Ok So.....will 2010 be as glorious a year as 1966 ?

[aussie]

Fair enough. But whats for sure the potential media up for next year will topple everything from the past haa.

 

[sledger]

Yeah, will agree with you there. Though it's probably more justfied than any other time in recent memory. If England cannot win with the current squad and current manager, then nothing will convince me that they will ever win anything.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Hmm, remember distinctly differently to be honest.

Bit of both, tbh. Think expectations were dampened down a bit when we very nearly arsed up qualification at home against Greece (Beckham's free kick memorably did the trick, but had Germany defeated the Finns it wouldn't have mattered) and being drawn in that tournament's Group of Death with Sweden, Nigeria & the aforementioned Argentines.

However, with France (who we'd all supposed we'd be playing in round 2) going out in the group stages and us overcoming the Argentinians (who were joint favourites with the French before the tournament started) hype started to grow and was reaching fever-pitch when we brushed the Danes aside 3-0 in the second round. We all supposed (with some justification) that if we could beat Brazil (and they were a fairly oridnary Brazil who'd scrapped through qualifcation) this might be the year.

Sadly it was when the Beaver toothed **** fluked their second goal that Sven's limitations as a coach became all too apparent.

 

[sledger]

Bit of both, tbh. Think expectations were dampened down a bit when we very nearly arsed up qualification at home against Greece (Beckham's free kick memorably did the trick, but had Germany defeated the Finns it wouldn't have mattered) and being drawn in that tournament's Group of Death with Sweden, Nigeria & the aforementioned Argentines.

However, with France (who we'd all supposed we'd be playing in round 2) going out in the group stages and us overcoming the Argentinians (who were joint favourites with the French before the tournament started) hype started to grow and was reaching fever-pitch when we brushed the Danes aside 3-0 in the second round. We all supposed (with some justification) that if we could beat Brazil (and they were a fairly oridnary Brazil who'd scrapped through qualifcation) this might be the year.

Sadly it was when the Beaver toothed **** fluked their second goal that Sven's limitations as a coach became all too apparent.

Yeah this was pretty much it to be honest, the hype was massive, like you say, Argentina were joint faves, and understandably so, their team was better than Brazil for mine. England effectively putting them out of the tournament with a great performance and then destroying Denmark who had just knocked out the hosts created a lot of media hysteria.

 

[GIMH]

Dunno. Even in 2000 the expectation was pretty high, despite us needing snookers the qualify (IIRC we needed a favour from Sweden to even make the play-offs). The papers spoke optimistically about Kev's motivational skills and chose to ignore the fact he was (in his own memorable phrase) a "bit short" tactically at that level. I was on holiday in one of the Greek islands for the group stage (might've been Rhodes) and the whole resort (mostly British, with a few pockets of Germans & Dutch) was pretty pumped for the tournament.

It was this tactical illiteracy that cos us when we got there too; we were in winning positions in both the games we lost, but KK managed teams just don't do defence. If memory serves it was Phil "Century for Lancs 2nd XI at 15" Neville who unnecessarily brought the Romanian down for the pen that put us out of our misery.

Least we managed to beat Jerry for the first time in a competitve game since (again, IIRC) 72.

Yeah, you might be right, I know it's the least expectation I myself have personally ever had going into an international tournament though so that's probably affecting the way I remember it. i just seem to recall a bit of apathy on the back of the wembley defeat to yer sweaties (copyright, yourself).

And yeah, of course it was Phil neville, that's why everyone ****ing hates him.

Nah fellas. WC 98 the hypest thing going into that WC was that qualifying game vs Italy. We certainly didn't go into the tournament with no media hype that i can remember.

Memory about the events leading up to EUR0 2000 is very weak. But i remember alot of frustration during the tournament after our defeats to Portugal & Romania.

WC 2002, the only media hype was if Beckham was going to be fit or not. Hype probably developed during the tournament after we beat Argentia in the lead-up to QF vs Brazil.

You probably don't remember the hype from 98 because of your age, don't mean that in a patronising way but weren't you about 8 at the time? Trust me on this one, there was hype galore. There was even a new version of Three Lions and Michael Owen was the new great white hope.

