Yup I agree the reality is a GB side would be an England side these days
Ryan Giggs is probably the only player int eh last 10 years thqats non English that would have been a starter and nowadays only Fletcher from Scotland would have an outside shot at being a squad player in a combined side.
Late 70's was the best ever Scottish side and they choked really really badly (as well as having a terrible world cup song)
Amalgamation isnt really an option - also don't forget the stregnth of the Scottish side traditionally has been its teamwork and work ethic making up for less talent which doesnt translate well into a superstar team like a GB team based on England..
England has had issues with to many prima donnas (thats the perception) now as it happens I think English players do play for the jersey more than at any time than 1990 so I have a small suspicion they will go last 4 this year after that its a crap shoot and avoiding penalties.
Andy
ORIGINAL: warspite1
ORIGINAL: bigred
ORIGINAL: Andy Mac
grrrrrr Beat France home and Away and have Italy in our qualifying group and we didnt qualify unfair cheating swine we should be in South Africa <mutter mutter mutter> etc etc.
The ENGLISH are in South Africa not the British - Irish got cheated by the French and we Scottich just got screwed by a system that put both the previous finalists in our qualifying group and we managed to beat France home and away - did I mention that...
Not that I have a chip on my shoulder in any way shape or form......
If you GBs all living on that island would unify instead of having 3 different teams then maybe you would have a chance. I see the Scot and Welsh teams to have an attitude of "well we will just make sure England never wins by us putting a team out there."
Typical "Screw the Crown" attitude.
Warspite1
Wouldn't that be a rich irony - joining together the Football Associations of England. Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland just as politically the Union breaks apart.....
In answer to your point, it would never happen - I would be surprised if there was a single football fan in any of the four home countries that would want to lose their identity by joining together - nothing to do with politics - more about tradition. England vs Scotland is the oldest international of them all - 1872 - and these two are the oldest Football Associations in the world.
So worried are they that FIFA will force them to merge, three of the home nations are refusing to allow their players into the GB team at the 2012 Olympics - it will be an England team as a result. It is because of that fear of losing our individual FA's that - until 2012 - we have not entered a team at the Olympics since the early 1970's (despite this we still hold the most Gold medals - along with Hungary - in Olympic football [:)]).
Its always been an interesting pub subject though - who would play in a combined British (United Kingdom) team. Sadly, unlike golden days past however - Dennis Law, Ryan Giggs, George Best etc - I think there would be few non-English in the team at present so it does not make much difference [:(].
Austrian football just sucks, glad my mom is from the Netherlands (so I´ve got a national team to have my fingers crossed) and I´m only living 140 km from Munich so I´ve also got a club nearby that is playing succesfully. I know every team of the German Bundesliga as well as most players (probably each in their national team) but I probably don´t even know 5% of the Austrian players.
