Carambau

They lost to Austria (who made it to the semi finals, but lost against France) in the second round...

Indeed

World Cup 2002 Second Round vs Germany Our 3rd encounter in 1 year...

World Cup 2002 Game 3 vs Paraguay Scholes is back in the team and so is Smith.

World Cup 2002 Game 2 vs Tunisia Lampard replaces Scholes and Sutton replaces Smith.

World Cup 2002 Game 1 vs Brazil

Pre-World Cup 2002 Phase #4 - World Cup Squad Nomination This is the team that will go to the World Cup. Plus Chris Sutton. There might be some surprises like Michael Ball or Steven Reid but I think they have what it takes.

Pre-World Cup 2002 Phase #3 - SPA vs ENG This time we will try our most probable first eleven for the first World Cup match.

Pre-World Cup 2002 Phase #2 - ENG vs GER We want to try out some new players in this game.

Pre-World Cup 2002 Phase #1 - World Cup Draw Brazil! A tough opponent but Paraguay and Tunisia seem beatable if we perform well. Those are all the qualified teams. The FA seem very modest with their expectations. Strangely though, they only arranged 2 friendlies to prepare for the World Cup, against Germany in March and against Spain in April. In other news, Sir Alex Ferguson gets sacked with Manchester United placed 5th in the league.

Congrats on qualification for the EUROs

Yeah, a real pity Mia San Mia

Good luck!

Oops! Sorry! You are right of course

October 6, 2001: The Final Game Against Greece The starting lineup now includes a finally fit Gary Neville as right back. @git2thachoppaRobinson is part of the U21 England setup

September 5, 2001: The Home Game Against Albania We use the same attacking tactic against Albania. Lampard replaces Scholes, Hargreaves replaces Barmby and Smith replaces Cole. I thought I´d give the jaded players some rest.

September 1, 2001: The Showdown With Germany The time has come. We meet Germany in Berlin. Here are the lineups. We go with a rather attacking tactic. We have to win, so we must be brave.

Hello and welcome Yes, it is still commentary-only in CM01/02. (No trouble with the "match engine" back then )

The Goalkeeper Situation I did a filter search for the eligible goalkeepers, highlighting the most useful attributes and this is what it all came down to: It looks like David Seaman is still the best English goalkeeper, despite his age of 37 Nigel Martyn is simply to old at 34 though. He is the past, not the future Despite having quite decent attributes, Neil Moss isn´t even the number one at Southampton where he is backup to Paul Jones Richard Wright ´s performances have earned him a move from Ipswich to Arsenal, where he will compete against David Seaman Time´s up for Tim Flowers as well at the age of 34 At Leicester, Ian Walker only plays second fiddle to the above mentioned Tim Flowers Andy Marshall joined Ipswich from Norwich to be the successor of Richard Wright Conclusion Havíng assessed all the candidates, I have come to the decision to call up David Seaman Richard Wright Andy Marshall for the upcoming matches against Germany and Albania. I guess this will be David Seaman´s last campaign with the England team. Richard Wright is the youngest keeper with an age of 23, while Andy Marshall is 26. But we are also monitoring the development of Christopher Kirkland, Stuart Taylor and especially Craig Holloway, who seems to be a fantastic talent at the age of 16.

Oh... this sounds strange indeed... let´s see if I get that too with England Thank you!

The Players With so many already excellent players and promising young talents -the so-called GOLDEN GENERATION- to choose from it would be a shame to fail with this team. Paul Scholes The perfect playmaker at the age of 26. David Beckham Still at Manchester United. He already is world class. Sol Campbell The Arsenal skipper is our rock in defense. Strong and solid. Lee Bowyer A physical monster and a hard worker. Michael Owen Already a star at the age of 21. John Terry Chelsea youngster on the rise. Frank Lampard Another great talent from Chelsea. Steven Gerrard Liverpool playmaker. Alan Smith Young striker from Leeds. Rio Ferdinand West Ham academy product. David Seaman Here lies our problem: The best English goalkeeper is 37 years old. It will take some time and much testing and scouting to find a decent English keeper who can replace him. For the time being, he will be called up I guess.

The Expectations In our Qualifying group, Germany are already 6 points ahead but we have a game in hand and there are still some games to play. We can still finish first, qualify automatically and avoid the playoffs. The next game will be against said Germans, in Berlin! After that we will have to home games against Albania and Greece. Our fate lies in our own hands.

The Start Flashback: We are back in the summer of 2001. This time Sven Goran Eriksson was NOT appointed England manager, but South African Globetrotter Joe Baxter. He has a supposedly GOLDEN GENERATION to work with. Let´s see if he can do better than Sven. The game will be Championship Manager 01/02. (Taking inspiration from @git2thachoppa

Invincible season ahead?