What’s the point of a ‘National’ team and National identity if the Nationality of it’s personnel no longer matters.
The same applies to everything else regarding this unfit for purpose fake nation state and odentity.
Just as well you have an inter-dimensional passport to alternative realities and are not confined to this “fake nation state”, which I would emphasize is so important historically that countless numbers of people have given their lives to protect it.
Football is just a game, the national team’s Manager is just a guy in a job, managing a bunch of undeservedly wealthy young men whose main talents seem to be (i) getting paid to run around a field in short trousers chasing a leather spheroid, and (ii) in their spare time being a negative role-model to other males for how to behave in public and how to treat the 50% of the population that aren’t male.
As far as I’m concerned, just an over-privileged bunch of namby-pamby R-soles
(with perhaps the exception of Marcus Rashford, though I’ve been wrong before, I used to believe Ryan Giggs was a decent bloke until we all discovered he was long-term jiggy-jiggy with his sister in law - what a tee-wat!)
2 more items for my ‘Football haters Bingo’ there, cheers, I thought I’d covered it.
Thing is mate you either get it or you don’t,. . and if you aint a fan, you definitely don’t get it…and that’s it in a nutshell.
Football is a big thing in a lot of peoples lives, it’s a bit like religion, but without the kneeling down and imaginary beings.
It’s a standing joke in our house that our social lives, holidays etc are ran around Newcastle’s fixture list, …or whether England are in a tournament…
A lot of the time I fit them both together, my poor Mrs has been dragged around many major cities in UK and Europe, us looking for a bar showing a particular game.
She is a great lass and she just accepts it, and has been known to sit beside me at St James wearing a no9 Shearer shirt a couple of times, and in numerous bars in the past…feigning interest.
You say about (over) pay and talent, but that’s just it…you could teach Alan Shearer to drive a truck in time as good as me, but never be able to teach me to play as good as him and score 30 goals a season for Newcastle…it’s the (extremely) rare talent that justifies the money.
As for Rashford, I know of a lot of players who are, and have been, local to yourself, who give thousands to charities and good causes, but they keep a low profile in favour of telling everybody, and making a song and dance about it like Marcus F. Rashford.
So I have to “get it” or my view isn’t valid? I’d have to disagree.
Football is just one item on a large list of things popular with other people that I obviously “don’t get”. Amongst them, the popularity of: Taylor Swift, Sudoku, Reality TV, Cooking shows, shopping on a Saturday at the Metrocentre… All equally excrementous in my opinion.
Being popular isn’t sufficient to validate something IMO. X-hamster is very popular, but you shouldn’t arrange your family calendar around it
I was mainly referring to modern footballers; most of those of my generation seem to have managed to remain mostly well grounded: Shearer, Waddle, Beardsley etc. Gazza was perhaps a bit too grounded. There wasn’t the ridiculous amounts of money circulating in the game at that time. Shearer says he “blew” his first professional wage packet on a car. Was it a Maserati? No. Ferrari? No. Aston Martin? No. It was a red Escort 1300L 
(Note not even a Ghia model, or an XR3 or RS 2000).
If this article is anything to go by, he managed to avoid the A-hole lifestyle choices so blatantly obvious today. Shearer’s main characteristic has always appeared (to me) to be his monotone dullness, though you could argue that dull off-field might have been a pre-requisite for being so good on-field.
" He remains the Premier League’s all-time top scorer with 260 goals and was inducted into the league’s Hall of Fame in 2021 in recognition of his achievements."
I don’t recall Shearer being famous for dangerous driving
Nor did I ever read about him drink driving
Nor being charged with drug smuggling
Nor serious crimes against women (which the autocensor prevents me from saying the real name for)
Didn’t say it wasn’t valid, my point was unless you are a fan you will never understand the importance of football to some…or many.
It’s a bit like that religious head case who used to be on here trying to explain his pov to me, I did not subscribe to his beliefs, so I would never get it either…that was my (valid) point to him.
I do not literally run my ‘family calendar’ around it either, it only goes as far as a night out, or a hol, and tbf I have missed a lot of games because of those.
As for running it around Xhamster, (whatever that is ) Jeez that would be one hell of an issue that needed addressing.
