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Sven and the 'golden generation'

DC_Boy

New Member
May 20, 2005
17,608
5
I remember (prior to his sacking before the last World Cup) defending Sven on here and other forums many times, pointing to his impressive record, probably only bettered by Sir Alf Ramsey - maybe also Bobby Robson (who also took dogs abuse for much of his England career)

time and again I was told by people yea but Sven should be doing better, because he has such a great group of players - the (IMO) ridiculously named golden generation.

At the time I would point were Rooney and Owen any better than Shearer and sheringham - James any better than the Seaman of Euro 96, Terry better than Adams etc etc

The fact is the golden generation were ridiculously overhyped and Sven was ridiculously over-criticised because of many people's inflated view of England's players.

Of course there were other reasons Sven got so much unfair criticism, but the fact is as I said at the time the 'golden generation' wasn't and isn't that golden.

Incidentally after Sven got sacked and then made that ridiculous decision to take Walcott to the World cup, I stopped defending him. But prior to that the criticism of him and his all-round treatment was very unfair.
 

RussellYid

Is Better Than...
Dec 12, 2004
3,923
166
Completely agree. Golden generation? Does Gerrard fit that bill? He hasn't played well in an England shirt since September '01. Of course, he doesn't play well for England because he has to play with Frank Lampard apparently. Biggest crock of shit ever.
 

teddyboy

Active Member
Mar 13, 2007
1,070
3
It was summed up nicely on talk sport this morning, there are far to many suit wearing slap head wollies that have no direct football know how running the show. Sack the lot of um I say…!!

:bang:
 

LSUY

Well-Known Member
Jul 12, 2005
24,010
66,826
Sven deserved a lot of the criticism he got. He spent most of his time trying to find someone else to have an affair with.

World Cup 2002 - we took a lead against Brazil and sat back. You do not sit back against a Brazil team that has Kaka, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Adriano.

Friendlies - we lost to Australia in one of the most embarrassing performances in English history. Before Sven took over England friendlies were watchable but he soon changed that.

Euro 2004 - took a lead against Portugal, Rooney came off hurt, let's switch to the back up plan...no wait we didn't have one, so let's sit back again it worked in the '02 World Cup.

World Cup 2006 - we lost to Northern Ireland in another embarrassing performance. The build up became a farce when Sven agreed to manage Villa. England's performances in the tournament were lacklustre - we struggled against Trinidad and Ecuador.

Player selection - picking Theo Walcott was awful and what was the point of him selecting Andy Johnson if he was going to play him on the right wing?
 

RussellYid

Is Better Than...
Dec 12, 2004
3,923
166
Sven deserved a lot of the criticism he got. He spent most of his time trying to find someone else to have an affair with.

World Cup 2002 - we took a lead against Brazil and sat back. You do not sit back against a Brazil team that has Kaka, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Adriano.

Friendlies - we lost to Australia in one of the most embarrassing performances in English history. Before Sven took over England friendlies were watchable but he soon changed that.

Euro 2004 - took a lead against Portugal, Rooney came off hurt, let's switch to the back up plan...no wait we didn't have one, so let's sit back again it worked in the '02 World Cup.

World Cup 2006 - we lost to Northern Ireland in another embarrassing performance. The build up became a farce when Sven agreed to manage Villa. England's performances in the tournament were lacklustre - we struggled against Trinidad and Ecuador.

Player selection - picking Theo Walcott was awful and what was the point of him selecting Andy Johnson if he was going to play him on the right wing?

But in all of that, there are three tournaments.

What the hell are we gonna do in the summer of 2008!?! :shrug:
 

AngerManagement

Well-Known Member
May 15, 2004
12,518
2,739
YEs I have to agree, I fell for the hype and found myself saying Sven and McClaren are a disgrace look at the players they have at their disposal compared with those Robson and Taylor had.

But then I looked at the players TAlyor had during his failed Euro 92 camapign and World Cup 94 qualification and man for man have the players availble to Sven and McClaren really been any better (if you strip away the hype?)

I still believe that both managers under achieved in as far as they could and should have done better. HOwever I must agree that the deeper problem is our players are clearly not good enough, they are hyped and touted as some of the best players in the world...but the bottom line is so few of them play intergral roles in our domestic leagues top teams.

We dont have the quality of player that we should have and more so we dont have enough of them, there is no strength in depth. We should have 3 or 4 world class players competing for every postion in an England shirt.

At the very least there should be passion and desire for that England shirt, do any of the players really care about England like there predecessors of the <90s , today they a rich boys with no real fight. John Terry is hyped up to be a Terry Butcher figure, personally I dont see the same level of desire....he just looks passionate in comparison to the other players who really dont care enough.
 

Tryph

Active Member
Jan 20, 2005
2,558
14
Sven deserved a lot of the criticism he got. He spent most of his time trying to find someone else to have an affair with.

World Cup 2002 - we took a lead against Brazil and sat back. You do not sit back against a Brazil team that has Kaka, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Adriano.

