14 DAY TRIAL // The statement from the title doesn't belong to a member of the NT. This is the honest opinion of Robert Green, West Ham's goalie, who probably hopes to make it into the national team's starting eleven some day. You might be wondering how exactly the videogames managed to stop England from losing 3-2 with Croatia.
Quoted by Spong, Green claims that "We would have the best team if we could go into every household and throw away every Playstation, Xbox and video game". Hmm, no Wii there, it seems, probably because the football player doesn't own one or because of the fact that there aren't many soccer titles on Nintendo's console. Green may be implying that the young generation doesn't even bother to play soccer now, focusing instead on playing on their consoles and totally forgetting about physical exercise.
Come to think of it, as far as I know, Ronaldinho is a great Playstation fan and he still manages to pull off his regular tricks (well, not lately). West Ham's goalie was keen on reminding us all that in Argentina and Brazil "it's football or nothing", that being the cause of the way they perform on the soccer field. It all comes down to choices, Green added, commenting upon the fact that some youngsters can only choose between a criminal life and poverty versus becoming a footy player, in third world countries and the above-mentioned football superpowers.
It seems that the Italians haven't heard about consoles, since they performed so well last year, or maybe they did, because they're started underperforming lately, but still they qualified. Should we blame the Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox, PS2 and PSP for the choices of a generation? There will always be a bunch of kids who just want to play real soccer, as it will never compare to a virtual experience, but as long as talent and will don't meet in the same person's characteristics, we won't see strong NTs claiming world and Euro titles.