You’ll get no argument from me about Shearer, the guy can do no wrong with me.
As for your Franglais esque list of links,…
Yep I get it, young lads, loadsamoney and spare time on their hands, with an open influential personality disorder, is a lethal combination in any walk of life, a bit like the guy who fell of the balcony, but tbf those cases despite numerous examples remain a rarity in proportion to the number of players in top flight football.
So lets just put it on the list of subjects we are never going to agree on eh?
Football is a thing that has given me a lot of pleasure and ‘pain’ in my life, but on the other hand I do not take it TOO serious, and keep a level head unlike a few I have known, getting into fights, and ruining family life etc.
Anyhoo must rush, Newcastle have just lost 1 0 so off to give the wife a slap
Joking btw.
Well, you better get with The New Order ( Der Neuordnung) of English National football, so here’s some something to get you started. Molto Allegro, 126 bpm, all together now!
Eins, Zwei,
Eins! Zwei! Drei! Vier!
Es kommt nach Hause,
es kommt nach Hause,
es kommt Der Fußball kommt nach Hause
(Wir werden weiterhin schlechte Ergebnisse erzielen)
Es kommt nach Hause,
es kommt nach Hause,
es kommt Der Fußball kommt nach Hause
Drei Löwen auf einem Hemd
Jules Rimet glänzt immer noch
Dreißig Jahre Schmerz Hat
mich nie aufgehalten zu träumen
I’ll be fine, I learned my German off this guy.
Completely forgot earlier (I was working) to put this on when we were on about Man U btw.
Ihr haus ist nicht mein hiem.Said in a Scweizer Deutsch dialect.
Fussball ist nicht komt heim.
Gave their lives for a Socialist Collective modelled on the former Yugoslavia you mean.
Jesus, you’ve even managed to bring your obsession with Yugoslavia into a football thread.
Surrey…
Nearest prem club, what?..Crystal Palace?
Are you a fan?
When I’ve been to games there are a lot of Southern accents going on when Man U visit, I think all or most of the actual Mancs support City going by their accents.
Pure glory supporters ,.cant stand em.
In fact I was in the pub this year watching a Man U Man City game…League Cup final was it?
Young local lads wearing Man City shirts ffs, one of them gobbing off in my earholes until I told him to shut the f up.
Then I remembered this kid is young and fit and a fraction of my age . it should be me shutting up.
Tbf though he did actually ‘shut the f up’, so I basically blagged it.…phew.
A mate of mine in Devon supports Man U…I mean,.Devon ffs.
I give him no end of (friendly) stick, suggesting that in the (very few ) events of him and his Devon mates, going up to watch ‘‘their’’ team, that they all dress up as 90s Liam Gallagher with their parkas, putting on Manc accents when they arrive.
I often send him vids like this when he goes up there saying these are him and his mates just to wind him up
Anyhoo enough about Man U.
Here’s Shearer and his mate’s reactions to the news.
Good common sense spoken from all 3.
In fact listen to Lineker around 12 30, it is what I have been saying, even when Gareth left, about Carsley and the job.
And of course EVERYTHING that Shearer says is true…that goes without saying, (not that I am biased in any way you understand. )
As I said, you have your inter-dimensional passport (I’m assuming its currently valid), you don’t have to spend all your time with we Earthlings.
Even with my self-confessed postage-stamp sized knowledge of, or interest in, football, I am still aware that Man Utd is essentially for people who have no other interest in it football as a fashion accessory. FFS I’ve had online conversations with people from Florida to Sacramento whose favourite “soccer” team is Man Utd.
Well at least we agree on that one.
As their own Roy Keane once said…‘The prawn sandwich brigade’.
How many tv ‘celebs’ with no connection to Manchester claim to be ‘fans’ of Man U.
Fans my arse, …how many times have they stood watching ‘their’ team when relegated in a lower league in the pi55ing rain on a cold night, draw 0 0 with Barnsley or Scunthorpe and the like for 90 mins or whatever.
None of them.
Just to carry on from our ‘ALL footballers aint A holes after all’ type conversation…
A nice gesture from Anthony Gordon yesterday, treated all the fans to pints in ‘The Strawberry’ yesterday.