The very best of this country's young talent hope to put a smile back on the face of English football after the disastrous World Cup campaign under Fabio Capello.
England's Under 19 squad will be gunning for glory in the European Championships in France, beginning this Sunday with their first group stage game of the tournament against their Austrian counterparts in the Stade du Hazé, Flers (Normandy).
The UEFA European Under-19 Championship tournament consists of eight teams.
The group stage will be cut-throat - with Austria, England, France and the Netherlands drawn in Group A, and Croatia, Spain, Italy and Portugal in Group B, with the top two progressing to the semi-finals. The winners of those ties contest the final.
In the last eight runnings of this competition (since it became the Under-19's in 2002) it has paid to support the European big guns, the countries who place such pride is their youth systems. Spain have won the tournament four times, France and Italy once apiece, and with a nod to the World Cup just gone, Germany won it two years ago with a team fine tuned in the same youth system which provided the likes of Mesut Ozil and Thomas Muller.
Ukraine may have looked like shock winners last time (they beat England in the final), but the system put in place by Valeri Lobanovsky all those years ago is still churning out terrific players, especially now that the country's FA is focusing on that area with a nod to Euro 2012.
But which of England manager Noel Blake's squad are good enough to make the full step to full international recognition?
The England Under-19 squad for the European Championships to be held between the 18th and the 30th July 2010 in Normandy, France is as follows:
Declan Rudd (Norwich City), James Severn (Derby County), Nathan Baker (Aston Villa), Stephen Caulker (Tottenham), Matthew Briggs (Fulham), Reece Brown (Manchester United), Nathaniel Clyne (Crystal Palace, right), Thomas Cruise (Arsenal), Josh Thompson (Celtic); John Bostock, Dean Parrett, Andros Townsend (all Tottenham), Matthew James (Manchester United), Jacob Mellis (Chelsea), Matthew Phillips (Wycombe); Nathan Delfouneso (Aston Villa), Ryan Donaldson (Newcastle United), Frank Nouble (West Ham).
England have improved in leaps and bounds at this level, and won the Euro Under-17s earlier in the year. However I think that the draw has not done them any favours, and that they'll find at least two of the other sides in their group too good. The Netherlands look rock solid to make it through as group winners, and local support may benefit the French, with Austria also strong contenders.
I'll take Spain to get it right in Group B, and Croatia to more than likely follow them through.
If your having a bet be warned - the top teams are so tightly matched that any of them could win it, which should make for a superb spectacle.
I am going to have a small wager on the Netherlands to go one step further than their senior team did this month, and lift the trophy on the 30th July. My outside tip for glory would lie with the Croatians.
European U19 Championships 2010 - England's Group A fixtures/results/scorers:
Sun 18st July - England U19's 3-2 Austria U19's
England goalscorers: Nouble (13') & (29'), Cruise (53')
England team: Rudd, Briggs (Clyne 54'), James (C), Caulker (Thompson 86'), Baker, Parrett, Delfouneso, Nouble, Bostock (Mellis 77'), Cruise, Brown.
Substitutes not used: Nicholls (GK), Phillips, Noble, Donaldson.
Wed 21st July - England U19's 0-1 The Netherlands U19's
England team: Rudd, Clyne, James (C), Caulker, Baker, Mellis (Donaldson 83'), Parrett, Delfouneso, Nouble, Brown, Phillips (Noble 72').
Substitutes not used: Nicholls (GK), Briggs, Bostock, Cruise, Thompson.
Sat 24th July - England U19's 1-1 France U19's
England goalscorer: Phillips 90'+ 3'
England team: Rudd, Clyne, James (C), Caulker, Mellis (Bostock 78'), Parrett (Noble 74'), Delfouneso, Nouble, Cruise, Thompson, Donaldson (Phillips 76').
Substitutes not used: Nicholls (GK), Briggs, Baker, Brown.
Group A
1 France 7 pts
2 England 4 pts
3 Austria 3 pts
4 Netherlands 3pts
France and England qualify for the semi-finals.
Wed 27th July: Semi-Final: Spain U19's 3-1 England U19's
England goalscorer: Bostock 37'
England team: Rudd, Clyne, James (C), Caulker, Baker (Bostock 18'), Mellis (Noble 59'), Delfouneso, Nouble, Cruise, Thompson, Donaldson (Phillips 71').
Substitutes not used: Nicholls (GK), Brown, Malone.
All the games can be seen on Eurosport.
England's Kids Can Ease World Cup Hangover !
Jolly Hockey Sticks or Ice Creamed!
