What happened to England's golden era?

England had a golden surplus in certain positions and droughts in other positions but no idea how to change their formation and tactics to use the surplus players effectively. They could have played Lampard , Gerrard and Scholes centrally with fluid positions, and made changes elsewhere. They needed to be innovative the tempations of having Beckham for his set pieces and crosses with a tall striker added a threat but also made the others a lot less effective.

Exactly!!!! England has move to a far more technical playing style then relying on Physical strength of the 2000s golden generation. There are some special players playing in the national youth teams in the last 3-4 years. I lived in England where the likes of Byran Robson was more appreciated then Glann Hoddle.

You need to look at the 2017/18 youth teams for the real English golden generation.

Ok, fair enough. Even before when he first emerged at Leicester City, even before the Cinderella EPL success, I could see he was a different sort of player though, one who should've even then have been a regular England player. I don't think they ever utilised guys like Vardy enough.

Vardy is semi-retired from international football.

Yes I agree, that England are currently more realistic to do well at soccer tournaments than historically. Going back to what I said to you originally, their arrogance and feelings of superiority harmed them, and I've noticed they seem to be more humble these days.

If you're labelling those facts I told you "excuses" then there's no point even discussing it with you, as you're too childish and stubborn to listen. England's cricket teams in recent years have resorted to poaching foreigners to prop them up. The past 20 years has seen a massive influx of South Africans, they've poached Irish cricketers, ironically an Irishman even raised the world cup as captain...for England! :shocked: Currently one of their fast bowling young guns is a born and bred product of the West Indies, but through a quirk of heritage and citizenship, he can play for England. English cricket heavily relies on foreigners to prop them up.

The problem is England aren't pragmatic when selecting teams. Lampard & Gerrard are the same sort of attack minded goal scorers who will struggle to gel. One of the best English players I've seen is a guy called Jamie Vardy who: scores goals, assists goals, chases and pressurises defenders leading to turnovers, runs all day and never gives up, does any job well, yet can't even get a regular spot for England! :shocked:

So basically everything Aussies are second best at , you’ve made up an excuse . The recent World Cup , Australia flopped badly to England in the semi finals, hence giving England a chance to win the cup . Must be that superiority that scared Australia . Or maybe the mature outlook , is that England is producing very good sports players in recent years, they’re preparation for cricket World Cup was excellent, best team the previous 4 years, no fluke . And way back to the start , this current England soccer team is actually a realistic top 2-3 favourite fir the euros , they have skilled players, speed , size and I think some big game nous ( time will tell ) unlike the teams of Beckham era who had good individuals but not a great team .

And Cricket? Australia has a comfortable head to head lead in both Tests and ODI’s. England won their first world cup recently due to tying the final…then tying the super over that was supposed to decide the winner! :silly: So they HAVE a world cup, but they haven’t even won a final. meanwhile Australia has won 5! Yes, we haven’t won an Ashes in England recently, but England has for a lot of their history struggled to win Ashes series in Australia.

And why didn't you mention something like tennis? :silly:

Australia has usually beaten England at Olympics/Commonwealth Games. Massive investment prior to the London 2012 Olympic Games has brought the UK forward to match Australia. Rugby union? Australia has double the world cups England does even though that's easily the smallest of 4 professional football codes played in Australia, with most aussies not caring or even knowing(!) about the sport! Cycling? We match up well with cycling, and it took an aussie to win the Tour de France befor the brits pulled their fingers out. Motorsport? That's a difficult one as motorsport is heavily biased towards Europeans, and specifically the brits, with the majority of F1 teams located in England all within a 100 miles of London. It takes a lot of personal/family wealth (Daniel Ricciardo) or outside intervention with decent sponsorship (Mark Webber) to get Aussies involved in high level motorsport, with most of those requiring an individual relocating to Europe to compete in their categories. Aussies/kiwis/ South Americans etc are up against it in motorsport as Europeans have a natural advantage across several categories of motorsport.

The problem is all these foreign players make the English players look better than what they are. As you pointed out, you'd kill for a player like Mascherano. England has a very attacking philosophy with not so much emphasis on defending. They don't produce those great defensive players, with Hargreaves basically playing in the Bundesliga for huge amounts of his career. The problem for England is that even when they look good, and look like scoring, the opposition always look like scoring too.

Born and bred in Nsw , I just called out your comment which was the Aussie ego that shows cringeworthy arrogance I support anyone but England but Check your motor racing , athletics , cycling , Olympic medals for England and Australia recently . Rugby , England are miles ahead of the wallabies Cricket,, England world champs , Australia hadn’t won an ashes in England for 18 years

And England doesn't "sh.t on Australia at soccer and most sports", that's a ludicrous statement, and is categorically untrue when looking at history Kanggas2. I assume you're one of these arrogant English migrants I was referring to, making such a ridiculous statement like that! :shocked:

That's a very personal and spiteful message Kanggas2, looks like I hit a nerve. My post was influenced by my own personal experience with English migrants who flocked to Perth in the early 90's, and the same attitude my father experienced from several other English migrants through several of his anecdotes dating back to the 50's and 60's , who came to Australia with a weird superiority complex, and constant putdown of Australian soccer and soccer supporters. Kids growing up in Perth in the 90's, either born here to British migrants, or came here at an early age, were all decked out in England soccer jerseys.....despite either being born here or growing up here with aussie accents, really a weird phenomenon to observe!

Throwing lots of mud there micko , very arrogant superior Aussie attitude and typical of the tripe you post on every blog . Unfortunately England sh.ts on Australia at soccer and most sports . England performed exactly to their ability as a top 16 team in that period , which is what I pointed out as they went out in quarter finals. Portugual were the biggest flop of that era , and Holland blew it in 2000 But you’ve been over there apparently( we all have ) so you know everything thing about football.

The huge hole here (excuse the pun) is that there was never a holding midfielder. We had Hargreaves and Carrick during this period, but neither peaked/featured as regulars during these tournaments. Gerrard was a great player with Mascherano/Alonso next to him but as World Cup 2014/Liverpool 2013-14(Demba Ba) or Euro 04 showed - when he had to play the holding role he was a liability. Lampard also didn’t play there. If England had Javi Mascherano, Lampard and Gerrard in a 3 man midfield - they could have at least made some finals , but unfortunately Mascherano was Argentinian!

The fact is you need to beat those teams to win major tournaments, and England repeatedly can't do it. There's an issue there that they don't step up when it counts, they seem to be psychologically weak. There's an inherent arrogance and superiority complex there.