Home nations. Underachievers?

[MikeH72]

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.

So you’re telling me that… wait hang on a minute… population isn’t the be all and end all???

 

[Preki]

Scotlands population dwarves those of Uruguay and Croatia

Yes but 25% of men start drinking at 10 am so that rules most of them out.

 

[DavidH]

England's best chance since 66 was 2006 in Germany I think. The squad had G Neville, A Cole, Gerrard, Ferdinand, Terry, Beckham, Lampard, Owen, Rooney, Sol Campbell.... That side then didn't even make the next euros. Shame we had managers around that time that couldn't get a tune out of an electric keyboard. Saying that, Capello was hardly a crap manager and he struggled although Lampards goal in 2010 against Germany should have stood.

 

[roydo]

Someone once said, "England gave football to the world, but didnt watch when they showed us how to play it"

Sommet like that. More than a grain of truth in that.

 

[Neiler]

I'm actually staggered that people are surprised to think, say Scotland with a population of say 5 mill competing against Germany with a population of 85 mill - might make things a little bit easier for Germany. lol

What did people think..... lol

 

[MikeH72]

I can’t believe people expect Scotland to be able to compete with a country like Iceland and actually progress out of their group at a tournament at ANY point in their history. Iceland also who don’t have access to a bigger neighbour that they can just turn up on the doorstep of and take players who can’t get a game for their own national team.

Erm. THE POPULATION.

 

[Neiler]

*Switches Scotland and Iceland to England and Spain! Changes qualifying from to winning!

Oh look! lol

 

[Nymzee]

I see a lot of Irish fans in here seem a bit rattled at the thought of being underachievers whilst telling us it "isn't even their favourite sport".

 

[Moomin]

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.

How many Cricket world cups have Italy, Germany or France won?

Not as many as the mighty England.

 

[MikeH72]

Actually when you look at it, England have outperformed Brazil in the World Cup over the past 20 years. A massive overachievement when you look at the respective populations.

 

[Billy Dean]

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.

Success for them relative to Scotland would be getting out of their group, which they often do when they qualify for the World Cup. For example in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1986, 1990, 2010, 2014 and 2018

 

[Billy Dean]

Report says football is number one sport in Wales - BBC Sport

Football overtakes rugby as the number one sport in Wales, according to a new study presented to the Football Association of Wales.

www.bbc.com

 

[Moomin]

Success for Scotland is waking up in a dry bed.

 

[MikeH72]

Success for them relative to Scotland would be getting out of their group, which they often do when they qualify for the World Cup. For example in 1966, 1970, 1974, 1986, 1990, 2010, 2014 and 2018

Interesting mate. Uruguay have done very well. Do we know if Uruguay have access to a surrounding country’s players through ancestry like Scotland and other smaller nations do with England?

 

[Billy Dean]

Interesting mate. Uruguay have done very well. Do we know if Uruguay have access to a surrounding country’s players through ancestry like Scotland and other smaller nations do with England?

I suppose they could be getting players from Argentina? Not really sure