We're amongst the second tier of teams.

Teams are judged by how they perform when it matters and that is during tournaments. Someone mentioned Italy's poor form going into this tournament, but the fact is they generally produce when the serious business starts. We, on the other hand, don't really have any genuine World Cup pedigree at all and are routinely dumped out of the tournament by the first top side we face.

We've got one World Cup win to our name and that is only because we hosted the thing - and that was 50 years ago.

I imagine even some of the lesser nations fancy their chances against us.

If England won the World Cup

http://9gag.com/gag/aPvqOBR/what-it-...-the-world-cup

I like it. What a great idea for humour - hypothetical news stories. Where do you get these?

Fair enough. That would be a serious dark horse.

I think until we focus more on players from the UK and less on bringing in players from around the world to compete in UK games, things will not improve. Come the big events, off they go to their respective countries and we are left with fewer players who can compete at the highest level. Obviously this isn't a priority for teams in the UK, they don't care about Euro or the World Cup, but many England managers have long been complaining about this issue.

The French signing a 'declaration of inferiority' was a personal highlight

I think our (the UK's) coaching system is behind that on the continent. Germany and Netherlands have far more coaches per player (if stats I read a few years ago were true).

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...ortage-england

If that's true then I think it might just be a case of football clubs not investing heavily enough in youth coaching because it's less expensive in terms of time and if you buy an experienced international you are more likely to get a short-term solution, which is what I think football clubs and fans generally think about too often. I like the Ajax idea where you belong to a school affiliated to the club and go through all the age groups before finally making your debut at 17 having been with the club for 9 years already. Do any of our clubs do that? I know they obviously have youth teams but not really the school system that I know of and even the players they have in their youth teams have often already been bought from abroad.

That's the area I think we're lacking in. Or maybe my belief is out of date because didn't England under 17s win something recently?

England were only a big team in 1966., with home advantage.... Not before or since. I wish people would not go on bleating about it. Ok .England invented the game but were overtaken by the `1930's. It was only when England played in the World Cup for the first time in 1950 that it was evident other countries had overtaken them in all ways.. 1966 was a one off. accept ....

Yeah, bring the truth!

in the 48 teams since England won the World Cup, the following are the teams they beaten in the knockout stages of any major tournament:

Paraguay
Belgium
Cameroon
Spain (penalties)
Denmark
Ecuador

and that's it. whether or not you call them "big" is down to your own interpretation I guess, but it's evident they're not close to the best teams performance-wise. England are the Spurs of international football.

There was a lot of arrogance regarding the England team prior to the 1950's, the fact that they didn't play in the first three World Cups because they thought they didn't have to play in a tournament to prove they're the best, and beating World Cup Winners Italy at home in 1934 only convinced them they were right. The defeat to the USA in the 1950 World Cup was a massive shock, but was regarded as a fluke and it wasn't until the home thrashing by Hungary in 1953 that made them realise that not only had the World caught up with them, they'd overtaken them.
Despite that beating England was still seen as a scalp, despite poor performances in the World Cup before 1966 which raised their profile to new heights.
Failure to qualify for World Cups in the seventies lowered that profile, they have put in some decent performances in World Cups since then, but it's the 1966 win which is the main reason they're regarded as a big team and the reason for false expectations at every World Cup since then and I'm saying this as an England supporter who hopes they do well.

Love it! Now I want it to happen!

True. The other way to view it though is to look at who have beaten England in the knockout stages, and how they lost.

1986 - Argentina - Illegal goal
1990 - Germany - pens
1996 Germany - pens
1998 - Argentina - pens against 10 men
2002 - Brazil - fluke goal
2004 - Portugal - pens
2006 - Portugal - pens
2010 - Germany - well beaten although England were dissallowed a perfectly valid goal which could have made a difference.
2012 - Italy - pens

So in the past 20 years England have generally qualified for the knockout stages where they have only been knocked out by one of the very top teams and then only on penalties or due to some controversial incident.

So England certainly seem able to hold their own against the top teams when it matters and you could argue they've been a bit unlucky overall.

If you want to make premier league analogies I'd say they were like a Spurs or Everton.

That's Scotland's independence nailed then!

This. So in 6 of the 9 games where we've been knocked out we've been unbeaten by the other team in 120 minutes of normal play. Essentially if England were better at penalties this thread would be redundant.

Also note we've lost, narrowly or unfairly, to the eventual winners 4 times. We have the same issue of underachieving that up to 6 years ago Spain had. Look where they are now!

Maybe England should start practicing penalties.

Ronaldinho meant that goal, that was all David Seaman.

Portugal aren't one of the very top teams though. and everyone can point to an excuse when they get knocked out, it doesn't necessarily mean they've been unlucky. the truth is that,while on occasions they have matched them, England haven't really been good enough to beat the best sides when it really matters. even the Czechs, Danes, and Greeks have managed to do so and win tournaments. there's nothing to be ashamed of in that, of course, but the simple fact is that, performance-wise, they lag considerably behind the likes of Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, France, Holland, and latterly Spain when you compare records since 1966. even teams like Uruguay, Portugal, Croatia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Turkey, South Korea, Belgium, USSR, and Poland have all at least matched England's best performance in the World Cup since then, if not their consistency. I don't see that England have been any more unlucky than any of these other teams

all ifs and buts. the facts say, regardless of the manner in which it happens, England regularly fail when it really matters.

also, losing to the eventual champions doesn't mean you'd have otherwise won, so I'm not sure it's even relevant.

The penalties argument is fair enough but you can cut the controversy nonsense out, the English media are always going to create that and any team can point to an injustice in the game when they have lost, that's not a valid argument at all. Please bear in mind that England were the beneficiaries of one of the biggest controversial decisions in football history - their third goal in 1966.

However, another argument is that maybe more English players need to go abroad to ply their trade and learn their skill. Maybe players going off to Spain, Germany, Holland, Italy, France or even some of the "lesser" nations would do some good. At least it would widen their scope and bring in variety. The problem seems our players' reluctance to leave this island and look for something fresh, but I feel that that is a mistake that's costing us.

Totally agree. Our players are too UK bound and in general incapable of learning more than one language.

Owen Hargreaves was the only English player who could score a penalty

Sorry? Isn't the general argument that there are too many foreign players in the PL? And yet English players should go over-seas to get experience of how foreign players do it?

In my opinion the main issue we have had over the years is not getting the manager right. We've had some decent ones who've we've let go (Capello, Erikson, Hoddle) for one reason or another and we've appointed some right idiots because they were English. Nothing about Hodgeson's CV makes me think he'll be a successful manager for England in the long run. There are some very talented young managers in the PL right now who the FA could much worse than looking at.

Pretty well all half decent teams get out of the group. You have to be pretty bad not to. So in the knockout stages, we are 0 for 9, and have never beaten a socalled top team.

0 for 9

Several vince lombardi quotes spring to mind.

Eg "Show me a good loser, and and i'll show you a loser"

The trouble is, every time, we find ways to lose.