Internationals March (World Cup Qualifiers + Friendlies)

CallyRed said:
Back in the day it was Phil Neville v Cafu
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No it wasn't :lol: I refuse to believe that. Most of us knew that the best players played in Italy and Spain and would never entertain coming over to England. Which only started to change with Chelsea paying silly money. Who was the first bona fide superstar to leave Serie A or La Liga for the Prem? Shevchenko, Crespo, Veron?
 
GifLord said:
Decline started in the late 00s. They fluked the euro's.
Just look at their record on international stage after the 2006 wc win.
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They didn’t fluke the Euro’s, they were by far the best team.

Maybe if they got easy groups like San Marino they go through.
 
Pink Moon said:
Do you mean when they beat England in the final and took it back to Rome?

Might be the worst bit of trash talking I've ever seen lad, not gonna lie. "Where are those chants from when you broke my heart last summer? Huh? Yeah, exactly!".
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Yeah there was lots of trash thrown Englands way so we’ll revel in the misery of those particular players now.
 
GifLord said:
The start of the decline of Serie A in the late 2000s and a very poor national pool of players.
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Losing to Macedonia is shitting the bed, no excuses.

Jorginho is a great player, but he is very cold, doesn't trasmite energy, and played the whole time at the same pace despite being in hurry to qualify.

Talented player, but very cold, sometimes you need trasmite energy to your teammates.
 
Jorginho claiming handball instead of trying to close the man down. 2 seconds later, the ball is in the Italy net. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke.
 
Klopper76 said:
His goal tally speaks for itself this season. He can even play completely terrible like he did against Forest and still get the winner. Always in and around the box trying to get on the end of things.
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That is kinda his job.
 
GifLord said:
Decline started in the late 00s. They fluked the euro's.
Just look at their record on international stage after the 2006 wc win.
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In what world did the fluke the Euros? They were the best team throughout the entire competition and better team in the final against a ultra defensive England team.
 
Juve's dodgy accounting wasn't big enough to get them over the line. Italy needs a proper scandal, something bigger.

If they start (doing even more) bribing or match fixing now or somehting else, in 4 years it can all blow up just in time for them to do well at the next WC.
 
Wayne's World said:
In what world did the fluke the Euros? They were the best team throughout the entire competition and better team in the final against a ultra defensive England team.
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They relied on Chiesa to make something happen. Again they're a painfully average team which they've again proven in these wc qualifiers
 
Bastian said:
No it wasn't :lol: I refuse to believe that. Most of us knew that the best players played in Italy and Spain and would never entertain coming over to England. Which only started to change with Chelsea paying silly money. Who was the first bona fide superstar to leave Serie A or La Liga for the Prem? Shevchenko, Crespo, Veron?
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Probably Gullit but he was at the end of his career.
 
balaks said:
It is a shock but this is why we all love football - it's played on a pitch and not on paper.
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Not more shocking than watford twatting utd 4 nil.

If you don't put in a shift on the pitch then your superior quality means feck all.
 
Foxbatt said:
Probably Gullit but he was at the end of his career.
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Aye, Gullit and Desailly were both on the decline. Makalele was obviously world class still, and amazing Real let him go, but maybe not that household name. Personally, I was rather shocked to see Crespo join Chelsea - at 28. Shevchenko was 30, still a huge name, but a last big payday sort of deal. Veron to us was the first time we went big on a star player in a major European league, no?
 
Deery said:
They didn’t fluke the Euro’s, they were by far the best team.

Maybe if they got easy groups like San Marino they go through.
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They didn't fluke it, but they should have lost to Spain in the semi. They were however the better team in the final.
 
Much better in extra time. Poland is favorites I say, but it will be tight.

Just need to hope Lewandowski has a quiet game as he often has for the national side.
 
Just a reminder that North Macedonia has won games in Italy AND in Germany in the past 365 days. I wonder how many countries have achieved that over the course of a year, probably not many.
 
Paul_Scholes18 said:
Came off the bench with 10 minutes to go.

Wasted time which was his instructions.
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Nice! Thats fantastic for him and some great experience. I know this season has been abysmal but him breaking through is a bright spark in a sea of pain.
 
Hard not to feel for North Macedonia. If you beat Italy in a world cup playoff, you should be going to a bloody world cup.

Not having to win again against Portugal.
 
Fun stats:
Zlatan 62 goals for Sweden
Rest of Swedish squad together: 62 goals
 
TheGame said:
Definitely. Portugal will be relieved and they will probably beat them unfortunately.
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System is stupid, even though I think Italy would have done better if they had to go away to Macedonia too. However, just the possibility of having to eliminate both Italy and Portugal in span of only few days away from home is too much even for big teams, and especially for weaker ones.
 
How many teams go through? And what happens now with uneven amount of knockout games?
 
Bastian said:
No it wasn't :lol: I refuse to believe that. Most of us knew that the best players played in Italy and Spain and would never entertain coming over to England. Which only started to change with Chelsea paying silly money. Who was the first bona fide superstar to leave Serie A or La Liga for the Prem? Shevchenko, Crespo, Veron?
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Foxbatt said:
Probably Gullit but he was at the end of his career.
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Probably was Gullit, and while he was at the end of his career it did kind of open things up for those kinds of moves. Bergkamp around the same time too.
 
Last time we got a penalty in a knockout game at the Euros or at the World Cup was in 1966.

It wouldn’t be so infuriating if we didn’t get a bunch of penalty calls against us at the worst possible time ridiculously often. Everyone knew there was a penalty coming after the 2-1
 
Italian football at an all-time-low. NT and Serie A. Steady decline since the 1982-2006 sustained peak. Hard to believe they won the Euro.
 
Pretzels81 said:
Italian football at an all-time-low. NT and Serie A. Steady decline since the 1982-2006 sustained peak. Hard to believe they won the Euro.
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They were the best team of the Euro, not hard to believe.

Jorginho fecked up everything missing his penalty against Switzerland.

They just shat the bet today, players knew they were ultra favorites to qualify, they were all scared as time was passing, pressure killed them, Macedonia had nothing to lose.
 
Pretzels81 said:
Italian football at an all-time-low. NT and Serie A. Steady decline since the 1982-2006 sustained peak. Hard to believe they won the Euro.
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Well but they were the best team in Euro, and they had dominated England in probably the most one-sided final ever in major international tournament.
 
RedRonaldo said:
Well but they were the best team in Euro, and they had dominated England in probably the most one-sided final ever in major international tournament.
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What a bizarre thing to say about that final,there have been so many finals that were more one sided than that one just in the last 2 decades
 
Bastian said:
No it wasn't :lol: I refuse to believe that. Most of us knew that the best players played in Italy and Spain and would never entertain coming over to England. Which only started to change with Chelsea paying silly money. Who was the first bona fide superstar to leave Serie A or La Liga for the Prem? Shevchenko, Crespo, Veron?
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Ravanelli to Boro
Mancini Sampdoria to Leicester.
Lombardi to Palace.

But all these were fading towards end of their career. EPL was then, like the American Soccer League is now. He he
 
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