This fatalism is reflected in the way that Trappatoni sets up his team, with Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews anchoring the midfield and McGeady and Duff providing attacking options from the wings. Doyle and Keane give the “little and large” combination so often seen in striking partnerships.
Is there a solution to end this eternal cycle of lost dreams, and disappointment? This (now) 45 years of hurt, and counting. I believe there is.
On the night England limped past another marker on their way to a summer in Poland and Ukraine next year, making hugely troublesome the negotiation of a Wales side ranking 113 places below them in the FIFA hierarchy, two of the teams scheduled to provide England with a preparative test after a now seemingly inevitable assurance of qualification, strolled onto Eastern Europe with minimal fuss.
Some football fans believe La Liga is slowly becoming the biggest and best league in the world. You can’t exactly blame them; Spain does posses two of the world’s biggest sides in Real Madrid and Barcelona, arguably the greatest player of my generation in Lionel Messi with Cristiano Ronaldo coming a close second and the national side currently holding onto the World Cup and European Championships with a smug grin on their respective faces.
Wales, team of the future?
Let’s be honest, over the years, Wales have been a bit of a bore to watch when it comes to football.
Two stories have gathered momentum during this early part of a breezy, cold and grey week: An alleged e-mail sent from Manchester City CEO Garry Cook to a City player’s cancer suffering mother, and a fallacy relating to Steed Malbranque retiring from the game to care for his ‘ill son’.
Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, or Ronaldinho to most of us, is arguably one the 21st century’s greatest players. A player who innovated the game as we know it today; a player who was influential in creating the current dominance by Barcelona in European football and a player who can boast two FIFA World Player of the Year awards to his list of achievements.
England and Manchester United fans would be enormously ecstatic to have seen Wayne Rooney score a brace that took the Three Lions three points clear in group G days after claiming a hat trick that sent Manchester United top of the Premier League table for the first time this season.