England - World Cup 2006 - Qualification Deserved? thread containing views on England 2006.

[sportytalk 0]

Do you think that England deserved to qualify for the World Cup 2006 soccer/football tournament knockout next year?Personally, I think it was kind of flukey, the way they only won because the other team lost yesterday.I don't like England's manager Sven Goran Erikkson. Even the commentator during the Northern Ireland match started abusing this manager guy, rightly so.I feel that if England get rid of this manager and get someone who's better at doing his job, then I reckon the team would be pretty much successful, most of the time.This is only my opinion though

[devildude93 0]

Yeah your pretty right!1 i dont think taht engalnd were fluckey last night and i dont think that they shudve of qualified for the world cup match.. Personally i dont like engalnd even though i live there.. I support Australiia more cosa im going to live there soon but i have never actually supported england in my life..

[wakelim 0]

Well, England haven't been playing well of late. Surely that's the mark of a good team, though. To be able to play badly and still get three points. There's a long time befoer the World Cup yet, and we have one of the best teams in the world, whatever people might say. We can still win the World Cup next year.I think that the main reason behind England losing (and if you've been following England in the English media in any way you'll know this) was the 4-5-1 formation. This involved playing players out of position, namely Wayne Rooney. This was the reason behind the humiliating defeats to Denmark and Northern Ireland. We're back to the 4-4-2 formation now, that we work best in.You still have to look at the team as a whole, though. We performed well as whole throughout the qualification, beating Poland away and thumping Northern Ireland 4-0 at home. As long as we play our best players that are fit and played in the right positions there is no reason why we can't reach at least the semi-finals at the World Cup next year.

[anchop 0]

Let's be a fan of Portugal

[Peaktao 0]

OK... i agreed that England hasn't been playing well for the last three matches or so but still qualify because they are in one of the easiest group possible - Austria? Northern Ireland? Wales? i mean, come on, just looking at the teams and i couldn't see any teams challenge England and Poland for the first two spots. But... they managed to give the fans a bit of a worry. why?1. Eriksson appeared to "experimenting" his side in a qualifying matches (4-5-1 anyone? playing Rooney out of position and shifting players around as Mr. Beckham wanted to play in the center)2. Mr. Beckham has been poor! No need to say more.3. Why on earth Eriksson got rid of David James so late is beyond me.4. Eriksson couldn't lift players' confidence after bad performance. (because too many of his private stories that he couldn't even concentrate on his job)5. Underestimate Wales and Northern Ireland? Maybe.So at the end they qualified not by beating Austria but by watching the dutch beating the Czech on Sky Sports. Did they deserve it? No. They are just lucky to be in this group and the results elsewhere went their way.I think England now have to do 4 things before the World Cup in germany.1. Go back to 4-4-2 permanently with Becks on the right, if he's not happy then put Wright-Phillips there.2. Get everyone fit especially Rooney, A.Cole and Gary Neville. They are just irreplaceable.3. Call in Scott Parker as he is the only person who can sufficiently cover Lampard or Gerrard if they are injured.4. Be more optimistic and adventurous . They are too afraid of losing at the moment....attacking Austria with 5-6 men behind ball was not good enough

[wakelim 0]

OK... i agreed that England hasn't been playing well for the last three matches or so but still qualify because they are in one of the easiest group possible - Austria? Northern Ireland? Wales? i mean, come on, just looking at the teams and i couldn't see any teams challenge England and Poland for the first two spots.

Haven't you noticed that every group contains teams that were never going to be challenging for the World Cup. About two thirds of the teams that are in the qualifications are not counted as Europe's elite. England could have had a more challenging group, but they could also have had an easier one. You're forgetting that Wales only narrowly missed out on Euro 2004 qualification to Russia in the playoffs. Austria aren't that bad either. At the end of the day, we finished the group with a dominating win against Poland, topped the groups, and did so with one of the highest points tallies in Europe. You can't really complain about that. The only thing that was lacking after the defeat to Northern Ireland was confidence and fitness of key players. We've got the confidence back and (assuming, as Peaktao said, we keep to 4-4-2) if we have the other then we should be seriously challenging for the World Cup in Germany next Summer.