Thats the sort of delusional statement that gets England fans laughed at.
Its akin to........
We are Nottingham Forest.
One of the big boys of European football.
Its bollocks.
Nottingham Forest aren't even in the top flight.
We (England) just finished top of our group.
Greece have done more than England in the past 40 years. Greece. Especially since 1992 when football "burst onto the scene" and the country started hosting the "best league in the world", you would expect England to surely be at the top of the pile.
England have done more than Greece overall.
Also Greece have only ever qualified for 2 World Cups in their history.
England have qualified for 13.
oh fck off.
Amongst all the reasons we don't give a shite about England, and there are many, is comments like that.
You sound very Chelsea.
We have underachieved in recent years but it doesn't suddenly detract from our status as one of the top nations in European football.
Liverpool have underachieved in recent years but it doesn't suddenly detract from their status as one of the biggest clubs in English football.
Based on what though?
Fans? Sure. You take a large following.
Quality of the league? Defo.
Players? Maybe, probably not. Not any more than half a dozen others.
Success? Don't kid yourselves.
England's record across all international competitions is arguably inferior to the Czech's record. Sure, they haven't actually won a World Cup like England (don't remember them hosting one either). The Czech's have played in two finals though, they've won the Euros, finished runners up, got to the Semi's however many times.
England have a mediocre record at international football, masked slightly by a victory on home soil.
Just overall.
Fans-wise we had the highest average attendance (77,116) in Euro 2012 qualification and we have better players than most other nations.
If you were to put it into club terms, England would be a "big club."
Out of the 53 European nations, we are probably around 5th or 6th (give or take Holland) in terms of stature behind Germany, Italy, France and Spain.
In terms of how good our team is right now I'd say we are probably in the roughly the same place.
Spain, Germany, Holland you would have to say our better than us.
France, Italy, Portugal are around the same level as us.
Greece, Russia, Sweden, Croatia, Turkey etc are probably not as good as us.
Overall (historically and now) I'd say we are in that group of top tier European nations though we are probably towards the bottom of that group rather than the top of the group.