cup is a knockout event and occasionally a smaller team like Belgium, Romania, Croatia or England will make the semis. 1990 was England's turn to get a run. With home advantage a smaller country might even win an event but that doesn't stand up to the achievements of better countries like Germany or Italy. In my adult lifetime (let's say since 1990) I can't think of a time when England were genuinely a better team than either of them (and I'd add Spain, France and Netherlands to that, and Brazil and Argentina too).
So I don't think there is really a free fall. A slight decline more likely but England have always been second rate (in my viewing). Hoddle came the closest to actually forming a side that played a bit of football (which is what the real problem is for all the talk of individuals - their team play and tactics are abysmal).
I also don't think the premier league is the best league in the world. It's a line often trotted out as though it's an uncontested fact ever since Sky Sports started pushing that idea (£££££) and people found they liked the idea so they copied it.
In the same post you say everything is fact but the rest of what you say is speculation. No one disputes that he kicked an opponent and received a three match ban. The bits that you've made up have been expertly highlighted.
I would challenge what you say by confirming that there is no evidence that he didn't give a toss and no evidence that the ban reduction was connected to financial dealings. I don't have any evidence to back it up but it's my opinion that he was mightily disappointed and it's my opinion that the influence of financial backing was most unlikely.
I doubt you will challenge that with anything other than a waspish, sarcastic response regardless of evidence.
I like everyone else read this as you talking about Gerrard, not Rooney. You should simply have said if you were referring to Rooney.
The specific response that he is now in his mid thirties directly quotes your comment about Gerrard and even despite being corrected you have insisted it isn't true.
If you are unable to accept that you are wrong when corrected over matters of fact it would be surprising to find you are capable of meaningful discussion where matters of opinion are at stake.
You are basically by this stage inventing non-existent discussion points.
Butcher cut his head open and bled, does that means he cares, or does it mean he got a bad cut? You know full well in modern football there are rules governing players not being allowed to continue in such circumstances.
You reference those players from the 90s but people are quite quick to forget they were also part of teams that bounced in the 1988 and 1992 Euros, failing to win a single game in six attempts.
Though I suppose the fact that they cared outweighs those performances and history can therefore be reinvented accordingly.
This is made all the more sweet by the fact that is in fact, fact, that I clearly and obviously quote you talking about and naming Steven Gerrard and then reply directly underneath it so there's absolutely no confusion possible (unless you're inexplicably both an old chap and young man in the space of a post).
Feel free to check it because I find that before you attempt to rubbish other people's arguments, you should first get your facts right.
Nice try, but no cigar.
Out of interest where do you think is then? There may better sides then the PL's top teams no league has the depth all the way through.