The England football team is so important that…..well their Wikipedia page is the most edited among those of any national sports team. In fact it’s the only one in the top 100. Yes, the England football team is the 96th most edited Wikipedia page in the world. So it tells you how much world football matters in the U.K.
And the England football team is as scrutinized as any in world. So how are their chances? Well, no one, and I mean no one, thinks they’ll win it. But how about their chances of advancing past the group stage?
ESPN’s executive producer for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Jed Drake, lead play-by-play commentator Ian Darke, and match and studio analyst Steve McManaman participated in a media conference call today to preview the month-long world football tournament which comes around but once every four years. A lot of ground was covered in this hour long call, including the England football team.
STEVE McMANAMAN: “I’m thinking England has a real good job to be very honest. If we look at the two teams playing, and we look at the recent form Ian mentioned yesterday, Italy’s poor performance against Luxembourg. If you look at Uruguay, their very poor performance against Ireland the other day. Of course Luis Suarez, whether he will be fit for the opening game is another question.
“But I think going forward, everybody seems to focused on and everybody seems to be obsessed certainly in England with the force of Suarez and Edinson Cavani because they’ve got really good seasons. Likewise with their performance in Euro 2012 when Italy knocked England out of the tournament, and England was very poor.”
But the positive things for me is that Hutchens has gone with a very different squad for England. He’s gone with a lot of young players, a lot of enthusiastic players, a lot of quick, dynamic players. I really like the shape and feel of his squad.
IAN DARKE “It’s a fascinating group. You can say the USA group is a group of death to use the cliché. I think this one is as well.”
“As for England….It is a fresh looking squad with plenty of pace and youth about it. Ross Barkley may be the best England player since Paul Gascoigne … That is the question. He was super yesterday in his game, and then Roy ended up criticizing him after the game. Makes you wonder whether he’s preparing everybody to actually pick him.
“Sterling who got sent off yesterday will be okay for the tournament. They’re all really good young players. So I think England will either take the thing by storm and be a bit of a sensation for once in the big tournament, or they won’t have quite enough tournament nails. So as with everything else here, we can’t wait to find out.”
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a frequent guest on talk radio stations across the world. Banks has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including NFL.com, Forbes, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, ESPN, the Washington Times, NBC and The History Channel. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)