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Ok.Now most of us have seen all the Euro 2008 teams in action,my question to you forumites interested is,how well would of England done had of they qualified in place of Russia?.Our group would of been with Spain,Sweden and Greece.

Also with the attacking prowess of the Dutch,Portugal and Spain that we have witnessed,would of England's team been able to live with these teams going into the knockout stages.

I personally think we would of struggled to get out of the group,and the Dutch would of horsed us had of we faced them in the quarters or semi final.

It was interesting to see Capello's interview with the BBC yesterday.He admitted that he does'nt have the players to play the system that Spain,Portugal and Holland operate,and he also admitted that he needs a new formula for England.

With our world cup qualifier in Zagreb just around the corner,he better move fast as i can see another nervous 2 years ahead for England.

Funnily enough, I've just been reading this article from Rodd Little and I have to agree he's absolutely right:

From what I have seen of Sweden, they'd have flogged 'us' as well. We wouldn't have lived with Spain.
MIGHT have got a result against France.....they too, were piss poor!!

I too agree with Rodd Liddle,though Mike 'Porky' Parry lambasted Liddle on talksport this morning.This has nothing to do with 'lack of patrioism',which is what Parry was implying.This has nothing to do with no hooligans being there as there has been numerous incidents of trouble already at Euro 2008.

Like many other Englishmen and women,i want England to go into a major tournament as a 'hard to beat' unit,not a laughing stock managed by a clueless buphoon.Which would of been the case had of we qualified in 2nd place instead of Russia.

I forgot to add.Garth Crooks did'nt do the interview with Capello.Thank fuck for that!!!.

Exactly the point i'm making Ace.We just would'nt have the team balance to cope with the quick attack of Holland,Spain,Portugal(from what we've seen).Even the Czech's and Croatia would of troubled us.

This tournament is one week old,and many England fans are saying thank god we did'nt qualify.Except those 'fans' with St George specs,kitted out in Burberry or Stone Island and have 'Mum and Dad' tattoos !happy!.

They couldn't have done any worse than France,Italy(World Champions) have or defending Euro Champions Greece.

I'd say they would have
beaten Greece 1-0
drawn with Sweden 1-1
and lost to Spain 1-3

We would have looked leaden... drawn with any team we were expected to beat and well and truly stuffed by the rest!

I'm really enjoying this competition BECAUSE England aren't there.

Lost to Sweden(because we always do when grouped with them in major tournaments,however we would have scored first)drawn with Greece and probably been hammered by Spain.And probably just before the tournament Owen or Rooney would have been injured but would have been taken anyway because why take a fully fit squad when you can take a crocked player who might just be fit enough to play 45 minutes in the next round which we probably wouldn't have made anyway.Also bear in mind that HAD we qualified Steve McLaren could well have still been the manager.Chew on that for a while.

I'm afraid everyone posting in this thread could be completely wrong.

If England had won the last qualifying match against Croatia it would have been Pot 2 for England and Pot 3 For Croatia.

If you accept that the same draw would have occurred with straight substitutions (these being England for Croatia, Croatia for Spain, Spain for Russia), then England's draw would actually have been as follows:

Austria - England - Germany - Poland

I believe England would have qualified from that group.

Then faced either Portugal or Turkey in the quarter final.

speedybert said "Lost to Sweden (because we always do when grouped with them in major tournaments".

speedybert is wrong. England lost 2-1 to Sweden in the 1992 Euros but have played them twice since then in the World Cup and drawn both times, 1-1 in 2002 and 2-2 in 2006.

So only 1 defeat in 3 against Sweden in major tournaments, not lost always as was stated.