There
are few countries that can boast a level of competition as the one
found in English soccer, as England has one of the most powerful
championships in the World (some specialists even place it above the
Italian Serie A or the Spanish La Liga), a strong, but often unlucky
national team and above all, a long tradition and history with this
sport.
English soccer also holds numerous "firsts", being considered the
inventors of the sport, having the first soccer association (in 1863)
and forming the first national squad (this record is shared with
Scotland, since both countries debuted at the same time, in a match
between the newly formed Scotland and England soccer teams).
I have to admit, it's hard not to love and respect fans and players
from England. Soccer in English teams is based on a perfect combination
between public and players and it's quite a sight seeing a hard but
fair tackle on the pitch translating into an echoing cheer
from the stands. Some say that if you've never seen an English team
play live, you couldn't have tasted what soccer really means.
So now that you already had a bit of taste of England's soccer, let me
tell you what you'll be able to find in this section of the website. As
with most of the other sections, the "English Soccer" one is divided
into areas so before reading the full stories, here's a sneak peak of
each area to get your feet wet:
England
Soccer Team
With English being the first professional soccer players in the World,
their national team was also the first to form up, together with the
Scottish team who played them in the first international match on 30
November 1872.
Although the teams' traditional rivals were the Scotts for almost a
century, this rivalry was toned down with the continuous degradation in
power of the Scottish national team, the latter being replaced by
Argentina, or Germany when it came to rivalry-sparked matches.
Despite having a constant stream of great players in the squad, the
England soccer team only managed to win a single World Cup in 1966 on
home ground, and never had another final ever since. Click
here to read more...
Famous
English Soccer Players
With the amazing players the England squad had throughout time, it's
rather weird that they only managed to achieve one trophy.
To name all famous English soccer players would be a list too long to
read, so we'll stick to the likes of Stanley Matthews, who played
professional soccer until he was 50 (of course, the
competition during his time was less exhaustive), Bobby Moore who
captained England's team in the 1966 success, or Bobby Charlton, who
survived the Munich disaster plane crash with his club Manchester
United and then had the strength to help England win the World Cup.
More recently, superstars like David Beckham, Michael Owen, Steven
Gerrard or John Terry already signed the papers to be allowed in the
history book of England's soccer.Click
here to read more...
