k-punk

Apart from 1999 - which, let's face it, was exceptional in all senses - United in Europe are no better than Tim Henman at Wimbledon. They go into the competition every year with over-reaching ambition, carrying unrealistic public expectation, and fail at the semi- or quarter-final stage year-in-year out. And that's no slur on Utd or Henman, who are both still the country's leading representatives at what they do, just a simple observation.

Whilst it is impossible to really judge this, I think you have to compare England to Tim Henman as well (1966 aside; curses there goes my argument). At every major competition, they flatter to deceive. I think would be a close run thing; with the club sides "team" advantage balanced out against Beckham's outstanding England performances.

I hate to contradict you there Mark, but Manchester United, much as I hate them are a far better outfit than the English National side. England don't have a striker to match Van Nistelrooy (and anyone suggesting Owen will be taken outside and shot), neither do they have a midfielder of the directness and pace of Giggs. Little things like this make a huge difference, United have at least two more world class footballers in their first team than England do.

Also back to your original post, I have to disagree about Ferguson, the man would LOVE to see the English national side fuck up...

As would I... for some reason I haven't been able to support the English team since I was about 12 years old when I realised that there were places in the world where football was an art rather than an industry.

England don't have a striker to match Van Nistelrooy (and anyone suggesting Owen will be taken outside and shot)

Shoot me, then. Owen has scored at every level, against the lowliest minnow and the highest quality opposition, under all kinds of pressure. Van Nistelrooy: let's see how he does in the World Cup - if Holland qualify, and if he's selected.

neither do they have a midfielder of the directness and pace of Giggs

Well, Gerard is pretty direct; so is Rooney. And, like most wingers, Giggs can be embarrassingly ineffective (it was only last season that he was being booed at Old Trafford, after all.) And Rooney can hit a barn door from ten paces, unlike Giggs.

Also back to your original post, I have to disagree about Ferguson, the man would LOVE to see the English national side fuck up...

I didn't mean to imply anything different. Ferguson has any number of reasons for hating England, it's true. What did I say that suggested something else?

for some reason I haven't been able to support the English team since I was about 12 years old when I realised that there were places in the world where football was an art rather than an industry

Supporting England is an affliction, not a rational choice. It's a delicious pain, a marrow-deep compulsion. And that's the way it should be: otherwise one would be like the cliched Surrey-dwelling United fan Kurt was implicitly defending, dressing up his desire to support the most successful team in the guise of a principled transcendence of locality. Supporting England is like supporting United used to be, in that interregnum between Busby and Ferguson, that wilderness of hopeless hope, keening disappointment and heroically idiotic optimism. Now supporting England and supporting United have polar-opposite motivations: you support United if you expect to win, you support England if you can hardly imagine succeeding.

Oh, and Philip, it's great to see you're still reading. Pity you're not still writing as much. I know I'm not the only one to be missing It's All in Your Mind...

much as it pains me to write this Mark - as a Man City fan - but United would, at present, beat England, i've little doubt about that.
as for the only other point i'm particularly bothered to make, YEAH - come back It's All In Yr Mind PLEASE!

Ahh c'mon Mark, Van Nistelrooy is already second top scorer in the all time Champions League list after only two and a bit full seasons playing there. And this, let us not forget, is a tournament widely held to be more difficult to win than the world cup.

Gerrard and Rooney are both good players, but Giggs has one thing Gerrard definitely doesn't have, and what Rooney is only showing in flashes, the ability to run with the ball and beat more than one man. Its an indispensable gift, and United would have been nowhere near the club they are without his services over the past 6 or 7 seasons.

As for Ferguson, I can't remember exactly what it was you said, and I'm too lazy to check... it was just something that contrasted his attitude to England with that of the board, as if he was a pure footballing man, and they were beancounters hell bent on screwing England at any cost.

Aah yeah, I only have room for Southampton FC in my instinctive support locker... all my other footballing devotion goes to the game as it should be played...

oh, and the prog thing interests me, though my time is limited... I have been listening to Rungren's 'A Wizard, A True Star' a lot recently, which would definitely get my vote as the most prog thing ever committed to tape...

As for Ferguson, I can't remember exactly what it was you said, and I'm too lazy to check... it was just something that contrasted his attitude to England with that of the board, as if he was a pure footballing man, and they were beancounters hell bent on screwing England at any cost.