 

[GIMH]

Completely OT but during the 02 WC, that was when i used to post on a GNR forum all the time and the guy who ran it is an Argie and so were quite a few of the posters, FMD did I have some fun

 

[aussie]

You probably don't remember the hype from 98 because of your age, don't mean that in a patronising way but weren't you about 8 at the time? Trust me on this one, there was hype galore. There was even a new version of Three Lions and Michael Owen was the new great white hope.

Haa well i guess, but that had to be some really dumb hype since that team certainly didn't have the quality in it to deserve any media hype even with the emergence of Owen. As i kid in the later 90s i never saw the national team as anything special at all.

 

[GIMH]

I dunno, aside from Owen you had Shearer at his peak, an exciting Beckham, Scholes, er David Batty, yeah

 

[aussie]

Batty was nice player indeed. Was a big Andy Cole fan back in the days as well, Le Tissier should have played more for ENG. It was like he scored a goal every weekened haha.

 

[GIMH]

Le Tissier got a chance from Hoddle against Italy at Wembley in 96, as I recall he was hugely ineffective. Shame as i always wanted to see him in the team as a youngster.

 

[sledger]

Paul Ince was still good at that stage as well tbh. Tony Adams and Sol Campbell were a good defensive pairing as well. Seaman was arguably still the best keeper in the world as well.

 

[GIMH]

Andy Hinchcliffe tbh

 

[Uppercut]

Paul Ince was still good at that stage as well tbh. Tony Adams and Sol Campbell were a good defensive pairing as well. Seaman was arguably still the best keeper in the world as well.

Hmmmmmmmm

 

[sledger]

Hmmmmmmmm

"Arguably"

 

[Uppercut]

Haha, I dunno, I was only 8 at the time so my judgement might not be the best. But off the top of my head I can think of Andreas Kopke, Oliver Khan, Peter Schmeichel, Angelo Peruzzi, Gianluca Pagliuca and Jose Luis Chilavert who were all widely considered in a different class to Seaman in the circles I moved in. Probably forgetting someone really obvious too.

 

[GIMH]

Chilavert?!!!

 

[Uppercut]

*shrug*

I was 8. The novelty of the man made everyone love him. How good a keeper he was is competely lost on me, but I remember him being pretty good.

EDIT: Won world's best goalkeeper three times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFFHS_World%27s_Best_Goalkeeper

 

[BoyBrumby]

Haha, I dunno, I was only 8 at the time so my judgement might not be the best. But off the top of my head I can think of Andreas Kopke, Oliver Khan, Peter Schmeichel, Angelo Peruzzi, Gianluca Pagliuca and Jose Luis Chilavert who were all widely considered in a different class to Seaman in the circles I moved in. Probably forgetting someone really obvious too.

Not wishing to doubt the footballing acumen of 8 year olds, but...

&, again, the Italians aside, the only time most of us ever saw these players was in world cups, so I don't know where you'd have seen enough of Khan to make a judgement &, based on the evidence of the world cup, Chilavert was mainly notebale for his penalties and free kicks. Kopke - possibly, Schmeichel - definitely, Peruzzi - debateable, but probably not, too short and struggled with crosses, Khan - even more prone to the spectacular **** up than Seaman & wasn't his country's first choice even, Pagliuca - not as good as Peruzzi & Chilavert - ha, ha, ha.

 

[Uppercut]

Interesting about Chilavert that he won that award three times. I know these things are often seriously iffy, but all of the other winners look pretty worthy.

I saw plenty of Khan in subsequent years, he became one of my favourite players, and he really was one of the best keepers in the world. For every spectacular ****-up (and truth be told there weren't actually that many) there were several incomprehensibly good saves no keeper in the world would ever have got anywhere near. Don't know how much he improved between '98 and '02 though, so he may have been a wooden one back then.

 

[sledger]

There is no doubt that at his peak Khan was better than Seaman, a good deal better imo, which is no disrespect to Seaman at all, Khan was just awesome, have never seen a better keeper. Between 96-98 though, I would say you would be very hard pressed to find a keeper in the world who was better than Seaman or Schmeichel, for me they were the two great international goalkeepers. Though Peruzzi etc.. were not far off. Chilavert though?! Not a chance, more of a great personality than a great keeper, imo anyway.