The England football team

[chickenfeet2003]

frankie_ecap asked me to post my thoughts on how to improve the England football (soccer) team.  Now, as a very new rugby coach with the sum total of one season coaching juniors I of course am extremely well qualified to do so!  Actually, as far as I can see the England football team is so bad that I probably could improve it but I'm not going there

Comments

[topicaltim]

Cricketers occasionally step off the international treadmill for a winter (but then they might be facing the prospect of literally months of touring for the nth year in a row, which is notoriously hard on family life); rugby players do start to wind down when the body tells them that it can't take another season which includes international games as well as the assorted domestic leagues and cups (after all, nobody decides they'll tackle you 30% less hard because it's a domestic game); it's only the footballers who walk away from internationals at the age of 30 in order to prolong their massive earning power joy at representing their club side.

You're right, of course, for a lot of cricketers the end of their international career means it's all over because the step down isn't rewarding enough; the gap between Test cricket and anything else is massive. However, if you're a footballer, you might think a World Cup would be nice, but a clutch of League titles and Champions League medals will count for just as much; and the pay will be better...