As the clock ticks by the England National Football team is preparing to tip-toe into a volatile Zagreb tonight knowing defeat to Croatia in this 2010 World Cup qualifier could demote us to also-rans on the World football stage. If Croatia,(not Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil or Agentina) beat England tonight then there will be carnage in the tabloids tomorrow, burning effigees on the streets, messageboards dining out on four letter expletives from now until kingdom come, along with a comprehensive meltdown on radio phone-ins, as enraged fans holler in despair at our demise........once again!
After sneaking away from a ski resort on Saturday by 2 black runs to none, pride may have been dented but the points were won. However there can be no slip up tonight as the former love child of the cockney East End wide boys from the London Borough of Newham will tell you, Slaven Bilic is no mug & he will take almighty pleasure from outsmarting his opposite number as he prepares a modus operandi of his own - it's just which English Football Club he endorses, not when!
Never in the history of International football have England ever been beaten on three successive occasions by the same nation until........hopefully never!
English sport is not all doom & gloom...........spare a thought for the Bulgarian National Hockey Federation.
With more goals than minutes in a game, Slovakia's women's ice hockey team claimed an amazing 82-0 victory last Saturday over Bulgaria in a European Olympic pre-qualifying tournament for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, in the Latvian town of Liepaja.
Bulgaria conceded a goal on average every 44 seconds!
Slovakia outshot the Bulgarians 139-0 during the 60-minute game, scoring on 58.9 per cent of their shots on goal.
The margin of victory is a record for a women's International Ice Hockey Federation-sanctioned event.
Janka Culikova led Slovakia with 10 goals, while Martina Velickova scored nine, Slovakia had 12 players record hat tricks, & fourteen different players scored at least one goal.
Bulgaria was eliminated after scoring one goal and conceding 192 in the tournament. Bulgaria lost to Italy (41-0) and Latvia (39-0), and it followed its 82-0 loss with a 30-1 defeat to Croatia.
In total, Bulgaria's women's ice hockey team surrendered more goals in four games(192) than the Detroit Red Wings did in 82 games last season (184).
The game was 7-0 after five minutes, 19-0 after 10, and an incredible 31-0 after only one period.
So at what point during an 82-0 loss in a women's ice hockey game do you turn to your mate and say, 'Come on pal, finish your drink we're outta here, & we may even beat the traffic.'
Well apparently there were fewer than 40 fans in the crowd for this rather one-sided contest.
After two periods, Slovakia led 55-0. If you're Bulgarian and still in the arena during the third period, chances are you're either one of the players or someone who also refuses to leave the worst movie ever made because you paid 'good money' for your ticket.
Down 77-0 with three minutes to go, Bulgaria put in its back-up goaltender, who promptly let in another five goals in just 85 seconds of playing time.
The 82-0 defeat capped what may have been 'the most pathetic tournament appearance in international hockey history.'
Slovakia, which also beat Croatia, Latvia and Italy, advanced to another qualifying group with Germany, Kazakhstan and France. The winner will secure a spot at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
To add insult to injury Slovakian coach Miroslav Karafiat said after Saturday's game, 'we took it as training.'
Ironically The Slovakian men's team clinched its biggest ever victory against none other than Bulgaria 14 years ago, when they won 20-0.
According to sources a Bulgarian media outlet that actually stands up for the women's team has taken the Bulgarian Government to task rather than hitting out at the players.
With a population of 7.4 million, Bulgaria have just 299 registered hockey players of which only 37 are registered female players, (Canada has about 74,000 female players) & only three indoor ice rings in the whole country.
On that basis Bulgaria could have hardly hoped for a successful run in the competition, although this ruthless and systematic destruction was nothing short of a national embarrassment.
The International Ice Hockey Federation said the result, set a record score for a women's IIHF-sanctioned event. It was not the all-time record for futility, however, that is still held by Thailand, who lost 92-0 to South Korea in the 1998 Asia-Oceania U18 Championship. Well that's a relief then!
The chair of the Bulgarian Hockey Federation is calling Slovakia's 82-goal win 'a kind of insulting mockery, & not at all sportsmanlike.'
We're counting down the moments until he lashes out at the glib reaction of the international sports media, which refuses to acknowledge goalie Liubomira Shosheva's amazing 57-save performance,(she faced 134 shots in 57 minutes).
A few Bulgarian news sources are picking up the story today, and they're calling it 'one of the biggest defeats in sporting history' & 'nothing short of a national embarrassment.'
.......Go on England, make us proud & bring home three precious points from Zagreb!
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