Do you actually care if Steve McClaren takes England to Euro 2008?
Being patriotic and being a Newcastle United fan can be a costly business.
There's nothing better than watching one of your players smash one in the back of the net for his country and then be able to proudly say in the bar: "he's one of ours."
But then again, there's nothing worse than watching your star striker go down clutching his shattered knee and watching your season go down the pan in July, you kna like we did in last summer's World Cup when Michael Owen and the Toon's hopes of glory were both stretchered off in one go!
Owen isn't the only one to get hurt on international duty as Graeme Souness also knows very well.
Our leaky defence appeared to have found the answer in rookie Steven Taylor two years ago and things were looking up.
Cue, the international week curse!
And Taylor, after somehow colliding with Carlton Cole in England Under-21 training, managed to pop his shoulder out of position and rule him out for a couple of months.
Well that was a couple of months until Newcastle boss Graeme Souness sent him out patched up and it popped out again to rule him out for the rest of the season.
Stephen Carr is another to get hurt on international duty last season when he picked up a thigh injury on Eire duty.
That left then boss Glenn Roeder to say: "The club doctor Roddy McDonald actually told me to sit down and take a deep breath when he told me that Stephen had got injured.
"It made me so angry - and I’m still angry.�
Roeder is probably still angry now when he looks back, after all, the injury to Owen probably did cost him his job in the long run.
And although England qualifying the World Cup or European Championships can actually make or break your summer, it's safe to say that most of us spend international breaks with fingers crossed and simply hoping all of our lads get through to be ready for domestic duty.
It's so far, so good this time around with no injuries to report.
And for once, the break wasn't a welcome relief from watching Newcastle struggle in the Premiership, this time players didn't want it to come.
So there you go, even if we get all of our players through safely this week for Pride Park you can still blame the international break if we get beat for disrupting our rhythm and focus!
WHAT COMES FIRST FOR YOU?
NEWCASTLE UNITED OR ENGLAND?
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