Friendlies - we lost to Australia in one of the most embarrassing performances in English history. Before Sven took over England friendlies were watchable but he soon changed that.

Euro 2004 - took a lead against Portugal, Rooney came off hurt, let's switch to the back up plan...no wait we didn't have one, so let's sit back again it worked in the '02 World Cup.

World Cup 2006 - we lost to Northern Ireland in another embarrassing performance. The build up became a farce when Sven agreed to manage Villa. England's performances in the tournament were lacklustre - we struggled against Trinidad and Ecuador.

Player selection - picking Theo Walcott was awful and what was the point of him selecting Andy Johnson if he was going to play him on the right wing?

Do you really think that was Sven's decision?!?!
As per my comment in the other thread - sack the board. David Dein got his bum chums at the FAto force Sven to drop Defoe and put in Walcott (the 'saviour of English football' as he was labelled).

Face it, England are a bang average team and have been since Euro '96. Look at yesterday. How many World Class players? - one, Gerrard. And he is shocking for England.
 

LSUY

Well-Known Member
Jul 12, 2005
24,010
66,826
Do you really think that was Sven's decision?!?!
As per my comment in the other thread - sack the board. David Dein got his bum chums at the FAto force Sven to drop Defoe and put in Walcott (the 'saviour of English football' as he was labelled).

Face it, England are a bang average team and have been since Euro '96. Look at yesterday. How many World Class players? - one, Gerrard. And he is shocking for England.

Sven should have grown a set and told the FA that they won't tell him who to pick. Do you think Ferguson would have let anyone tell him who to select for a team?

Also we were average at Euro '96 as well. The performance against Switzerland wasn't good and we were lucky against Scotland (simply because of two brilliant plays by Seaman and Gazza). The match against Holland was the best England had played for a long time. Though the following performances were let downs. We lost to a not very good Germany team.
 

liewser

Member
Oct 14, 2004
315
5
Sven deserved a lot of the criticism he got. He spent most of his time trying to find someone else to have an affair with.

World Cup 2002 - we took a lead against Brazil and sat back. You do not sit back against a Brazil team that has Kaka, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Adriano.

Friendlies - we lost to Australia in one of the most embarrassing performances in English history. Before Sven took over England friendlies were watchable but he soon changed that.

Euro 2004 - took a lead against Portugal, Rooney came off hurt, let's switch to the back up plan...no wait we didn't have one, so let's sit back again it worked in the '02 World Cup.

World Cup 2006 - we lost to Northern Ireland in another embarrassing performance. The build up became a farce when Sven agreed to manage Villa. England's performances in the tournament were lacklustre - we struggled against Trinidad and Ecuador.

Player selection - picking Theo Walcott was awful and what was the point of him selecting Andy Johnson if he was going to play him on the right wing?


Given that he was manager for 3 campaigns, inevitably there are going to be some blips along the way. There are no untouchable teams in football - France lost twice to scotland this campaign, italy drew with lithuania, germany drew with cyprus etc etc these things will happen and yes sven had a few of them too. I can remember numerous, numerous embarassing tottenham defeats in the cup competitions, but theyre not held against a manager as a reason to criticise him months/years later - and yet people do this with sven.

You can cite games like australia and northern ireland as up there with the most embarassing in english history - but failure to qualify for euro 2008 far eclipses those individual games in the emabarassment stakes imo.

I'm not sayin i agree with how he went about it but at least he got to all 3 competitions, and to the quarter finals. The England squad has never been good enough have any devine right to beat Portugal, brazil, italy, france, holland etc.

His record is far superior to the managers before and after him. Question his attitude and committment if you must but these arent qualities that get u results, as we have now seen with macclaren.
 

DC_Boy

New Member
May 20, 2005
17,608
5
:) to the responses - especially to the responses that agreed with me- just to point out I specifically mentioned I didn't defend the Sven of the Walcott selection but he'd already been sacked by then. But pre his sacking his record was good to say the least

re the Brazil game when you're an English side playing in the heat of Japan it's quite likely you're going to wilt - as Sven said and it was obvious for those to see - that particular manifestation of the 'golden generation' was 'out on its feet' long before the final whistle.

One enormous disadvantage of any England side be they golden silver or bronze is that major tournament finals are played in summers - and when they're played in climates like Mexico and Japan, well even the 66 team wouldn't have won in those conditions.

It's no surprise that South American teams always win in South America and Brazil has hoovered up the 'neutral' continents as well as winning in South/CentralAmerica'.

England players are routinely over-hyped and then some people get surprised again and again when our golden boys don't knock them over.

As Bilic said 'I read in your papers that not one Croatian would get into the England team'. I think he called the statement 'ridiculous' - I'd add typical narrow-minded arrogance as so often displayed by too many Englishmen
You don't need much motivation as a foreign team when you come to England, just read what the media will typicall say about you.

Golden generation - pleeeeze - some good players, some very good ones, some undisciplined ones, some less than good ones and not one great one as far as international football goes
 
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