Earthling

Blimey, that's worth a tenner, and I'm not even a gambling man.

I've said two things right from last December's draw. 1. For England to qualify, either Italy or Uruguay would have to miss out. Tall order. Both those have won the whole lot more times than us. 2. All the time you have a Luis Suarez, you're in with a realistic shout of winning anything you enter.

During the pre-match 'analysis', cracked me up when I heard it.

England 1 Final, 1 win. 100% record. Holland 3 Finals 0 wins. Also 100% record, but not the right kind. Never mind how many semis, quarters etc blah blah. Winning is everything, second is nowhere.

After 1988, I just couldn't stand another four years of 'Dutch Masters', 'Aristocrats of Football' and all that blah from a country that has appeared in the WC Final three times, but hasn't won it once. At least we have a Star on our shirt.

None of the English players are good enough at this level, maybe Rooney at a push. Perhaps Joe Hart......anyone hear Glenn Hoddle refer to him as 'Head and Shoulders above the rest' last night? I wonder how much they paid him for that. Listening to 606 after the game, someone made a really salient point. 'How many of the England players are the best players at their club?' None, I would say, and that's not going to win us anything. Most of the best players at the top half PL clubs are foreign. Brazil the other night, for example, took a Chelsea player off and put another Chelsea player on. To join the other Chelsea player who was already on the pitch. Belgium sounded like a PL club side. Vertonghen, Kompany, Hazard, Lukaku, Dembele. We have a choice. Either we enjoy the spectacle of the Premier League every week and disregard the national side, or we do the other thing, but realistically, how many Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool fans would gladly give up their van Persie's, Aguerro's, Suarez's etc. to see England win the Euros, let alone the World Cup?

Thanks, everyone, but believe me, I'd rather have got it wildly wrong. I feel like I'm Barry Backstabbio. I love football, I love England, I saw us win the World Cup in 66 and just once more in my lifetime, I'd like to see us win it again. Please, please, please , just once more in my lifetime. Or if not that, don't EVER let Holland win it. 48 years of hurt.

Predictable result, really. ......and if my memory serves me right, @SiliconAlley_Sam, I correctly predicted the result yesterday. Not that I'm in the slightest bit chuffed over it, I'd rather have got it wildly wrong. 48 years of hurt, and counting.

They're English. They'd both lose.

One less for England to worry about on our march to World Cup Glory.

I listen to 5Live through my pc and I find it's always slightly ahead or slightly behind the TV pictures, and also the constant flow of radio commentary gets a bit much after a while. I can actually see when 'Gerrard picks up the ball deep in his own half, looks for a pass forward but there's no movement so he passes it back to Hart and England build again from the back'.......sometimes it's nice just to watch the game with just crowd effect and no commentary. You know, like you would at an actual game?

Yes, he has the ability to track back. So does Rooney, so why didn't they?

Geoff Hurst scored a hat-trick in the Final in 1966. Should we bring him back? The qualifiers took the best part of two years to complete, and ended last October. Rooney's form now is not the form he showed last season. Jermaine Defoe scored more goals than Sturridge during the qualifiers, but as I've already said, he didn't even make it onto the plane. We'll never know what would have happened if Barkley had kept hold of the ball. I'm not saying he would have scored or opened up the defence. I'm saying that we'll never know. What we do know, is that Rooney blazed it over the bar. Rooney consistently hasn't performed in the Finals....World Cup or Euros. He might just not have the Tournament mentality, you know.

All the sensationalism over the goal line technology was predictable though, I thought. It worked, end of story, couldn't have had a better test as far as I'm concerned. I missed most of the England game, I was driving back from seeing The Pogues at Thetford Forest. I got home and switched the TV on just as Rooney put that chance wide of the near post......a chance he would have buried in a United shirt or Fergie would have chucked a half-time cup of tea over him, I'm sure. Maybe that's what Hodgson needs to do. Taking the ball off Barkley then blazing it over the bar, what does he think he's on? But hey, all the time we're still in it, we can still win it. :cheer2:Ra-ra-rah

That works when you have supportive teaching staff who don't treat you like a serf in front of the students, and an SLT that demands such support. Doesn't work here. Aaaand anyway, back on topic, I'm wearing my favourite zebra-print skinny tie today.

Are you sure you don't work here and how come we've never met?

Good , no. A thousand times, No.

'Office Smart', I believe is the terminology. Cargo/Smart trousers, shirt, tie. Dress code has been introduced since September. Ironic, really, as on my first day here (nearly eight years ago) I wore a suit, shirt and tie as I'd always done when going to work, and I was politely asked not to wear it the next day as 'The kids might think you're a teacher'.

Rivaldo is exactly what came to my mind when Fred fell over, too. It's so sad to see Brasil doing this, especially after seeing previous generations do this: and this Pele dummy and miss v Uruguay - YouTube I know he missed but at the time, it was such an audacious move, it was still Brasilian flair at its best. Four years before Cruyff and his Turn, too.

Another +1 for WebHelpDesk. Costs money, but really does do what it says on the tin, and no annoying adverts. E-mail ticket creation, e-mail user creation, if you allow it, multiple LDAP connections to collect users from different OU's, asset-management, reporting, e-mail user and technician at every step of the call-updating process......I could go on (and on and on and ......).

The media certainly, but we get the media we deserve. Don't buy the trash newspapers, don't subscribe on-line and one day, we'll get the media we want. You've mentioned the very reason why I don't think Rooney should be starting, non-performance in an England shirt. When he gets behind his country and performs the same way he does for Man U, then he'll be worth a starting place. But he doesn't, he hasn't, and he prefers to bad-mouth money-paying fans for booing him. His comments to the camera in 2010, while walking off at the end of the game, I think it was against Algeria, were disingenuous and showed what an over-paid, spoiled brat he really is, and he hasn't changed at all in the interim. Did he not realise that most of the fans booing him had paid probably their next three years salaries to make the trip half-way round the world to support England, or did he just not care? Why is it the fans that always have to 'get behind the team'? Why don't the players give the fans something to 'get behind' first? They ought to try it, perhaps they'd get the same level of support that the Euro 96 team enjoyed.

There isn't, and they should all, with one or two exceptions, be ashamed of themselves. To think what I and many other members of this forum, I'm sure, would give to have worn the Three Lions (either/or the Welsh Dragon, in my case) in anger. In unpaid anger, even.

You're right, they don't, so Germany wouldn't even have got third place. Two things I remember, amongst all the other glittering England moments that year.......Sheringham's dummy and pass to Shearer for one of the goals against Holland and Psycho's face after he scored his penalty against Spain. Who do you see that kind of commitment and passion coming from in this year's squad? Oh well, .................

Yep, he's mad. If I had to name a club that's done for more British talent than the rest of the PL put together, it would be Southampton, as someone else already said. They also brought Alan Shearer through, twenty or more years ago, so they're not just a recent phenomenon.

Wasn't your pension I was talking about, but I'll put yours on Rooney to fail (again) and to bad-mouth the fans (again) for booing him. Nice little double, if you can find a bookie to take it.