International Football?

Chong

I'd just thought i'd vent my anger at the fact I despise international football. Its basically rubbish, and before you attack me ahead of tonights game, its got to be true because no one wants to play international football. It wears players out for example the french performance against Israel. The french players looked and played as if they were burned out. Its the reason why players performance suffers in the their leagues and why they get injured so readily. Friendlies are the worst, national managers having to rob players from their clubs to play in a worthless game at the risk of getting injured. Another thing national managers are hailed as outstanding managers but how many of them have produced at club level.

Villain

Willem D wrote:

Its basically rubbish, and before you attack me ahead of tonights game, its got to be true because no one wants to play international football. .

LOL NO ONE wants to play International football???

I'd reckon 90% of the worlds best players under 30 play International football.

KdjaCL

So many things wrong with that ...

International football is the cream of football , the best available 11 for each country playing for peanuts (unless Brazil) and representing their country. Football doesnt get much better than that.
Club vs country fights happen all the time but we mostly irish so why should we care ? Once the players turn out and perform for ireland.

And National managers have 1 game and 1 game only to prove they are good, and thats with max 5 days with the players before the game. Club managaers have a lot more time and the ability to buy in players should the need arise, nationals managers cant really do that now can they?

kdjac

The Rooster

The French are undoubted World Champions at coming up for excuses for belowpar performances.

I diasgree with most of what Willem says, but it probably is a valid question to ask - Is international Football on a downward spiral?

Is it being surpassed by the Champions League?

Personally I prefer International Football over all other football. But the question has to be posed, and :

Why did only 21,000 turn up to watch Italy's home game during the week? This against Norway, probably the second strongest team in the group.

Why did only 42,000 turn up to watch France v Israel, barely half-filling the stadium?

dirkey_wynne

I'm not the greatest fan of international football either to be honest. I hate the breaks between league games for the clubs, as these are generally more exciting - there are a hell of a lot of boring Irish games. I don't agree that no players want to play international football, but I certainly think the top managers don't want to. You wouldn't see Wenger giving up Arsenal for France, Fergie for Scotland etc.

BaZmO*

Welcome to the Soccer Forum Willem D!

SPAMTASTIC!!!!!!

Imposter

I've been saying for a while now that I think that international football as we know will continue to decline. I can see a European superLeague, led by the G14, with clubs who have disassociated themselves from their national associations. All of the better players will go there as the money would be better but the downside is that they won't be able to play international football.

I also think as a precursor to that, that Rangers and Celtic might join the english first division (or whatever it's called now) with a view to getting into the premiership.

Hairy Homer

Willem,

I know you have a right to your opinion and to its expression etc etc but if this were the 18th century I'd be offering you pistols or swords.

In fact, I despise your opinions so much that if I were George Bush, I'd be sending the boys out to look for you with Apache helicopters.

However, it's not and I'm not. So, in the spirit of hating the sin but trying to love the sinner, to answer your points:-

Following sport is a vicarious pastime; you derive pleasure from the actions, struggles, successes and failures of others.

To whom do you attach your loyalties and why?

International sport gives people from anywhere in the world the chance to identify with their own team, over which few if any have any real choice. If you're Irish, God love you, you have to support the Irish team. Through good and bad. Thick and thin. Victory and defeat. If you're English, ditto. Of course there are some people with mixed backgrounds who have a semblance of choice but in practice, most of us don't.

But you see the support of your team mirrored by others with the same honest passion. You see them go through moments of ecstasy (rare in most cases) followed by periods of gloom and despair. Just over 20 years ago Northern Ireland were beating the World Cup host team to get within one game of the semi finals. Today, they're languishing at the bottom of the heap habing just emerged from teh longest goal-free spell in international history.

Just think how their fans will feel when they next take a big scalp, as they will. (maybe v England this time round? Who knows?) You can't get a feeling like that supporting Manchester bloody United. Or boring boring Arsenal.

Globalisation inevitably reduces choices down to two, or at a pinch three

Coke or Pepsi
Nike or Reebok (or maybe Addidas)
Dell or HP
McDonald's or Burger King
United or Arsenal (or maybe Chelsea)

I spend my working life choosing between A or B. I refuse point blank in my pursuit of recreation to agree to a situation where everybody gets to choose between Manchester Bloody United and Boring ****ing boring ****ing Arsenal. And that is the road down which your argument will take us. An increasing meritocracy; consolidation of more and more resources in fewer and fewer hands. And a choice between fewer and fewer clubs.

That's brand recognition writ large. Keep it for washing powder and sneakers.

For sport, let's have global games (everybody around the world supports their own teams) as opposed to globalised games (everybody around the world supports either United or Arsenal).

por

I enjoy watching and going to internationals but I do believe it is definitely on the way down. With the amount of games being played by clubs now international games are becoming less appealing to top players, look at how many are retiring early from international duty, soon it will be a young mans game. And this idea of national pride is more for the fans rather than the players, if I were a top player I'd be more interested in where my pay cheque was coming from that how many caps I could win.