I certainly didn't mean to say that; I was contrasting Ferguson's attitude to the board in relation to this 'globally visioned-brand' thing rather than in relation to England. I imagine that pretty much convergent in their attitude to England, actually.

1. Thanks for the link Mark.

2. Aaargh "football as it should be played" is a line of thinking which drives me mad. Football should be played *effectively* and the blanket privileging of the fancy-passing game is something which drives me crazy. An effectively played long ball game is very exciting...

How would we feel about someone who wandered on here and started talking about one particular style as "music as it should be played"? Actually, there's a fellow on ILX who does that (he's called Geir and he's unfailingly pleasant about his tunnel vision, I like his style), he thinks you can measure the quality of music by combining:
(a) complexity (i.e. number of chord changes) and
(b) how melodic it is (it's not clear to me how this is measured but I guess Geir knows).
In this model rhythm is tolerated as a kind of chassis for (a) and (b) but not encouraged, and rhythm-based music is not admitted at all...

It's the same thing.

3. Most football supporting sees itself as a kind of holy pain, hence the talismanic importance of the trip to Carlisle / Plymouth / wherever, the mythic status of standing in the rain on an uncovered terrace, we suffer in order to be admitted into the community, those at the centre suffer most.

4. Player-for-player England are probably as good as Man U but club football allows a depth of familiarity and tactics which it would be hard for a national team to get near. That's what I was trying to get at.

I have to disagree... there is a difference between me pissing about on a guitar and a Hendrix intro, there is a difference between me scuttling across the piano and Nina Simone playing. There is a difference between Zidane hitting a ball 50 yards and it landing on the intended player's toe, and an English player (Beckham aside) striking the ball that distance and vainly watching it skip out of play.

The football purely for victory variant to describe obviously exists, which I why I am thrilled with Southampton win even though they are a bunch of hod-carriers... but there is another kind of spectating, where you watch purely to see something unexpected done, and that is what I am talking about. Seeing a player do something totally unique, even if insignificant in the context of the match is a joy. I know there are people who can't appreciate a game in this way, for whom everything has to have utility, but thank the lord, I am not one of them.

Player for player, United are ahead in my opinion by a Keane and a Giggs, and possibly, depending on how he develops, a Ronaldo.

United are ahead in my opinion by a Keane

Nah, Keane's finished.

On the long-ball thing: I really love Tim's daring to say the unsayable and attack the prissy short-passing game. C'mon, we're all secretly bored by those oh-so precise passing triangles, aren't we?

Philip surely has a point, though. Aimless lumping the ball upfield is just as tedious. But at their best, English teams (and the England team itself) can combine the best of both: moving the ball upfield with speed and accuracy . Beckham isn't the only England player who can hit an accurate long ball; Gerrard is also a master of the raking pass (even if he wants to play the killer ball too often).

i think utd would win and yeah it has something to do with familiarity with each other and something to do with having better players.

I can accept the familiarity thing, but I'm not sure who the better players are these days.

Appreciation of craft-as-craft has never been my thing, in music art or football. It's all very well citing Zidane or Beckham or a tiny few gifted golden children but there's a whole world of football inbetween. A better musical comparison for most football "played the way it should be played" is pub blues bores: I'd rather see simple songs delivered simply than someone demonstrating their blues chops, refusing to see what's good about simplicity or that effect is sometimes more important than process.

Prem fandom / TV fandom is great and but I find it dispriting is seeing another tedious passing triangle dribbling out into touch and knowing that someone's justifying that with pseudo -moral "football played the right way" / the even more irksome "I have certain beliefs about football".

Experience says you're pretty much as likely to see something amazing after a decent ball into the mixer as you are after a "well-worked" set of triangular short passes.

Mostly I don't like people assuming moral high-grounds when it comes to aesthetic preferences.

Sorry, that last posting was me! (You could probably have guessed).

Well, I was brought up on the Brian Clough passing game, and have never really overcome my detestation of the Wimbledon/Jack Charlton Ireland load-in-the-artilery approach . Those England-Ireland matches of that era, some of the worst to be played in international football ever. But I do think that a British-style passing game, well-exectuted, is more exciting than allegedly superior Continental triangles. And don't even start me on Brazil....