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Sir Alex, for 60 mill � paybe

Bye bye Beckham again in that case

http://sport.independent.co.uk/foot...icle3166373.ece

Austria must pull out of Euro 2008, say 10,000 fans petition

quote:

Every so often, when an English sports team is embarrassing itself on the international stage, a red-top thunders, "Bring them home". The Austrians have gone a step further in advance of next summer's European Championships with more than 10,000 supporters signing a petition urging the team be withdrawn before it starts. As co-hosts Austria qualify automatically, which is fortunate as they would never have reached the finals otherwise. Under Josef Hickersberger, who took over in January 2006, Austria have played 18 matches, mostly at home, winning four, losing eight. The teams they have beaten are Liechtenstein (Austria won in injury time after trailing), Trinidad & Tobago (most of whose 2006 World Cup players refused to play due to a bonus dispute), Switzerland (who have since beaten Austria) and Ivory Coast (who were reduced to 10 men at 1-1). Costa Rica, Malta and Paraguay are among teams to have held the Austrians while Canada, Venezuala, Hungary and Chile have beaten them. "It is the worst Austrian team ever," lamented Toni Polster, who holds the national team scoring record and played in the 1998 World Cup, the last major tournament Austria qualified for. Michael Kriess, one of the organisers of the petition, "Let's Not Embarrass Ourselves", said: "The way Austria is playing is an insult to our, to every fan's aesthetic understanding of the game." Austria were once one of the great football nations, but that was 70 years ago. Since reaching the World Cup semi-finals in 1954 they have been in steady decline, aside from a brief revival when Hans Krankl led the line three decades ago. Hickersberger led them to the 1990 World Cup finals but resigned later that year after a humiliating defeat to the Faroe Islands. The criticism he has endured in his current spell in charge has, he said, been even worse than then. So desperate have things become that when the Under-20s reached the Under-20 World Cup semi-finals this summer one political party proposed that they should play against the senior team with the winners competing in Euro 2008. Hickersberger has not helped himself, dropping two of his best players, Middlesbrough's Emmanuel Pogatez and Paul Scharner, of Wigan, after both criticised him, but the fact that the promising striker Martin Harnik was with Werder Bremen reserves this season underlines the paucity of native talent.

Nice to see that kind of support for their own national team.

quote:

Originally posted by Intuition Capello, or Lippi or Mourinho (both unlikely) would be good replacements. There just aren't any English managers that are quality, or free from their club responsibilities, to take this on, and the FA don't want to make the same mistake again.

Harry Redknap would an excellent English manager since he seems to be able to get results with barely any talent while managing smaller clubs. He is experienced, understands the English game and is tactically sound. Trouble is that he's a bit of a black sheep in England the fucking FA would never consider him anyway.

The players tend to choke, yes, but a huge part of the core problem of English football is The English Football Association. They are a bunch of businessmen who only care about making money rather than winning tournaments. They don't understand the game and dont' let football people run football in the country. Until that changes, England will never win anything even though the potential is usually there.

holy shit.....Italy, France and the Netherlands in the same group


now there's your group of death

Germany again easy group and couldn't face Holland, France or Italy before the final.

You could just see that Group of Death coming as soon as France got drawn in there. 50/50 shot to either go to Holland's group or Greece's group, u know luck wasn't on their side. That is gonna be an amazing group! I hope Romania can do a little bit of damage there too make not just be the 1 win for the rest of the group. Germany gonna steamroll over Group 2.

Switzerland, Czech Republic and Turkey... could be easy, could be hard. Meh, I'll wait and see.

Bring on France Can't wait looks exciting!

I nearly wet my pants when I saw Group C.

don't underestimate romania in Group C, they have a tough, gritty, young side that could raise a few eyebrows.

I'm happy with with Russia's group. We've managed to avoid all the big guns except for Spain. Sweden is ok, but they're definitely not world class as some of these other squads. Personally I think Germany stands the best chance to win it all. They should emerge out of their relatively flexible group and I expect them to draw a friendly crowd at every game.

Can't wait for June!

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