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Platini puts England in his 3 favourites to win the WC

S

stupid kid

...
He also disses Raymond Domenech.

Platini, who has named England among his three favourites to lift the trophy, admits Les Bleus' chances this summer are slim.

And the 54-year-old has bemoaned the fact that this France team are lacking a talisman like Zinedine Zidane or himself.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/775512/ce/uk/?cc=5739&ver=global
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I really like Platini and his five ref thing. I like the fact that it's UEFA who have been pushing for closer regulation. Don't see why so many people have it in for him tbh, he seems to have all the right ideas.
 
Wow, given the way he's slagged off England in the past.

I think Pele tentaively went for Spain, though he sounded like he was hedging his bets somewhat.
 
mk12 said:
Spain are the team to beat, by a long way.
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I dunno, they won Euro 2008 and had that brillaint run of being undefeaqted, but this year they've nott been so amazing. My concern about Spain is that they've only got one way of playing and if teams can disrupt that then they start struggling.

Brazil are my favourites for this tournament, maybe not as talented as SPain, but more robust IMO.
 
Can't disagree with him at all. Other than to possibly see Holland and Russia as also in the second group.
 
I dunno, I know there's very little rationale but I always feel you can't rule out the Germans or Italians in tournaments, and the Argentinians... well, who the fuck knows about them :confused:
 
he probably said England for his'underdog' pick, lol
i hope England do as well as we know we can but i think Spain and Brazil are the two favourites
 
In my opinion England are definitely 3rd in line to lift the WC.

Spain and Brazil are the only real threats to England failing this time around. England has a lot more decent players this time and have a trump card with Fabio Capello who is extracting much stronger second half performances from the team.

Fabio is pretty much an undefeated manager, who has had a top flight career in football. Previous England managers have made bad decisions which have caused England to slip up when the pressure came.

This time, we have a real football strategist who knows the game, and has the raw material in the form of some half decent England players. It will be about the team plan, not fancy football.

You'll see. :)
 
I really think people are overplaying the Capello card - yes he's a good manager but he can only manage who he's got in the squad and we're weak in a number of areas.

Not doom-mongering, but I think QFs are probably expected, SFs should possibly be the target. Germany, Italy, Ivory Coast... meet any of those and we could have problems.

Fuck it, Mexico if they've got their shooting boots on :(
 
Didn't we just beat Mexico with a mostly experimental side and all of the Chelsea players left out?

We have three good goalies.
We have Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole who are attack minded and can score.
We have a small selection of good central defenders.
We have Lampard, Milner, Cole, Lennon, Gerrard and Walcott who are pretty good players in my book.
We have Rooney, Defoe and a really tall bloke who keeps scoring goals.

:)
 
urb said:
We have Glen Johnson and Ashley Cole who are attack minded and can score.
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But Johnson is shaky in defense, which in theory at least is supposed to be his specialty. Also, who replaces them if they get injured?
urb said:
We have a small selection of good central defenders.
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One of whom only played half a season, one of whom played at half-rate all season, one of whom barely managed half a season, one of whom didn't want to play for us for three years...
urb said:
We have Lampard, Milner, Cole, Lennon, Gerrard and Walcott who are pretty good players in my book.
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Cole's been out, Gerrard and Lampard struggle to play together (they do!), Walcott lives up to his potential every 7 or 8 games and the rest of the time is a sprinter who struggles to play a final ball.
urb said:
We have Rooney, Defoe and a really tall bloke who keeps scoring goals.
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...against second and third rate opposition.

Ok, so I'm countering a little far, but we are by no means a solid and secure side. We've got a chance to do well, but just look at our performances against the best teams and you can see it will not be easy, and we'll need a lot of chips to fall our way.
 
i think you could do very well. the only problem i see is that there is too much pressure/ reliance on rooney - psychologically incidentally, theres goals in yr team elsewhere.
 
teams that overachieve in the world cup just need a good coach and all their best players fit. We're good to go on both for the moment *touches wood*.
 
But a lot of best players such as Ferdinand, Terry, King, Rooney and Defoe seem to have lingering injury problems from this season or just long term, and some of our best haven't even made the cut due to them i.e. Beckham, Barry, Hargreaves, in the case of Owen and Woodgate, laterly their careers have basically been fucked by them.
 
urb said:
We have Rooney, Defoe and a really tall bloke who keeps scoring goals.

:)
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Lord Camomile said:
...against second and third rate opposition.
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Can we just put this to bed once and for all?

Yes, Crouch has not scored against a Brazil or Spain so far, but let's look at how much of a game he actually gets against those teams -

12-Nov-2005 Argentina 2 England 3 - Sub on - 81 min
01-Jul-2006 England 0 Portugal 0 - Sub on - 65 min
07-Feb-2007 England 0 Spain 1 - Played full game
01-Jun-2007 England 1 Brazil 1 - Sub on - 83 min
22-Aug-2007 England 1 Germany - Sub on - 57 min
26-Mar-2008 France 1 England 0 - Sub on - ht
19-Nov-2008 Germany 1 England 2 - Sub on - 90+3 min
11-Feb-2009 Spain 2 England 0 - Sub on - ht
14-Nov-2009 Brazil 1 England 0 - Sub on - 82 min

So only one game out of 9 in which he was given anything more than 45 mins to score against a top quality team.

It should be noted that Rooney didn't exactly light up those games either, scoring a total of 2 goals.

We wouldn't have qualified for the WC anywhere near as easily without Crouch's proficiency for England - 38 caps 21 goals (74% successful), he definitely deserves to get a bigger chance against the top teams.
 
Perhaps he hasn't been given 'a bigger chance' against the top teams, but could there be a reason for that? Somewhat speculative I appreciate, but until he does get that chance the record shows his goals have tended to come against second rate opposition.

And until he does get that chance, it can't be 'put to bed' :p
 
No serious gambler would put England in the top 3 to win. Our big tournament form is very consistent. We do well in the early rounds. Beat one half decent team and then get knocked out when the pressure's on.

Not to mention our default habit of just punting the ball upfield when we run out of ideas. Against Mexico we did it. Everytime we ran with the ball at their defence, we created chances, and yet we only did it 3 times. Every other time we punted it.
 
If some people really think the measure of Crouch is against who and how many goals he scores they're better off watching rugby.
 
Idaho said:
No serious gambler would put England in the top 3 to win. Our big tournament form is very consistent. We do well in the early rounds. Beat one half decent team and then get knocked out when the pressure's on.
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We do? :confused: I've found our tendency is to underperform against the weaker sides, then bluster away at the stronger sides with varying results.
 
Idaho said:
No serious gambler would put England in the top 3 to win. Our big tournament form is very consistent. We do well in the early rounds. Beat one half decent team and then get knocked out when the pressure's on.

Not to mention our default habit of just punting the ball upfield when we run out of ideas. Against Mexico we did it. Everytime we ran with the ball at their defence, we created chances, and yet we only did it 3 times. Every other time we punted it.
Click to expand...

Why would a serious gambler take into account form from 4 years ago when betting on a football match :confused:
 
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