Liverpool should play their season around England's matches. Brendan should call Roy, every so often, and see when the England lads are available to play for Liverpool.
But seriously - way way way too many international games these days.
I could not belief it this morning when I saw Rep of Ireland's qualifying game - against feckin Gibraltar!!!!!!!!!
Gilbraltar!!!!! We're talking a postman, part time fireman, solicitor and a life guard.
Something needs to be done.
I had visions of press gangs going round finding 11 males (it's Gibralter, so were desperate) that were young enough in order to form a team and a few holiday makers going missing each time Gibralter has a game in order to make up their bench, if not their starting 11. It'll be a new tourist attraction for men who play amateur league football at weekends.
"Come to Gibralter, see all the sights, and get to share the same pitch as the reigning World Champions, as you represent the land of your temporary home. So go on, be a proud Gibraltan for a day, and even the bird life will appreciate it by not cr@pping on you, your friends or your picnics for the whole duration of your stay".
The Euros has become bloated. What's wrong with running a subsidiary competition for all these 'smaller' teams/nations, with playoffs, etc and a two legged final (like the UEFA Cup used to be), with the winners going in to next time's 'senior' tournament and the worse non-qualifier from this time's qualifying group stage, drops into the subsidiary competition in 4 years time.
Then we could go back to having groups of four like it used to be. 6 qualifying games over 18 months.
As there is four years between the beginning of each tournament's qualifying stage, it would give smaller teams in the subsidiary competition 4 years to develop, the 'drop-out' team from the main competition would have 4 years to re-build and try to 'escape' first time.
Also, the weaker nations aren't going to be embarrassed as they would be playing teams of a more equal quality level, which would help much more with their development than being the 'whipping boys' in every game, where the only aim is to try and keep the score down as much as possible. That in itself is so negative and doesn't allow for any sort of progression and technical development.
The groups could also be arranged more geographically so that it reduced traveling costs for the FAs and more money to go into technical development.
Fans of clubs have a right not to have their team missing players that were injured on substandard pitches, or by shocking 'amateur' tackles, or by misuse from an international manager who only cares about squeezing two games from 'his' week as their manager, and sends them back injured afterwards as a result.
It should be mandatory that FAs have to pay the salaries and all associated costs for an injured player until they are truly fit enough to play again. That in itself would make sure that through pressure from their employing FA, managers would be more careful with the players under their charge.
Fans have to find such a ridiculous proportion of their income each time they attend a game now that they have the right to see a team at full strength, not decimated by injuries gained in international matches, for countries that most club fans have no affiliation to in any way. As the game is now so global that scenario is massively more in play at most clubs than it was in the 70s and 80s, and even the 90s.
