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England National Football Team

Head coach: Steve McClaren
Captain: John Terry
Top scorer: Bobby Charlto
FIFA ranking: 8

The English national men's football team represents England in international men's football and is controlled by The Football Association, the governing body for football in England. Although it is a Home Nation of the United Kingdom, England is represented by its own side that plays in all the major professional tournaments, with the exception of the Olympic Games as the IOC only recognises Great Britain as a whole.

England are the most successful of the four Home Nations, having won the British Home Championship 54 times and the FIFA World Cup once when they hosted it in 1966. They have never won the UEFA European Football Championship, but have been semi-finalists twice.

Traditionally, England's greatest rivals have been Scotland.[2] England's most recent meeting with Scotland was the second leg of the Euro 2000 play-offs in November 1999, which Scotland won 1-0 at the old Wembley Stadium. Since regular fixtures against Scotland came to an end in the late 1980s, other rivalries have become more prominent. Rivalries with Argentina and Germany have produced particularly eventful encounters.

The England national football team is the oldest in the world, alongside Scotland. The two countries first played in the first international match, at Hamilton Crescent in Partick, Scotland on 30 November 1872.[3] Over the next forty years, England played exclusively with the other three Home nations - Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The games were made competitive with the British Home Championship from 1883 to 1984.

Before the Wembley Stadium was opened, England had had no permanent home ground. England joined FIFA in 1906, playing its first ever game outside the British Isles in 1908. However, the relationship between the two were strained, resulting in the British nations' departure from FIFA in 1928, before rejoining in 1946. As a result, England did not compete in a World Cup until 1950, in which they were humiliated in a 1-0 defeat against the United States, failing to get past the first round. A 6-3 loss in 1953 to Hungary was England's first ever defeat to a non-British team at Wembley and confirmed the end of English claims to dominate world football.

Although Walter Winterbottom was appointed as the first ever full time manager in 1946, the team was still picked by acommittee until Alf Ramsey took over in 1963. Under Ramsey, England experienced its greatest ever success, winning the 1966 World Cup Final against West Germany 4-2 after extra time. Geoff Hurst famously scored a hat-trick in the final. The 1966 World Cup was also held in England. After this victory, the fortunes of England declined and it was unsuccessful in the 1970s, qualifying for no tournaments at all. In 1982, England under Ron Greenwood qualified for 1982 World Cup in Spain after a 12-year absence and were eliminated from the second round without losing a match. The team under Bobby Robson fared better as England reached the quarter finals of the 1986 World Cup and finished fourth in the tournament four years later, which was the best performance in the World Cup since 1966.

Graham Taylor's short reign as Robson's successor ended after his England failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, but then the 1996 European Championships were held in England, and under new coach Terry Venables the team had its best performance at a European Championship, reaching the semi-final. The England team of the 1990s and 2000s has been consistently in football's top twenty countries, but failed to progress beyond the quarter finals of any international tournament, and has had a quick turnover of coaches, with both Glenn Hoddle and Kevin Keegan lasting little more than two years each in the role. Sven-Göran Eriksson, in charge from 2001 to 2006, was notable as the first non-English manager of England.

Steve McClaren is the new head coach, with John Terry his choice to replace David Beckham as captain. The revised management team now features Terry Venables, the former head coach. Beckham was left out of McClaren's first international squad for the friendly match against Greece on 16 August 2006, and was not recalled until the friendly against Brazil on 1 June 2007, almost a year later.

After a good start with three straight victories against Greece, Andorra, and Macedonia, England had a goalless draw against the same Macedonia side on home ground, followed by a 2-0 defeat to Croatia in Zagreb, which ended Paul Robinson's run of six consecutive clean sheets for his country. This defeat was the worst competitive defeat suffered by England in almost exactly thirteen years, since the loss to Holland by the same score in the qualifying matches for the 1994 World Cup. England's unimpressive form continued as they lost 1-0 to Spain in a friendly match, with the cold and disappointed crowd booing off the home side at the final whistle. England's return to competitive football in March 2007 resulted in a disappointing 0-0 draw in Tel Aviv against Israel with yet another jeering and booing from English fans.

On 28 March 2007, England finally ended their goal drought thanks to a goal in the 54th minute of their match against Andorra by Steven Gerrard. The match ended with a 3-0 win for England, with the second goal by Gerrard and a very close-range goal from David Nugent, ending their run of 5 games without a win. England were heavily booed off the pitch at half-time by a primarily English crowd, angry at their team's failure to score in the first-half. However, even after scoring there were still loud chants off "We want McClaren out" and "There's only one David Beckham" (in reference to McClaren's afore-mentioned dropping of Beckham from the team in August 2006), as well as continued booing at the final whistle. It should be emphasised that the crowd's disappointment was a combined result of England's poor form in previous games and the under par performance of an England team, ranked 6th in the March 2007 FIFA World Rankings,[4] in a game against an Andorran team (mostly made up of part-time players) ranked 157 places below them in 163rd position.

On June 1 England took on Brazil at Wembley Stadium, seven years after the old stadium was demolished. McClaren recalled Beckham after 11 months away from the international squad, and after an even first half, captain John Terry latched on to a free-kick from Beckham, his predecessor as skipper, to score the first full international goal at the new Wembley. The Brazilians equalized with just 30 seconds remaining to level the match at 1-1. Following the friendly in Wembley, England met Estonia in the Euro 2008 qualifiers on June 6. Goals by Joe Cole, Peter Crouch and Michael Owen, the latter two assisted by the recalled Beckham, led to a 3-0 victory against Estonia in Tallinn, bringing England back up to 3 points behind Croatia in the group.

England Team
No.	NAME	POS	Height	Weight	Age
1	Paul Robinson	G	6-4	198	27
13	Scott Carson	G	6-0	189	21
22	Robert Green	G	6-3	205	27
2	Wes Brown	D	6-1	170	27
3	Nicky Shorey	D	5-9	148	26
3	Wayne Bridge	D	5-10	179	26
5	Ledley King	D	6-2	190	26
6	John Terry	D	6-1	201	26
12	Jamie Carragher	D	6-1	168	29
15	Phil Neville	D	5-11	165	30
4	Steven Gerrard	M	6-1	183	27
7	David Beckham	M	6-0	165	32
8	Frank Lampard	M	6-0	198	29
11	Joe Cole	M	5-9	161	25
14	Jermaine Jenas	M	5-10	168	24
15	Kieron Dyer	M	5-8	141	28
16	Stewart Downing	M	5-11	141	22
16	Michael Carrick	M	6-0	163	25
18	David Bentley	M	5-9	150	22
9	Peter Crouch	S	6-6	165	26
10	Michael Owen	S	5-8	154	27
17	Alan Smith	S	5-10	153	26
18	Jermain Defoe	S	5-7	143	24

Group E
	GP	W	D	L	GS	GA	GD	P
Croatia	7	5	2	0	16	4	12	17
Israel	8	5	2	1	17	7	10	17
Russia	7	4	3	0	11	1	10	15
England	7	4	2	1	12	2	10	14
Macedonia	7	2	1	4	6	7	-1	7
Estonia	7	0	0	7	0	14	-14	0
Andorra	7	0	0	7	1	28	-27	0