The last post is factually incorrect.
Hand of God in the 2nd round?? WTF? 1/4 finals I believe, England played Paraguay in the second round of Mexico 86. Didn't get out of the group stages in 82, I think you'll find that was the second round (group stage).
Also you have chosen to ignore the strength of the British sides in Europe in the 60's, 70's and early to mid 80's.
Not that I give a monkeys.
I'll give you the '86 world cup. My mistake.
But your point about the performance of club sides in Europe does't undermine my point it reinforces it.
The inital arguement of this thread was in support of the kind of club vs country bollocks that pundits have been coming up with for the last few years as an excuse for England not winning the world cup every four years. It's arguing that our club sides have got stronger due to the influx of foreign players to the detriment of the international side.
I think that's a load of shite because the international side are no worst now than they've been for the last 30 years, in fact they've been doing slightly better recently than they have for most of their history.
But now you've brought the subject up it's also worth pointing out two further points:
1 - English club sides
aren't any fucking better now than they were through the 70's and 80's based on their performance s in Europe - I can't be arsed to look up the stats but the tally of European trophies won when Liverpool were the preeminient club side is miles ahead of what English sides have won over the last ten years or so. This idea that the Premier League has become the greatest league on earth with the greatest clubs is just another load of bullshit hype.
2- The argument that up until the start of Premier League and the Sky deal millions English club sides were full of brilliant young ENGLISH talent is a bit undermined by a quick look at the starting line up for the last European cup final that Liverpool won in 1984
GK 1 Bruce Grobbelaar
RB 2 Phil Neal
LB 3 Alan KennedyCB 4 Mark Lawrenson
LM 5 Ronnie Whelan
CB 6 Alan Hansen
SS 7 Kenny Dalglish 94'
CM 8 Sammy Lee CF 9 Ian Rush
RM 10 Craig Johnston 72' CM 11 Graeme Souness (c)
That's four Englishmen in the starting eleven (and people make a big fuss about Chelsea turning out a side that only features Terry, Lampard, Cole and Wright-Philips).
(And before people start about Lawro being a plastic paddy, and actually being as English as Sonic, bear in mind that I'm letting you get away with classing Craig Johnstone as English when he was born in South Africa to Australian parents, and raised in Australia until the age of 15)
I know that's a one off game, but the Liverpool squad in that Fagan era and onwards into the Dalglish era had a minority of English players, the bulk of them being Jocks, Taffs and Paddys with a sprinkling of others from the further reaches of the commonwealth. There were several occasions during this period when Liverpool fielded sides that featured no English players at all. (But this hasn't stopped the BBC reacting to Arsenal doing the same over the last year as if it was the end of the bloody world).
Obviously it would be stupid to argue that there aren't more foreign players in the English game than there were 20 years ago, because obviously there are. I'm just saying that the top clubs have always looked to bring in the best talent from whereever they could, and that there's no evidence to support the argument that the national sides fortunes have declined as a result.
