Not sure about anyone else but i've been looking at the results from this Tournament. Actually, think Scotland will go into the game Favourites with England competing on so many different levels this summer and this Tournament seems to have come somewhere near the bottom of the priority list. One of the players pulled out to go to the u19 squad for example. England also play Italy in the U20 world cup and the u21's play too.
Plus greed has ruined football to such an extent that there are very few truly talented young English players. Twenty years ago they would have been playing for their clubs, now they are taking a fat pay check and sitting on their arses at Chelsea with no chance of setting foot on a football pitch
Nonsense they are doing great. How many other teams are competing on the different levels this summer? The Germans couldn't score past Mexico u20's never mind beat them. England sent them packing. Then got beat by Zambia U20, never heard of the country tbh. England conceded one goal scored by another team in 5 games. France got dumped out at the 1/4's and also didn't get far in the TT. They aren't in the u21 Tournament either. U17's got a final a few weeks ago.
Got an awful feeling about the Scotland game anyways. Listening to Gordon Strachan yesterday morning, they seem well up for it.
They will be. Apart from the first team this will have all the other players that are eligible. Oliver Burkes in the squad. They've already beat Brazil.
I think were doing fine at all the junior levels in my opinion, and it's great to see a ragtag group like this impressing at such a prestigious tournament... I do think its a bit naive to say that the amount of money floating around isn't really a factor though. I saw an article somewhere that the average wage for a 18 year old in the Premier League is around £30k(again, I might be a bit out on this). It was the Palace chairman that said they had promoted 3 kids to train with the first team with the season coming to an end, and each one approached him and demanded circa £30k/w. In the past, players had to get to the top of the game to earn life changing amounts of money, so the motivation was there financially. Now players feel like they have "made it" and are very wealthy before they kick a ball in the first team. Its mad! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/re...chairman-Parish-wants-cap-youth-salaries.html (sorry about linking to the Mail, but I couldn't find the original article...) There is a reason why in general, Brazil and Argentina consistently develop truly world class talent, as the players are usually from impoverished backgrounds and have the incentives of getting out of that poverty....
Zambia African Cup of Nations winners in 2012, beat Drogba`s lot 8-7 on pens. Lost most of their squad in a plane crash in 1993, 18 players and a number of coaches.