Quitting International Football

Bcaddick

Recently watched a sports interview with a Canadian Hockey player who spoke about the “honour” to represent his country in hockey and called it his “National service/duty to play for his country when called upon”. Can’t help but think that is one of the reasons why England are so shite at international football. I do not think the player should have the guile/front to announce when and when not he can be picked to serve his country; it is not his decision. If you’re called up then serve your country. Just think this further feeds the poor mentality that obviously exists with (some of) the English players.

Steve Dowman

it's a game, not national service.

Bcaddick

Steve Dowman said:

it's a game, not national service.

It's his job...he gets paid to do it and has millions of kids watching him.

Absurdistan

Serve your country. LOL

ValleyGary

Oh look another dig at English footballers.

Garrymanilow

Bcaddick said:

Steve Dowman said:

it's a game, not national service.

It's his job...he gets paid to do it and has millions of kids watching him.

Except he gets paid to play for Liverpool, and if he feels representing England at his age will affect the job he does for them he's well within his rights to give the people who pay his wages all his effort

Bcaddick

Garrymanilow said:

Bcaddick said:

Steve Dowman said:

it's a game, not national service.

It's his job...he gets paid to do it and has millions of kids watching him.

Except he gets paid to play for Liverpool, and if he feels representing England at his age will affect the job he does for them he's well within his rights to give the people who pay his wages all his effort

You have a point there...at least he won't have to pull a sicky now when asked to play a friendly!

Bryan_Kynsie

What you do is wait until the chance of getting picked has receded to a level where "unlikely" doesn't do it justice, then "retire" which of course is always a "difficult decision". Thus you can kid yourself you are still important.

Surely even Woy wasn't going to use Gerrard in the Euros.

LawrieAbrahams

Bcaddick said:

Recently watched a sports interview with a Canadian Hockey player who spoke about the “honour” to represent his country in hockey and called it his “National service/duty to play for his country when called upon”. Can’t help but think that is one of the reasons why England are so shite at international football. I do not think the player should have the guile/front to announce when and when not he can be picked to serve his country; it is not his decision. If you’re called up then serve your country. Just think this further feeds the poor mentality that obviously exists with (some of) the English players.

Didn t Philip Lahm just retire from international football?

se9addick

You're undermining the people who really "serve" our country by confusing it with a professional footballer who has decided to play for one team instead of two.

carly burn

The problem is ,too many of our players get to an age to be able to "retire" from international football.

If we had any sort of a system worth it's salt,that could have a production line of decent players flowing through it, then these types of player would have been put out to pasture long before.

Norfolk_Addick

I don't like it when they retire. I don't see why they can't just have a quiet word the manager and say I'm getting on a bit so won't be able to keep up with both club and country, but if there's an important game and there are injuries and I'm needed then you can pick me.

dizzee

I don't know... I'm just glad to see Gerrard out of the England team.

tangoflash

I can see his logic. I retired from international football at the age of 21. I finally hung up my boots 23 years later. I really don't think I could have played on for so long if I was being dragged around the world, constantly under-performing.


Coincidence? I think not....................................

kentaddick

carly burn said:

The problem is ,too many of our players get to an age to be able to "retire" from international football.

If we had any sort of a system worth it's salt,that could have a production line of decent players flowing through it, then these types of player would have been put out to pasture long before.

which is exactly what happened with the likes of scholes who retired because he saw the youngsters gerrard and lampard breathing down his neck.

Dave2l

Gerrard is/was an England player that carries bad memories of dissapointing games and tournements.

It becomes a psychological thing.

Good player...but you will never see him with a smile on his face in the england camp.

We need to allow the fresh un-hurt batch to come through...even if they are crap.

Fiiish

I do get the impression that footballers, more than other athletes, are club-first, country-second. There are various exceptions but compare them to rugby union players who often wrangle with the difficult decision to play for an overseas club that would render them ineligible for international duty, and many players do put off going abroad for more money because they want to pursue glory for the national team.

I'm not an expert in the training regimes of either the English football or rugby national teams, but I am also under the impression that players currently named in the national rugby team meet up and train far more often than the footballers do. Can anyone give any factual assessment as to how often England football players train outside of the run-up to tournaments or qualifiers, and how far in advance of a qualifier do they start training? You look at how the Germans played at the World Cup and they definitely looked like a well-drilled team that knew each other well, whereas some of the linking up of the England team at the World Cup was almost like some of players had only just started training together the day before.

