En Ngland plays in the last preliminary round game against Wales. And I wonder – so often – why. Why are the British competing with each other? Why do you just not have a British team – how in some other country in the world? King, team. No?
Imagine that there is no German team. This will have its advantages and save us one or another fan of Schland. For example, in white and blue T -shirts there would be a national team of Bavarian, which sometimes fall into the Prussian team in the preliminary round of the European Championship. Well, the comparison of something is behind, but the reason may be similar in the UK: the tradition wants it to be.
Since in England the “Homeland of Football”, the football association (FA) was founded in 1863. A year before the founding of the Scottish Football Association, 1872, the very first official international match in the history of football took place in Glasgow: a Scottish choice of men against English. This ended completely obscene with 0-0.
At the 2012 Olympic Games there was a GB team – mainly with English and Welsh players, for women also with Scottish women
Soon after, Wales and North Ireland founded their own football association, and since then, British football traditionalists said: the kingdom, but four leagues and four national teams! (In fact, there are even five if you consider the national football team Gibraltar.)
When is someone English? And when is the Scottish table?
But who decides, someone English: in, Shott: in, Wales: in or northern Ir: Is there? The British are flexible: the place of birth, the origin of parents or grandparents. This is important: after deciding, the national team can only be changed strongly.
But in the International Olympic Committee, the British with their various national teams, which also exist in hockey and rugby, cannot prevail. Since the 1970s, football was even fully justified, since the four associations could not agree with how the UK team should be assembled. First of all, because associations from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are repeatedly afraid that the English FA may get too much influence and thereby lose their special status as independent associations. And the constant rivalry between Scotland and England does not make it easier to get together.
At the Olympic Games in London in 2012, it was at the request of politics – to create a GB team, mainly with English and Welsh players. Scottish women were also for women. Both teams each of them went down to the quarterfinals, and then failed – women in the state with the same chapters, Canada, and men in South Korea. And they remained true to the English tradition.
Encouraging or not, football player Gary Lineker already knew in 1990: “In the end, the Germans always win.” Let’s see.