So, I got this idea to put together a page about the English National Team of 2014. You know, for the World Cup in Brazil. It seemed simple enough at first – a bit of nostalgia, a trip down memory lane. Yeah, well, it turned into a bigger project than I thought.
Getting Started
First, I dug up the official squad list. That was easy, plenty of sites had that info. I created a basic HTML structure. You know, the usual stuff – a heading, some paragraphs, maybe a list for the players.
The Roster Deep Dive
Then I figured, “Hey, why not add a bit more detail about each player?” So, I started searching for each player’s club at the time, their position, maybe a fun fact or two. It’s surprising how much time you can spend just looking up where someone was playing ten years ago!
- Goalkeepers: I listed Joe Hart, Fraser Forster, and Ben Foster. No big surprises there.
- Defenders: I added the likes of Glen Johnson, Phil Jagielka, Gary Cahill, and the young Luke Shaw. I remember thinking Shaw was going to be a superstar.
- Midfielders:That’s where it got dense. Gerrard, Lampard, Wilshere, Henderson, Lallana – loads of them. I spent a good chunk of time making sure I got all their clubs right.
- Forwards:Rooney, Sturridge, Welbeck, Lambert. I remembered thinking we had a decent attack, I spent a lot of time finding the right word to descripe the team.
The Tournament Itself
Of course, I couldn’t just list the players. I had to talk about the actual World Cup. Oh, boy. That was… rough. Two losses and a draw. Out in the group stage. I spent a whole afternoon searching for match reports and summaries, trying to be fair but, let’s be honest, it wasn’t England’s finest hour.
I wrote up little summaries of each game. Italy, Uruguay, Costa Rica. Ugh. It wasn’t pretty, I even tried not express too many negative feelings here.
Adding Some Extras
After all that, I thought, “It needs something more.” I decided to add some basic stats – appearances, goals, that sort of thing, I searched for a table template to show them clearly.
Finally Done!
Finally, I had something resembling a complete page. It took way longer than I expected, It’s not perfect, but I think it captures a snapshot of that team and that (not-so-great) tournament. Maybe I’ll revisit it in another ten years and see how things have changed.