Kone

Willem D wrote:

I'd just thought i'd vent my anger at the fact I despise international football. Its basically rubbish, and before you attack me ahead of tonights game, its got to be true because no one wants to play international football. It wears players out for example the french performance against Israel. The french players looked and played as if they were burned out. Its the reason why players performance suffers in the their leagues and why they get injured so readily. Friendlies are the worst, national managers having to rob players from their clubs to play in a worthless game at the risk of getting injured. Another thing national managers are hailed as outstanding managers but how many of them have produced at club level.

B'ah!

Grimlock

I'd have to agree with Willem D,
over the last few years I've begun to be bored by International, we can't even call them our national team, a large proportion were born outside this country and some have very loose irish links, in some cases no Irish links(see Cascarino)!

First time it truely hit home was just this weekend while watching the Ireland match I couldn't help but think, I'd rather be watchin Arsenal.......

PS Before anyone starts I've been an Arsenal fan since the 80's the decade I was born in and was just as strong a supporter when Graham left us in the bottom half of the premiership.

eirebhoy

I honestly don't think I've have an interest in football if the Ireland football team didn't exist. I spend most of my time on the internet checking up on Irish players and the build up to competitive matches starts as soon as the last premiership ball is kicked, then I'm hooked to Sky Sports News. I don't care how boring an Ireland match is as long as they win.

Bungalow Bill

I think that the idea of International football being less important is complete bullsh1t. I am an avid supporter of football but despite watching english and european football for years I do not affiliate myself with any club anywhere in the world. The simple fact being that all that stays constant is the bloody logo and the colour. Players come and go. At least with the national side the one thing that stays constant is the fact the players are Irish. And national pride is important to me. It really stirs me up to see an Irish person doing well in global events. The entire mood is the country is uplifted if the national side are doing well. Hell we got to the second round of the last world cup, only winning one match and 100,000 thousand people turned up to welcome the lads home, and you're saying its not important??? and believe me those people did not turn up on picturehouse's or mundy's account.

Hairy Homer

por wrote:

And this idea of national pride is more for the fans rather than the players, if I were a top player I'd be more interested in where my pay cheque was coming from that how many caps I could win.

Well that's true. But the point is, how many people are going to be interested in football if it's just a few big global names around the world who can buy up all the talent?

I think FIFA realise this and that's why they insist on players being made available for international duty. In the long run the game needs to give fans a sense of belonging.

International or representative football is the best way to do that.

The overall quality of players in the Champions League may indeed be better than that in the European Champ or the World Cup but does that make the games better?

When was the last time the Champions League final produced a good match?

They're mostly drab boring displays decided by a penalty shootout.

Loth though I am to say it, it was probably 1999 when Man Utd beat Bayern, and that was basically a tedious game with a frenetically exciting three minutes of extra time.

Big Ears

Anyone that complains about too many games , I can give you a simple answer : cut leagues to either 16 or 18 teams and get rid of one of the cups , because Internationel football is what football really is and not some multi-million/billion company that just wants more money and to crack the Asian market :rolleyes: .

Without Internationel football (mainly the World Cup) the rest of football wouldn't have developed the way it has , and whoever here thinks that the World Cup isn't the most important tournament is just an armchair fan : this may seem like an odd accusation but its true .

It really sickens me when people would rather 'their' club do well over 'their' country ...............bah , im off to watch the Ireland game , all those who complained about Internationel football I suggest you don't watch it , it might bore you :rolleyes: .

Seaneh

Willem D wrote:

Another thing national managers are hailed as outstanding managers but how many of them have produced at club level.

Actually, I can think of more Club managers who became international managers and were found out that way.

Look at Erikson.

PHB

If someone could add in a poll, a cool question would be would you rather watch the world cup or the champions league(over the same periods of time etc etc etc)

Champions League for me

leeroybrown

Seaneh wrote:

Actually, I can think of more Club managers who became international managers and were found out that way.

Look at Erikson.

It may sound obvious but they're two totally different styles of management. Club management is based on working with a team day in day out for an entire season with the option to buy and sell players. International managers get their team together for a few days before a match and are expected to mould a cohesive team from them. They also have to work with the shortcomings of the pool of players you have.

I wouldn't be surprised if Eriksson really misses the day to day element of club management. It might also leave him with less time to chase secretaries ...

Chong

Seaneh wrote:

Actually, I can think of more Club managers who became international managers and were found out that way.

Look at Erikson.

Thats one of my points to be fair, Eriksson did nothing special with lazio to be fair about. Although club football has seriously lost a good manager in Marcello Lippi to the Italian National side, he was and is still an outstanding manager.

