Might it be something to do with the fact that we're in England. Only an idiot wouldn't realise that if you live in a country, most of the people will want that country to win, so build them up

And Argentina went out to the same team as England, but England did better than Argentina

According to you Uruguay are better than Argentina

Just because a team goes further in a tournament doesnt mean that they are better (take the FP tournys as an example)

Cheer up guys wel'l win the next world cup if not we can say we will win the one after

Just looked at pre-match odds for England v Germany and Argentina v Germany according to Bet365.

England: 13/8F Germany: 15/8
So slight favourites were us, only slight

Argentina: 5/4F Germany: 11/5
Argentina favourites by a fair bit

Just shows how much the MASSIVE underdogs tag the Argentines had

And Zak, remember Uruguay are better than Brazil

I didn't expect Argentina to do very well at the start of the tournament. They scraped through qualifying and got humped 6-1 off Bolivia in the process. To add to that I thought Maradona was just a crap manager.

However, once they made the knockout stages I thought they'd make the final against Brazil. I never expected Germany to beat them, never mind 4-0. The Germans brought back the reality that Argentina really are crap under Maradona.

I'm really glad Brazil are out for selfish reasons. Before the start of the tournament (I think I've already posted this earlier on) me and three of my mates stuck fivers on a team to win it. The teams chosen were Germany (me), Brazil, Spain and England. With just Germany and Spain left, it's good for me because I'd happily give up a fiver to see Spain win, I always want them to do well (because Scotland and Belgium never make it these days). If Germany win it I pocket 15 quid.

I can see a Netherlands vs Spain final though. The Germans have been "too good" recently, if anyone gets what I mean.

Netherlands v Spain, possibly the two best nations NEVER to have won a World Cup?

Can't think of two better ones that have never won a World Cup to be honest.

I would like to see Netherlands win the title now to be honest, 100% record all the way through including qualifiers

Yeah can see Holland or Germany winning this, 2 teams that use team work to win matches where as England, Argentina etc... were just a collection of great individuals who couldn't play as a team.

One thing to be proud of though, is that England's squad all play their football in their home country at club level, don't think many other countries can say this, if any!

Acctualy your wrong, look at the german league - they stick to 4 foreign players per team, so they have a wide choice of players to choose from, not forgetting they play with the WC ball midway through season so they got around 6months practice (although yes a few of them move around, but still look at English prem, could class arsenal as the french wc team)

Unluckily for England capello prefers to deliver the post before he thinks of England, dont blame him mind he should've lost his job.

Argentina got bigged up far worse then england, thinking that they could go onto win with just messi playing well for them they easily got the groupstage done as they had no real hard teams, i knew after a 6-1 loss with bolivia (with there world cup team)they would struggle against lets face it probs 1 of the best WC nations ever germany in the last 10 world cups they've only twice not hit last 16, and have never failed to leave the group stage. Yes it goes to show Maradona hasn't a clue what he's doing it shows by him leaving a few far better players behind

England to screw over the premiership to get a world cup or continue to struggle; lets be honest what would you rather? Just because of the money the FIA and FIFA make from it they have no intrest for the world cup, if we had all teams in the prem with 100% english players playing together within a few years you would put us up there to win a world cup, we would have almost 1000 young tallented people to chose from WHO WANT TO PLAY FOOTBALL AND NOT FOR THE MONEY which is the key issue IMO!

I didn't mean the premier league was all english players, I meant that all England's squad play their club football in their home country and maybe Germany aswell (not to sure if they all do or not), where as all other countries even inc spain who have a very strong domestic league, have players in the squad who play abroad.

Germany have majority who play for their own teams, but have a few like ballack who play for chelsea, but to be realistic if bayer munich showed intrested he would go back if chelsea let him go.

As i said further up, we need to forget the bloody cash in the sport, forget that we have the best league and focus on the youth players of tomorrow, if we dont get chances then how are we ment to get the team that will win the league when we have to go abroad to play?

What has Formula 1 and other motor sports got to do with it

All of Germany's team are home-based and all of Italy's team are home-based, although Fabio Cannavaro has recently left for the UAE.

Edited at 13:02 Mon 05/07/10 (BST)

He has recently joined Bayer Leverkusen, the club he captained to the final of the Champions League

didnt check up on him knew he wanted to move but just proves my point, and i didnt mean to put FIA was ment to put FIFA then put FIFA again, not all there today lol, but just goes to prove a point they try to stay in there own country

Jack Hobbs from Leicester City for CB position!

there are more english players coming through the ranks than people realize, it's just that they're not playing for england yet

jack rodwell of everton is quality. adam johnson from man city is also looking promising. i don't understand why capello takes wright-phillips to the world cup and not johnson, even though johnson has been keeping him out of the man city team since he arrived in january!

anyway, Spain to win now. Anyone but Germany!

are you a leicester fan?? HOBBS is amazing!!!

Italy's players all play in Italy too, apart from Cannavaro who plays in the UAE team Al-Ahli, which is probably because of the money

Germany who only have Jerome Boateng (Man City) playing outside of germany in the world cup squad, and recent call ups before the WC, Rob Huth (Stoke - Liam will love me for mentioning that rubbish team) and hitzelsberger (West Ham).

England have no-one, but would've had Beckham (LA galaxy)

I said the exact same thing as unkown_id a few pages back, about bringing more youths in and sacrifing the league slightly in order to have a bigger scope of english players to choose from.

Edited at 21:28 Mon 05/07/10 (BST)

already been said

agreed, there is a lot of english players, but there's not a league full of them, which their basically is in Germany and Italy, which is what everyone is trying to say... I think

Maybe not so much in Italy Rob, remember ONLY one of their players, Daniele de Rossi of Roma, is from a team that finished in the top two last season

true, but the vast majority of the league are italian, they have one of the highest percentages of home grown players in their league of any country and I know for a fact they had the highest leading up to their 2006 world cup win.

I would've thought Germany are ahead now, just!

(based on the big leagues, obviously the smaller ones are going to be crammed with their own players)