God, those teams were so pretty to watch. Nostalgia trip for sure...Mancini!!!!

That goal was straight up Playstation football, ridiculous. It's all about Mancini doing about 20 stepovers against Lyon though.

he was the shit!

I like how you can clearly see Giaccherini getting ready to make a sprint to the corner to celebrate thinking that it was definitely a goal

I don't think I'll ever see a better example of "Well, that escalated quickly" than that 10 minute spell in the spurs/west ham game today. Yeesh.

If you live in England for five years it doesn't make you English.

The only people who should play for England are English people.

I hate people like that.

Junuzaj probably wants to play for Albania anyways.

aye

aye

Sad. That only further highlights the pretentiousness some (note the some, I know we have awesome, forward thinking English posters here) English people have towards their international squad - it's a squad of a bunch of world-class names, but they're not a powerhouse.

I understand its a tough pill to swallow having a domestic league that is, top to bottom, the strongest in the world, yet your national team is not a favorite for the wc or euros..but be serious.

I hate what I would call the Jack Charlton syndrome in International football.
I believe a player should play for the country he is a national of. None of this grandparents and parents shit. I have a British Passport (unfortunately there is no Scottish one), and I also have an Irish passport, but I firmly believe that I should only be allowed to play for Scotland. It's not that I am patriotic, I couldn't give a fuck about patriotism. I just think a person should only play for the team of his nationality.

I see where you are coming from and I don't like mercenaries in football. But if someone becomes a citizen of a new nation even if he wasn't born there I have no problem with it. Mario Balotelli and Panagiotis Kone are good examples. The only exception that bothers me is when they have represented their country on previous occasions -- like Diego Costa. He represented Brazil twice and now wants to play for Spain? That's a mercenary.

Jermaine Jones is my favorite international mercenary.

Especially because he wrecks shit on the field like an actual mercenary.

Though Aron Johannsson is moving up the list.

I'm completely with sirjock on this one. A player should have at least an identity to that nation. It's ridiculous that you should play for a nation because your grandmother was born there or because you lived in a country for a couple of years but still identify with the nation you grew up in.

International football serves absolutely no purpose if anyone with some loose tie to a nation can play for them and may as well been gotten rid of.

And how is this pretentiousness by the English btw? It's an opinion that's held byatt people in the game throughout the world. England are much more lax on who they allow to play for them than other countries.

I'm against the football mercenary as much as the next guy, but I have no problem with people acquiring dual citizenship and choosing which nation to represent. As long as their intentions are genuine it shouldn't be an issue.