To be honest I've only got in to it the last couple of years and don't know too much other than from the coverage, but the the way they can sprint at the end of a full days riding is incredible. Same with long distance running, when they manage sub-50 second last laps at the end of a 10,000m race
That just sounds like nonsense to back up your point. I played football for 20 years as an adult and can't say I felt any difference between games on a Saturday or Sunday (different levels), you put in the same amount of effort.
Is the 42 year old bloke going to win the Tour De France? Or is he just making up the numbers? If we want players just to make up the numbers against Sweden then Gerrard and Parker will be absolutely fine. They'll run around for 90 minutes and not look out of place at all. But if we want to win the game against Sweden we may have to go with players who just have that physical edge. That may be Gerrard and Parker or it may be two other players. Either way, there's a big difference between playing the game and winning.
Re: Is the 42 year old bloke going to win the Tour De France? Stop talking sense, it's not allowed on here.
How long would it take you to ride from Oakwell to Hillsbrough up an average gradient of 7.5%?? Just speculating like. N.B You'd have to do it after riding another 100km before that over a couple of similar mountains.
Re: Is the 42 year old bloke going to win the Tour De France? Of course he's not going to win it - he's forty ****ing two. Do you think Gerrard or Parker will win the player of the tournament or England will win the competition outright. The point I am quite clearly making is that if a 42 year old man can ride over 3,000k with just two days off in three weeks, is it really too much to ask two 31 year old blokes, at peak physical fitness to perform to their highest level twice in five days. For 90 minutes at a time. With a fifteen minute rest in between.
Re: Is the 42 year old bloke going to win the Tour De France? You are delightfully missing the point.
breathe We probably won't win the tournament. But we're trying our damnedest to. The guy on the bike is just hoping to get round. If our intentions were to get to the end of each game without dying of fatigue then it would be a fair comparison. But we don't want to do that, we want to win.
Re: Is the 42 year old bloke going to win the Tour De France? I've been trying long enough. No one's saying they can't play. Not even Hodgson. You made that quote up in your title. All he's saying is that because they're coming towards the end of their career as International Central Midfielders, the most demanding position, then there could be doubts that they can play 2 games in 4 days. He's not saying they can't, he's even said in his interview that they will and the players would probably 'have him up against a wall' if he said they couldn't, just that they might not be as fresh for the second game as they were the first. Doubts. Will your 42 year old bike rider be as good on the 2nd day as the 1st? No. He'll be aching but he'll get through it. If he wasn't aching, he'd be better. Same principle for football. There you go chick x
Re: Is the 42 year old bloke going to win the Tour De France? The point still stands about why they are so tired. Other team sports don't have this 'too tired' nonsense. Footballers are a different breed.
Re: Is the 42 year old bloke going to win the Tour De France? They're not 'too tired'. You're quoting something that isn't a quote.
Re: Is the 42 year old bloke going to win the Tour De France? Their manager is discussing the fact that they may be too fatigued to keep up their level of performance. So they are 'too tired' (my quotations, not a direct quote of somebody).
The elite riders that compete in Le Tour, are all fitter athletes than the elite England footballers. Anybody saying otherwise is proper mental. But would I expect Mark Cavendish to be a better footballer than say Steven Gerrard? No I wouldn't. And neither would Gerrard be a better cyclist than Cavendish. They are training for an entirely different sport, which require entirely different skills. But Conan's initial point was valid. I get sick of footballers bleating about having to play 90 minutes twice a week. And the managers are even worse for it. We have a guy in charge at BFC who thrives on bringing it up. It's used as an excuse before and after games, to shy away from the facts. The facts usually being that the players/team weren't good enough. But I also think that Hodgson's comments were taken slightly out of context. Kev put it best earlier in the thread - must be a slow news day.
Re: Is the 42 year old bloke going to win the Tour De France? Too tired to play and not being able to maintain a level of performance are very, very different. In my book, anyway.