Home nations. Underachievers?

[SJB]

England should have been closer to winning trophies in the 90s and 00s with the players they had available. Strikers like Owen, Shearer, Sheringham, Ferdinand, Fowler, Collymore, Wright, Cole... fast forward a few years and Danny Welbeck's a regular.

 

[Neiler]

England should have been closer to winning trophies in the 90s and 00s with the players they had available. Strikers like Owen, Shearer, Sheringham, Ferdinand, Fowler, Collymore, Wright, Cole... fast forward a few years and Danny Welbeck's a regular.

England didn't even qualify for the World Cup in 94 mate.

Was 8 year between World Cups for them.

Mad when you look at the populations and the countries that participated.

 

[Billy Dean]

To be fair Association Football isn't the biggest or national sports in Ireland or Wales.

Id be more annoyed with us if it was.

Yeah that’s a fair point I guess. I think it is scotlands biggest sport though

 

[Billy Dean]

This is why I voted them. Even Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales have achieved this. It’s absolutely embarrassing. I didn’t realise that was their record until I just looked it up as research for this thread, thought they might’ve managed it in like the 70s or something when they had Dalglish, Souness, Hansen, Law etc.

Yes in the 70s and 80s they had some decent squads. 1990 was not a bad squad either IIRC. In 86 and 90 it was possible for 3 teams to go through from the group too and they still failed. Despite all their world class players

 

[Billy Dean]

England didn't even qualify for the World Cup in 94 mate.

Was 8 year between World Cups for them.

Mad when you look at the populations and the countries that participated.

Graham Taylor made an absolute mess of things bless him

 

[Neiler]

Yeah that’s a fair point I guess. I think it is scotlands biggest sport though

Say you applied Scotlands population limit to England.

England would essentially be picking from half the population of London and they'd still have a bigger pick then Scotland.

Its actually quite incredible that Ireland, Scotland, Wales and prob more NI qualify for any tournaments when you look at it.

 

[Neiler]

Graham Taylor made an absolute mess of things bless him

"Do i not like that!" lol

The abuse that man got, was awful, the papers destroyed him.

Glad he had a bit of relative success when he went back to Watford.

 

[MikeH72]

Say you applied Scotlands population limit to England.

England would essentially be picking from half the population of London and they'd still have a bigger pick then Scotland.

Its actually quite incredible that Ireland, Scotland, Wales and prob more NI qualify for any tournaments when you look at it.

Scotland have loads of players that are included in England’s population though, as do Ireland and Wales? So what is this population limit you speak of?

 

[Billy Dean]

Say you applied Scotlands population limit to England.

England would essentially be picking from half the population of London and they'd still have a bigger pick then Scotland.

Its actually quite incredible that Ireland, Scotland, Wales and prob more NI qualify for any tournaments when you look at it.

Scotlands population dwarves those of Uruguay and Croatia

 

[Billy Dean]

"Do i not like that!" lol

The abuse that man got, was awful, the papers destroyed him.

Glad he had a bit of relative success when he went back to Watford.

Yeah the English press is horrendous

 

[MikeH72]

Scotlands population dwarves those of Uruguay and Croatia

Scott McTominay and Che Adams aren’t included in the population of Scotland.

As previously stated, England is essentially a supermarket where Scotland, Wales and Ireland can visit and purchase unwanted goods for bargain prices.

 

[Neiler]

Scotlands population dwarves those of Uruguay and Croatia

Uruguay won the first couple of world Cups mate, when it wasn't a thing and much smaller scope at home, they had relative success recently but not consistently, countries with that and our sized populations will have boom and bust cycles.

Croatia are brill, but lets be frank they are an outlier and given frequency there will always be one - it was even us punching above our weight at one stage. The vast majority are on the opposite side.

Its an anomaly rather then a trend statistically, the evidence is stacked way more on the other side with population the defining variable.

 

[MikeH72]

How can little old England be expected to compete with China, India, the USA, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria when you actually look into the population difference between them? On this evidence we are massively overachieving even getting past the group stages at tournaments.

 

[Charro]

How can little old England be expected to compete with China, India, the USA, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria when you actually look into the population difference between them? On this evidence we are massively overachieving even getting past the group stages at tournaments.

Resources, and football being our number one sport, with the population we have, with talent from all over the globe coming to our shores every year means we have underachieved.

Cricket is the be all and end all in India and Pakistan.

Nigeria and Indonesia dont have the resources like we do.

USA have four sports more popular than football.

Compare us to Italy, Germany or France, and we've hugely underachieved.

 

[Moomin]

Has to be Scotland for me.

All them World Class players they had and done nothing of note.