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San Marino v England


Colinjb
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0-5 England on 42 minutes.

 

I can't actually remember us being this efficient against a minnow for... well... ever....

 

Yeah,

 

before the match I couldn't help thinking about when it took us 35 mins to break this team down in October, or when we reached half-time at 0-0 against an Andorran pub team under McClanger, but they've been clinical so far.

 

Germany put 13 past them a few years ago, let's see what we can do.

 

To put it into perspective San Marino's population is about the same as the town of Douglas on the Isle of Man.

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It was a terrible game really, this is a "competition" and there just isn't any playing teams like that. Kudos for a professional job by England though, but I still reckon we could've got a few more with different personnel. Baines and Walker were good at full back though. Ox-C had a good first half too.

 

This reminds me of a school match I played in, our 4th XI vs another school's first XI. There'd been an error in the fixture arrangement. I was a back up for the 3rd XI (right back/emergency keeper) and when this 4th XI game was announced, my mate, the 3rd XI captain, appointed me captain of the 4ths. We were a team made up of choirboys, rejects, people that had never played football before, fat people and Americans. There were 11 of us, no subs, and I had to persuade the 11th member of our team to play in football boots 2 sizes too small for him. Our keeper had no gloves, didn't speak much English, and most of the time didn't know he could use his hands.

 

 

We lost 10-1. I maintain that had I not been at centre back, the score would've been worse.:smug:

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Tonight's match was a complete waste of time for all involved. Set up a pre-qualifying tournament for the likes of San Marino, Andorra, Moldova, Malta, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and the likes. Top 1 qualifies for main qualifying tournament, the rest go home.

 

That way you'd get less pointless fixtures like tonight, and these smaller nations will actually gain something more by playing in competitive football matches where they actually stand a chance of getting a result, with the prize being earning the chance to compete against Spain, Italy, Germany, England....etc, rather than just getting walloped every time they play.

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Tonight's match was a complete waste of time for all involved. Set up a pre-qualifying tournament for the likes of San Marino, Andorra, Moldova, Malta, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and the likes. Top 1 qualifies for main qualifying tournament, the rest go home.

 

That way you'd get less pointless fixtures like tonight, and these smaller nations will actually gain something more by playing in competitive football matches where they actually stand a chance of getting a result, with the prize being earning the chance to compete against Spain, Italy, Germany, England....etc, rather than just getting walloped every time they play.

 

I dissagree.

 

These are sovereign nations and members of UEFA. Playing the sides like England, Italy, Spain etc justifies their existence. Beating teams like this convincingly is relevant as when two bigger teams are drawn into a group the goal difference will balance out, how you deal with the minnows is just as important as how you deal with the more established teams.

 

And as for the credentials of the smaller nations, recently Malta defeated a major tournament finalist at home. The smaller nations need the equal stage and exposure to be given a chance to develop.

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You lot are unreal, England have their best in in nearly 20 years and all you bleat on about is how much better it would have been if Lambert was there, yeah course it would. It was dull and effectively a training game with target practice but better teams than England have done worse against teams of this standard.

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Tonight's match was a complete waste of time for all involved. Set up a pre-qualifying tournament for the likes of San Marino, Andorra, Moldova, Malta, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and the likes. Top 1 qualifies for main qualifying tournament, the rest go home.

 

That way you'd get less pointless fixtures like tonight, and these smaller nations will actually gain something more by playing in competitive football matches where they actually stand a chance of getting a result, with the prize being earning the chance to compete against Spain, Italy, Germany, England....etc, rather than just getting walloped every time they play.

 

Difficult one though.

 

There are nations like Andorra and San Marino that have zero resources, a tiny population and no potential to be able to put out anything more than a village/pub team with one or two players that have experience of playing football professionally. Then there are nations like Azerbaijan who were no hopers 10-15 years ago, had potential and through competing against better teams are now conceding far fewer goals and are getting results against stronger nations. Earlier in the qualifying they'd have beaten Northern Ireland away if it hadn't been for a 96th minute equalizer by David Healy.

 

And on rare occasions shocks do happen

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXmla8IdsJo

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