Agree, international friendlies 3-4 days before the season starts is so ridiculous it's unreal, still baffled by it

Fully agreed. The sooner Intentional football is knocked on the head the better.

Couldn't care less about England national team, only care about spurs

Agreed.
Frustrating why players like Cazorla played 90 minutes on the other side of the world 3 days before the domestic season. Doesn't make sense to me, but FIFA will always have their way.

I agree about the friendlies but we'd never find time for qualifiers as our closed season doesn't match with others e.g. Russia

And if you have to have internationals get rid of that god awful England band. 90 minutes of God Save the Queen, the Great Escape, and I'm H-A PP - Y. Is that the image we really want to give to the world?

it seems to me that our clubs invest so much in their players and so many seem to get injured during these games and some have their careers ended
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The investment in players by clubs though is something that has rocketed because the amount of TV money and sponsorship in the game. Footballers, even back in the 60's for example, were relatively wealthy compared to the average man as clubs were more sustainable as most of their income came from ticket sales.
This has now completely changed with millions of pounds in sponsorship and TV rights every season meaning the trickle down effect has produced players and clubs earning lottery sized amounts on a weekly basis.

This is not international football's fault. Yes, some games are badly scheduled and injuries will occur but injuries can happen at anytime, anyplace and national teams shouldn't have to pander to clubs regardless of who pays the wages.
International football IS the pinnacle of football. Ask any player what they would prefer to win for example. International honours is where is it's at and still is.

Morning Gents , thanks for the support

It seems to me that whenever you see an international match you don't see Prem flags just League 1 and 2

Another thought maybe to follow the Olympic idea and just have under 21 or under 23 tournaments

Why does it matter? If a player doesn't want to play he can easily pull out or say he's injured.
Most of the players don't seem to mind about these.

Internation football is boring May as well give our players a Winter break like La Liga

Would we be saying the same if we weren't a pile of shiiite though?

Absolutely not. In fact it's people with opinions like this that are ruining football.

Last nights friendly was useful and was a decent game. It's the only time teams can have a friendly before the qualifiers.

Ask the players if they want it scrapped.

BahamasSpurs

Excellent response

I know we'll never get rid of it completly but I'm convinced with a shortened season we'd be able to get tourneys in for every closed season

the original poster makes a very valid point. i had no idea england had even played till i saw a newspaper this morning. international football bores me to tears.

Admins

Thanks for the multi board

If it get's in the way of PL football then scrap it!

Just have the quualifiers and tournaments

anyone who thinks friendlies are useful is havin a laugh

Friendlys are incredibly boring, it doesn't really matter who wins. On top of that half the first team players are always rested or feigning injury meaning you never get to test your strongest squad anyway. I wouldn't mind so much if we didn't play incredibly dire football aswell.

Metro

Agree , do you agree that only off season should be used ???

Metro_ (U6770)

You don't think last nights game was useful? I did.

Just have the quualifiers and tournaments

anyone who thinks friendlies are useful is havin a laugh

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Thats like saying no pre season at club level.....

Another Wicket in the Cricket

there's no real point in qualifiers though is there? have england ever had even a half decent team in one of their qualfying groups for a major tournament? germany in 2001 is the last one i can remember. it's usually the likes of andorra, azerbaijan and even kazakhstan. and yet the media still make it out to be a momentous achievement when england qualify.

Wrong Article

I don't understand how friendlies could be pointless? The media and fans would go crazy if we just turned up for qualifiers without playing a game, performing badly and then losing to Moldova for example. Everyone would be screaming "why didn't they have a practise game beforehand so the players could gel and the manager put together a decent team!"

Just doesn't make sense to me!

Get rid of the pointless friendlies so near to the PL season sure, but international football altogether? Nah. If England were as good as Spain we'd all be loving it.