I always like to feel good. I hate that feeling of being down when it comes to my teams' losses. I always like to have a lot of teams around me. I don't know - my feeling has always been that if I had only ONE team and they lost and made me feel bad, then I would have no other teams I could watch that might be able to cheer me up. Therefore I have always watched a lot of matches from a lot of different leagues with a view to finding teams that interest me and are fun to watch and get involved with.

And this year, at season's end for most leagues, I've decided that I am no longer going to cheer for the biggest teams. In the beginning I think I, like most people, got sucked in to thinking I had to get behind teams like Real Madrid or Manchester United because they were the ones I could see the most on TV. Or Barcelona. Or Liverpool, or Chelsea. AC Milan. Etc., etc. But once I got Pay TV and discovered streaming, there was no excuse NOT to follow other, 'lesser' teams. And once I got started doing that, what did I discover? That these teams are much more fun to follow. Their players are not the big headed 'superstars' that the BIG teams seem to swallow up like so many jelly beans until some of the disappear into what seem like black holes, never to be seen again.

It seems that these superstars are usually too 'professional' for me to like them very much. It's like they are playing only for the money and the stardom, to see how many goals they can rack up in a season, as if that is the only reason they are playing, certainly not for the team that hired them. They tend to change teams a lot as well, maybe because it's a way of staving off boredom. I don't know. To each his own, I guess. I am not knocking these teams or players, but just writing about what's interesting for me and what isn't.

So, okay. The teams I REALLY, really like based on what I've seen during the past season, are:

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EDIT: I forgot to mention CONCACAF! I love the Mexico NT with all my heart, and I like Costa Rica. I also like the Venezuela NT. Forgot to mention them as well. ;)

England is the only team I care about in Group C. This group also consists of the USA, Algeria and Slovenia. Since I am a HUGE Mexico fan, I cannot also be a fan of the US. Sorry, even though I enjoy watching a lot of these players in both the EPL and the MLS.

Here is a picspam of the players from the England squad.

The Goalkeepers

Joe Hart



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