Clubs & managers should be banned from giving pressure to either the FA to not pick their best players, or their players to request not to be picked. This seems to be happening more and more. It'd be hard to enforce this on clubs not based in England but the FA is in a rather unique position in that almost all England players that have been picked in the last few years play for English clubs.

cafctom

Maybe the poor mentality associated with England is contributed to by the tons of "supporters" who look for any reason to slag them off. Just saying.

LenGlover

Fiiish said:

I do get the impression that footballers, more than other athletes, are club-first, country-second. There are various exceptions but compare them to rugby union players who often wrangle with the difficult decision to play for an overseas club that would render them ineligible for international duty, and many players do put off going abroad for more money because they want to pursue glory for the national team.

I'm not an expert in the training regimes of either the English football or rugby national teams, but I am also under the impression that players currently named in the national rugby team meet up and train far more often than the footballers do. Can anyone give any factual assessment as to how often England football players train outside of the run-up to tournaments or qualifiers, and how far in advance of a qualifier do they start training? You look at how the Germans played at the World Cup and they definitely looked like a well-drilled team that knew each other well, whereas some of the linking up of the England team at the World Cup was almost like some of players had only just started training together the day before.

Clubs & managers should be banned from giving pressure to either the FA to not pick their best players, or their players to request not to be picked. This seems to be happening more and more. It'd be hard to enforce this on clubs not based in England but the FA is in a rather unique position in that almost all England players that have been picked in the last few years play for English clubs.

Now that Rugby Union is professional, although players are still contracted to clubs rather than centrally, England (and other countries where applicable) takes priority during the international season. Rather like cricket but in cricket the players are contacted centrally and released to their own (or other in some instances) counties if thought beneficial for them to be.

The difference between football and rugby union when it comes to the national side is that football clubs have had 100 plus years of calling the shot whereas rugby union is still evolving in its professional form and the administrators have had the foresight to factor in national sides.

I daresay selling its soul to Sky hasn't helped football either with national teams.

Bcaddick

cafctom said:

Maybe the poor mentality associated with England is contributed to by the tons of "supporters" who look for any reason to slag them off. Just saying.

Maybe you have a point. I just question how a professional football player is able to choose when he is available to represent his country.

thai malaysia addick

I decided when I was 50 that I was no longer available for international football. I wanted more time with family.

Fiiiiiish

What's worse is them retiring, then coming back out of retirement when a tournament is close.

Even worse than that is if that player is complete pony ala Carrick.

If you are retired, stay retired.

PeakieRocket

Technically I don't think you can retire from international football. Pretty sure the rule is that if you get selected you have to accept or receive footballing ban?

Seem to remember something similar happening with Claude Makelele and France, where he got selected after announcing his retirement. In the end he played for France to avoid punishment from FIFA.

cafctom

Bcaddick said:

cafctom said:

Maybe the poor mentality associated with England is contributed to by the tons of "supporters" who look for any reason to slag them off. Just saying.

Maybe you have a point. I just question how a professional football player is able to choose when he is available to represent his country.

Easy - it is their career and they can dictate where they want it to go if they are good enough. Players like Gerrard have to look after their bodies when they get to a certain age. If that sort of thing wasn't an issue then I'm sure he would be happy to carry on. He clearly has pride in representing England.

Liverpool FC hasn't just been his club for all these years - it has been his life. He feels as though he has to take the necessary steps to repay them to make sure he is fully fit for all of their games and so he can play to an optimum. Travelling down to London to play in meaningless friendlies and qualifiers against San Marino doesn't help him to do that.

Its not an ideal choice to have to make, but then again playing for England is nowhere near as prestigious as it was even 10 years ago.

ColinTat

I'd retire if the manager forced me to play left midfield whilst Lampard and Gerrard went walkabouts in the middle. Oh two midfielders who aren't good enough to forget about positional discipline in internatioal footy: mainly as they don't have Makelele or Didi Hamman to control a match for them.

It's not fully their fault as England seem to think they can play without energetic dms and go one on one across the pitch. Great servants in qualifying. It should absolutely be up to them when they stop.

JiMMy 85

PeakieRocket said:

Technically I don't think you can retire from international football. Pretty sure the rule is that if you get selected you have to accept or receive footballing ban?

Seem to remember something similar happening with Claude Makelele and France, where he got selected after announcing his retirement. In the end he played for France to avoid punishment from FIFA.

Oh that's interesting. Maybe that's why they call it making oneself 'unavailable for selection'. 'Sure you could pick me by the letter of the law, but treat me like I'm injured and of no use to you.' It's an arbitrary conceit regardless! Personally, I think it's utterly fair to retire whenever the player wishes. Scholes cited it as a reason for playing on as long as he did. Shearer too. That's up to them. Who the hell are we to tell a player he HAS to play?!