THE UNBEATEN RUN GOES ON!
Can anyone stop this seemingly unstoppable footballing machine??
The FACTS...
Well, since the somewhat disappointing/catastrophic conclusion of World Cup 2014 (disappointing? catastrophic? try telling that to Costa Rica...) England are COMPLETELY UNBEATEN/reborn/amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing. Seriously, look at the results...
ENGLAND 1-0 NORWAY
SWITZERLAND 0-2 ENGLAND
ENGLAND 5-0 SAN MARINO
ESTONIA 0-1 ENGLAND
ENGLAND 3-1 SLOVENIA
SCOTLAND 1-3 ENGLAND
ENGLAND 4-0 LITHUANIA
ENGLAND 4-0 LITHUANIA
ITALY 1-1 ENGLAND
...And, as Wayne Rooney said, the team has had some "great victories". The 5 goal San Marino haul was a particular highlight for me...If you can achieve a scoreline like that at this level, where there are no easy games (even against a side that hasn't won in 11 years), then you're basically World Champions already...
EIGHT WHOLE MATCHES!!!
As many as that! We can say then, with certainty, that England are much much much improved. Can't we? Or, maybe, just maybe, does it take MORE than 8 games to demonstrate improvement? More than that, was it ever an issue that England couldn't beat Lithuania? It's 12 years since England won a game at major tournament against a genuinely half-decent side. Whether or not we win against San Marino is besides the point. Getting to the tournaments isn't often a problem. The problem is, we want to think we've learned anything at all from the last eight games. Unfortunately, the way I see it, there's piss all to learn...
It Works Like This
You see a thing, you process it, you form a conclusion. You see a game, you 'analyse' it, you arrive at a judgement of what you've seen. Useless info should be treated as if it wasn't info at all, but we don't do that. We try to make something out it. As with England, all we have is these eight games of evidence, so we turn them into much more than what they can reasonably support, which is almost nothing. They are spectacularly uninformative considering they seeeeeem like an abundance of data...
One Good Performance
Against Switzerland, England did as well as they've done against any reasonable side in the last few years, and suddenly we were talked about as being unstoppable. If you take that result out, the list looks like this...
It Works Like This
You see a thing, you process it, you form a conclusion. You see a game, you 'analyse' it, you arrive at a judgement of what you've seen. Useless info should be treated as if it wasn't info at all, but we don't do that. We try to make something out it. As with England, all we have is these eight games of evidence, so we turn them into much more than what they can reasonably support, which is almost nothing. They are spectacularly uninformative considering they seeeeeem like an abundance of data...
One Good Performance
Against Switzerland, England did as well as they've done against any reasonable side in the last few years, and suddenly we were talked about as being unstoppable. If you take that result out, the list looks like this...
ENGLAND 1-0 NORWAY
ENGLAND 5-0 SAN MARINO
ESTONIA 0-1 ENGLAND
ENGLAND 3-1 SLOVENIA
SCOTLAND 1-3 ENGLAND
ENGLAND 4-0 LITHUANIA
ENGLAND 4-0 LITHUANIA
ITALY 1-1 ENGLAND
...Now, could you honestly say that twelve months ago this set of results would be remotely surprising? Beating Norway, San Marino, Estonia, Slovenia, Scotland and Lithuania, before failing to beat a pretty decent top-1o ranking side - is there anything new in that? It seems like an abundance of data, really it's just 90 minutes of something slightly different, and seven games' worth of coincidence. We happen to have drawn a particularly hopeless qualifying group, and we're beating teams that have an average FIFA World Ranking of 86.5 (Norway - 70, San Marino - 181, Estonia - 87, Slovenia - 48, Scotland - 39, Lithuania - 94*) - making it the equivalent of 6 consecutive wins against Mozambique (which would look something like this...)
...Now, could you honestly say that twelve months ago this set of results would be remotely surprising? Beating Norway, San Marino, Estonia, Slovenia, Scotland and Lithuania, before failing to beat a pretty decent top-1o ranking side - is there anything new in that? It seems like an abundance of data, really it's just 90 minutes of something slightly different, and seven games' worth of coincidence. We happen to have drawn a particularly hopeless qualifying group, and we're beating teams that have an average FIFA World Ranking of 86.5 (Norway - 70, San Marino - 181, Estonia - 87, Slovenia - 48, Scotland - 39, Lithuania - 94*) - making it the equivalent of 6 consecutive wins against Mozambique (which would look something like this...)
ENGLAND 1-0 MOZAMBIQUE
ENGLAND 5-0 MOZAMBIQUE
MOZAMBIQUE 0-1 ENGLAND
ENGLAND 3-1 MOZAMBIQUE
MOZAMBIQUE 1-3 ENGLAND
ENGLAND 4-0 MOZAMBIQUE
In fact, if you factor in Italy (10) and Switzerland (12), the average is 67.6, or, if you prefer...
*rankings accurate as of 12/03/2015
ENGLAND 4-0 MOZAMBIQUE
In fact, if you factor in Italy (10) and Switzerland (12), the average is 67.6, or, if you prefer...
ENGLAND 1-0 BURKINA FASO
BURKINA FASO 0-2 ENGLAND
ENGLAND 5-0 BURKINA FASO
BURKINA FASO 0-1 ENGLAND
ENGLAND 3-1 BURKINA FASO
BURKINA FASO1-3 ENGLAND
ENGLAND 4-0 BURKINA FASO
ENGLAND 4-0 BURKINA FASO
BURKINA FASO 1-1 ENGLAND
...And personally, I'm not that bowled over by a 1-1 draw against Burkina Faso (even if it was away from home).
Let's Just Wait and See...
Who knows where this journey will end? In triumph? In glory? Well, probably not. We don't really do triumph or glory. We've a history of making ONE major final out of all the tournaments we've ever entered. We've a history of making a further TWO semi-finals. Aaaand we've got a recent history of sucking quite hard. Anyone else who would just be happy if we made it past the group stage this time? Yeah, me too...
...And personally, I'm not that bowled over by a 1-1 draw against Burkina Faso (even if it was away from home).
Let's Just Wait and See...
Who knows where this journey will end? In triumph? In glory? Well, probably not. We don't really do triumph or glory. We've a history of making ONE major final out of all the tournaments we've ever entered. We've a history of making a further TWO semi-finals. Aaaand we've got a recent history of sucking quite hard. Anyone else who would just be happy if we made it past the group stage this time? Yeah, me too...
*rankings accurate as of 12/03/2015