Having read your points I do believe its an honour to most players, especially the younger ones, but as the players grow older and hit their late 20's it becomes more of a hinderance. But speaking of rubbish international football, the irish match started well as usual but was finished by the 35th minute, yet another boring match.

KdjaCL

Willem D wrote:

Eriksson did nothing special with lazio to be fair about.


yet another boring match.

He won the league , we got a point away who cares how bloody pretty it was BRING ON FRANCE!!!.

kdjac

midget lord

France looked jaded agains Israel because they are pants.

Chong

I agree midge, France are pants. Their coach Domenech is a nobody.

eirebhoy

Willem D wrote:

But speaking of rubbish international football, the irish match started well as usual but was finished by the 35th minute, yet another boring match.

Am I the only person that never actually notices when an Ireland competitve match is boring? I could find any neutral match boring but an Ireland match I never notice.

KdjaCL

eirebhoy wrote:

Am I the only person that never actually notices when an Ireland competitve match is boring? I could find any neutral match boring but an Ireland match I never notice.

Nope you not alone , me was screaming at TV well into injury time.



kdjac

therecklessone

KdjaC wrote:

He won the league ,

And threw how much money at it to win?

Chong

Further to my comments its revealed that Louis Saha has been crocked which was stated in another thread. Yet more trouble caused for man united as a result of a International team against a bunch of amateurs whom of which are the Faroe Islands.

dirkey_wynne

eirebhoy wrote:

I honestly don't think I've have an interest in football if the Ireland football team didn't exist. I spend most of my time on the internet checking up on Irish players and the build up to competitive matches starts as soon as the last premiership ball is kicked, then I'm hooked to Sky Sports News. I don't care how boring an Ireland match is as long as they win.

Any particular reason you support Celtic?

Pigman II

International football is definetly going down the tubes. Players are getting 'injured' more and more often and retiring earlier in order to extend their club careers.

Whilst one could blame the increased fixture list for clubs I blame the increased amount of International games required to qualify. Some Euro nations are facing potentially FOURTEEN games in order to reach Germany and that just is ridiculous. And why? So that the likes of Malta and Luxembourg can record 0 and 10 for the 20th time in a row?

I suggest many time that there should be no more than 8 groups of 4 teams for UEFA and that the bottom 25 or so Euro nations should have to pre-qualify to get to this stage. Basically champions league format.

Lets face it, a group with just Ireland, Swiss, France and Israel is more interesting than one with 4 effectively meaningless games against Cyprus and Faeroes.

eirebhoy

dirkey_wynne wrote:

Any particular reason you support Celtic?

I'll rephrase that. I don't think I'd have ever started to support football if the Irish International team didn't exist.

Good point BTW Pigman.

Chong

Well said pigman I most certainly agree with your views they would certainly make international football better in the long run. Champions League style would be certainly the way to go. I for one am sick to death of looking at these rubbish teams like Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Malta, San Marino, Faroe Islands, and Andorra, its a blatant waste of time and effort by the big nations having to play these amateurs. It simply results in big players getting injured by amateurs who haven't the first idea about how multi million football clubs work, as a result of their naivty and their lack of talent clubs lose the players to injury, which in turn means paying a player for doing nothing, which further in turn means without the big players the clubs lose on the competition front and the money front.

therecklessone

Willem D wrote:

Well said pigman I most certainly agree with your views they would certainly make international football better in the long run. Champions League style would be certainly the way to go. I for one am sick to death of looking at these rubbish teams like Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Malta, San Marino, Faroe Islands, and Andorra, its a blatant waste of time and effort by the big nations having to play these amateurs. It simply results in big players getting injured by amateurs who haven't the first idea about how multi million football clubs work, as a result of their naivty and their lack of talent clubs lose the players to injury, which in turn means paying a player for doing nothing, which further in turn means without the big players the clubs lose on the competition front and the money front.

I'm interested Willem, which club team do you support?

Big Ears

KdjaC wrote:

Nope you not alone , me was screaming at TV well into injury time.



kdjac

same here .

Big Ears

Willem D wrote:

Well said pigman I most certainly agree with your views they would certainly make international football better in the long run. Champions League style would be certainly the way to go. I for one am sick to death of looking at these rubbish teams like Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Malta, San Marino, Faroe Islands, and Andorra, its a blatant waste of time and effort by the big nations having to play these amateurs. It simply results in big players getting injured by amateurs who haven't the first idea about how multi million football clubs work, as a result of their naivty and their lack of talent clubs lose the players to injury, which in turn means paying a player for doing nothing, which further in turn means without the big players the clubs lose on the competition front and the money front.

Thats one of the stupidest posts ive ever seen .

WhiteWashMan

lol at updated sug Big Ears.

although newcstle for the FA cup? not if souness gets sacked....