For all those World cup crazy FolK

[jayuk]

Louise

True say.....but I also think that Beckham knows that his place is now not certain in the team due to Lennon, wright-phillips even,...so I think he kinda had no choice.....but then he has made it clear that he still wants to play.....

Be interesting to see how the new Manager plays the team!....only concern is that will it not be more of the same, due to the fact that he has been under sven for sooo many years.....hope not!

[Louise]

I am glad Beckham hasn't completely retired from international football, his experience will be essential to the squad, if only for the younger players - like Lennon and Wright-Phillips (assuming he ever gets a game for Chelsea!)

I don't think the FA had much to choose from, McClaren, Allardyce (god forbid!) or Curbishly. At least McClarren has had the experience of working with the national squad & we can only hope he learns from Sven's many mistakes.

[Andrew MacLean]

Italy won

Germany didn't

Stranger and stranger .. you couldn't have written the script for this competition.

[Louise]

Especially going on form leading up to the World Cup and even during the group stages.

The current German squad was viewed as being their worst for some time, the French had to get half their squad to come out of retirement and the Italians have been far from brilliant. Who would have thought we'd see an all European final?

[Andrew MacLean]

I really think that all the press coverage of Mr Rooney's sore foot must have sapped the self confidence of the England team. They were certainly up to the competition but they just never seemed to hve the slightest belief in their ability to make it.

Anyhow, it will be interesting to see what happens next.

Andrew

[Louise]

Well said. It was disrespectful to the other squad members - although how Jermain Jenas is still there is beyond me!

I don't buy the excuses the media made about Eriksson changing his formations being to blame either. After all, most of the player play for teams who don't play 4-4-2 at all - Chelsea a prime example.

Anyway, there's always Euro 2008

[Andrew MacLean]

Ah but in Euro 2008 there may be more class opposition

[brigid downing]

Are you people still talking about football!

Don't you realise there are bigger crisises looming!!

It is the last episode of Dr who on Saturday, Supernatural has already fininshed and Cadbury's chocolate is being taken off the shelves

Forget football, heat waves and water shortages, they are just part of a government conspiracy to steer us away from the real issues - WE NEED TO ORGANISE PEOPLE.

Brigid

[Andrew MacLean]

Brigid

There does not seem to be a water shortage where I live.

Doctor Who is at a real cliffhanger and worried speculation will not save Rose.

I don't watch Big Brother.

We have an opportunity to either re-elect or displace Labour in the Scottish Election next year.

And we are not talking about football past. We've moved on to football future.

Did you see that Gibbs had left NCIS?

Andrew

[brigid downing]

We don't have a water shortage here either. According to the BBC yesturday Manchester was flooded

Fortunately no one round are way seemed to notice - we're 'ard up 'ere and 3ft of water goes completely unnoticed by everyone except some soft southern journalists

In fairness, Todmorden (practically in Yorkshire) was flash flooded a few days ago and we did have a thunder storm on Monday - which lasted nearly 15minutes

Brigid