are you getting in world cup mood now?

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

still a way off i know, but in the walkabout(southampton) last night and had the pleasure of and england fest with vindaloo and three lions being played.

has brought me round to the realisation that i cant wait for it to kick off now!

also i realised vindaloo is a quality song!

 

[Goring Gull]

Oh yes, as far as i was concerned intrest in club football ended about xmas when it was clear the Albion were going down.

Bring on the World cup - also looks like Lampard is starting to hit top gear - Oh and Sven leave the scouse sicknotes at Home.

 

[bhafc99]

Starting to get excited.

Girlfriend has serendipitously arranged herself a weekend at her best friend's for June 10/11. She was nonplussed at my eager endorsement of this. At some point she will twig why I'm so happy for her to be away then, but for the time being the brownie points are racking up.

 

[Hiney]

Definately. Can't wait now.

I can't BELIEVE what it would be like in this country if we won it.

'Marvellous scenes' wouldn't even BEGIN to cover it.

QUALITY article by Alan Ball in The Telegraph today:

A nation expects and teamwork is the key to success
By Alan Ball
(Filed: 25/04/2006)

Your View: Football fans' forum

The night when the professional game honours its own has always been special to me. I know what it is like to be picked by your own kind as the best, as Steven Gerrard was at the Professional Footballers' Association dinner on Sunday.

Gerrard
Mersey pride: Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney

But, standing before them as guest of honour, I wanted to give the men who will travel to Germany some insight into the emotions that they will have to face head on this summer. For Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney and the rest of Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad, this is their time; this is their moment to seize.

I was 21, slightly older than Rooney is now, when the summer of 1966 began and when it ended my life had changed forever. The first thing they will notice is the feeling of responsibility; that you are carrying the weight of expectation of a whole football nation. It is how you handle that pressure and cope with an expectancy that is on you 24 hours a day that will define how you do in the biggest tournament in the world.

At the end of the 1965-66 season with Blackpool, I read the papers avidly, every Saturday my performance was analysed and the back pages would be rife with conjecture about whether I would make it into the squad. This year, the media coverage will be overwhelming.

I was lucky in that I came from a footballing background. My father had carved out a career in the lower leagues as a player and a manager and he drove me hard because he desperately wanted me to be a better footballer than he was. When I told him I was in the squad, he said: 'Now get in the team'. When I showed him my winner's medal, he was similarly unemotional. He said simply 'Well done' and told me there would be other games and other battles to be won.

But winning the World Cup is a life-defining moment. It changed us not just financially but in the way we completely became the public's property. What comes with it is the strange feeling that, yes, you are the best in the world and 40 years on, this is something another England generation could experience.

But going into that tournament Alf Ramsey's team were not the Bobby Moores, the Geoff Hursts and Bobby Charltons as you know them now. They were a group of very talented footballers, like John Terry, Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard, but it was what they did that summer 40 years ago that made them legends. They became a team.

What I wanted to tell Rooney and others in the room is that there is no other way to win but to sacrifice yourself for the team. People talk constantly about whether Gerrard and Lampard can play together. I can only say that they must - they are the best two midfielders in the country and they have to find a way of harnessing their abilities because England is so much bigger than either of them.

When I was preparing for the World Cup, Alf Ramsey came over to me and asked if I had a dog. I had, and he asked if I threw it a ball or a stick. I knew he was trying to get something out of me so I said 'a ball'. And then he said does he bring it back to you? 'Yes, and sometimes he brings it right to my feet.'

'That's what I want you to do for Bobby Charlton,' Alf said. 'I want you and Nobby Stiles to bring the ball to his feet.' He wanted the pair of us to sacrifice ourselves for the team. We did and we won and now others will have to do that for Rooney.

Eriksson has players every bit as talented as Ramsey's but whether they will win we will find out in Germany. But to win, to have that medal in their hands, they will have to cast away every trace of ego. There have been some fabulous sides who have not won World Cups - Brazil in 1982, a series of great Dutch teams - and they failed because they did not let their egos go.

England won in 1966 because they were a team and they could not have won any other way. That is the key message I wanted to get over to the Gerrards and the Rooneys on Sunday night because in their lifetimes there will be no greater prize.

 

[Goring Gull]

Thing is to win it Every and i mean every player has to be on top of their form. Wether anyone else agrees i believe Joe Cole will be the one who can win it for us.

At the end of teh day if Brazil are on their game no matter how well we play we will not beat them as only about 5 - 6 of there players need to be spot on where as everyone of our boys needs to be.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

[B. Wether anyone else agrees i believe Joe Cole will be the one who can win it for us.

[/B]

i agree. coming inside on to his right foot is very weird in world football as most nations can produce a left footed winger! so he can cause a real problem with his unauthodox style.

 

[Napper]

yes going to be amazing, constant hype in all the papers , the news dominated by football , even the tv adverts all about the world cup. Drinking watching England , the country being brought together.

I cant f * ing wait

 

[zefarelly]

no.

might do when I see a decent game tho

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Where on earth are you from?
We're from England
Where you come from
Do you put the kettle on?
Kick it
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Bonjour
Nah Nah Nah
Monsieur
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah
We're England
We're gonna score one more than you
England!
Can I introduce you please
To a lump of Cheddar Cheese
Knit one, Pearl one
Drop one, Curl one
Kick it
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah
We're England
We're gonna score one more than you
England!
Me and me Mum and me Dad and me Gran
We're off to Waterloo
Me and me Mum and me Dad and me Gran
And a bucket of Vindaloo
Bucket!
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
Vindaloo Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
Vindaloo Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
And we all like Vindaloo
We're England
We're gonna score one more than you
England!
Nah Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Nah Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Nah Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
And we all like Vindaloo
We're England
We're gonna score one more than you
England!
Nah Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Nah Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Nah Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Nah Nah Nah
Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah
Vindaloo
Vindaloo
And we all like Vindaloo
We're England
We're gonna score one more than you
England!!

 

[Jam The Man]

I want odds on Joe Cole scoring the winner in a 1-0 England WCFinal win... please?

 

[Gwylan]

When I was in Germany last week, it looked like the tournament had already started, there were so many posters, souvenirs, magazines, books, adverts etc. God knows what it's going to be like when it actually starts.

I can't wait...particuarly after I heard Mrs Gwylan say those magic words "I really like the World Cup" - no danger of fights over the TV then,

 

[Publius Ovidius]

Once the FA Cup final is out of the way, the Flag of St George will be proudly hung in our bedroom window proclaiming our support for Sven and the Boys.


COME ON ENGLAND


ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNEEEEEYYYYYYYYYY

 

[Skint Gull]

Not normally a huge Alan Ball fan but that's a quality article.

Very valid point about Gerrard and Lamps playing together, its very true that if they're the 2 best midfielders in England they HAVE to work together to succeed! No 'one or the other' situation, if they're both that good then they both play and learn to accomodate each other.



COME ON ENGLAND!!! :mexican: