Phil Neville

[Fez909]

It's a shame we didn't get the other brother. He speaks sense:

 

[Doctor Carrot]

The problem here isn't Neville. It's the fact that international football is actually a bit shit. I don't know why they keep referring to it as the 'highest level'. It's not. It's second rate, which is possibly the reason we've seen so many goals.

It must be hard to commentate on what is effectively loads of benefit matches.

You don't half talk some bollocks don't you, gabi?

How exactly is a tournament where all the best players from all the best leagues in the world play against each other to determine the best team out of those best players, 'second rate?'

The problem is Neville, he's shit but so are most commentators.

 

[Lord Camomile]

How exactly is a tournament where all the best players from all the best leagues in the world play against each other to determine the best team out of those best players, 'second rate?'

While not agreeing with the suggestion international football is a bit shit, I think it does have a problem that international teams do not play together as regularly as club teams.

To see truly great quality football you need to have truly great teams - not groups of players, but teams. You can see the difference at every level of the game between players who play regularly with each other and players who don't. Better players may be able to adapt to new teammates easier and with more success, but they'd still do better for knowing those teammates better*. So while these may be "the best players", I'm not sure if they're necessarily the best teams, and so is it the best football?






*why can I not think of word other than "better" in this sentence?!

 

[Doctor Carrot]

Yeah I see what you're saying and it's a fair point but it misses out the size of the occasion and that has huge significance, it does for me anyway. It's why you see such flashes of brilliance and skill in tournaments, both individually and as a team, in such a short space of time.

I confess I'm not an enormous fan of football, I do follow it but loosely. Tournaments I love though because it's there you get the end to end stuff, the incidents, the inspired bits of skill and so on. Of course you get that in club football but it just doesn't carry the same weight as it does when it happens in international tournaments. Like I still remember watching the 26 pass Argentina goal in 2006, I was no where special at the time just at home and on the phone to a mate who was working. I don't have that sort of thing with club football where I remember things like that. If gabi was talking about qualifiers or friendlies then I might agree with him somewhat, I still wouldn't call it second rate though.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Thought he was awful as a co-commentator but very good as a studio pundit.

 

[rekil]

.

Most sports commentary is though. When was the last time a commentator made you go 'wow, that's incisive'??