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Here is a collective and plain chain of logic, that has no insults and isn't aimed at any other members. England, for the last 8 years have been outrageously lucky to reach the semis on such a consistent basis for the following reasons. You have lost 5 out of your 6 games against other top 12 opposition. You have required significant luck against far worse teams than yourself such as Denmark, Slovakia, Switzerland and Colombia in knock out rounds. These aren't minnows (bar Slovakia who were projected as a bottom 4 team this comp) but they were all teams you'd expect to beat somewhere between well, and comfortably. The 1 tournament you played a real top 4 contender for that trophy, prior to the semis, was 2022 world cup, where you were bundled out by France in the quarters. Which is particularly interesting, because I would state, and I think many would agree, that is actually the best tournament you had under Southgate. You won your group comfortably, you beat Senegal 3-0 in the round of 16, and you pushed a strong French team hard. If you are playing football that deserves to reach the semi finals of big tournaments under Southgate's management, what is it that makes you think he'd have beaten Germany in 2010, Italy in 2012, or that you'd escape the group stage of 2014 against Uruguay and Italy? I don't think he'd have done any better at all. When you combine these elements, you get the result I have come to. You are riding a streak of ungodly tournament luck, that a team like France, Spain or even Belgium would have converted into a tournament victory. But despite being graced with kindness in terms of fixtures, and more recently even graced with miracle comebacks against worse teams in the final minutes of games, you have won nothing, and would have been far better off with a different manager, playing better football under the same circumstances. Thus, I don't think you're playing effective football at all. The ends and means are separate entities. England could get the same or similar results with just about any league 1 coach given the same fixtures. Possibly better in some cases.

The same old discussion every tournament lately

Guess who is going to be the referee at England vs. Netherlands

You're a cunt not soy

The English media are fucking obsessed with the "rise of the far right" in any country. It's absolutely painful. Farage and his bunch clearly have a ceiling of about 20-25% in the UK. They managed to sneak Brexit through (barely) because it's a single-issue referendum which didn't leave us with Farage with any power afterwards and because some of the Conservative Party were braindead enough to attach themselves to it out of sheer opportunism. They made a load of noise about the AfD a few weeks ago and they were making loads of noise about Le Pen just like they have done every time in my adult life that there's been an election in France. What people need to realise is that the more prominent the far right become, the more mobilised their voters might be, but for every far-right voter that mobilises in any country that isn't completely broken beyond all repair, you'll have 3-4 voters who make sure they turn up and vote for whichever party or candidate will keep the far-right out of power, even if they have to hold their nose for a week afterwards. That's the thing with the far right leaders. They inspire more love from their base than any other part of the electorate but they also inspire more hatred and fear from the rest. If any UK minded people think I'm wrong and fear Farage becoming PM in 5 years then see the polling below. If there's any remote probability of Farage getting a sniff of power at the next election, the electorate will be out in their droves voting for Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, Green, Independents and even a centre right Conservative Party if there is one, to keep him out. Starmer vs Farage provides the biggest level of support for any leader in these head to heads. Anyway, back to Le Pen. The footage of her party watching the exit poll and her crying last night is perfect.

He was arguably the best player at the 2014 World Cup, but that was 10 years. It incredible he's doing again at 33.

Wasn't the continued focus on "the Epstein files" being driven by right wingers wanting to take down "Hollywood's liberal elite"? Trump, as expected, is involved and they suddenly don't care anymore.

He's a good player, I'm sure he'll do well at Bayern Munich. I'd have loved if he joined us tbh.

I don't even think it's necessarily just Southgate himself though, I think the FA want him there more than he wants to be there. The way he'd been acting early doors in this tournament was peculiar, almost as if he just wanted this over with ASAP. The performances felt a bit like that as well. I think it would've all made far more sense if Bellingham hadn't scored against Slovakia, but here we are. DDW made a quite interesting point about our best tournament performance under him actually being 2022. I can see that. We had three wins by 3+ goals, topped our group, knocked out a tricky Senegal with ease and fell to a side who were probably as good as the winners Argentina. I think having watched what has panned out this time around there's a case that despite exiting in an earlier round, this tournament hasn't lived up to that one. It was the one tournament where I don't think he really had much luck with the draws. There's a real case for me that he has delivered par from pretty much day one of his tenure. He's beaten the majority of teams he's expected to beat. He's hardly beaten anybody who he wasn't. The constant that goes against him is that he's lost a lot of the tight 50/50s. Croatia, Italy, arguably France. England haven't been good for pretty much any of our lifetimes though. We hardly ever turn up in tournaments. Hodgson was a disgrace in 2016, a tournament that I rank as England's worst of my footballing lifetime (born in 1993 but I'll judge anything from 2002 onwards) and yet I think we were seconds from basically equalling that this time around with almost eerie similarities. 2014 was abysmal as well, tough group but but into context by the fact Costa Rica ended up topping it, so was it really that tough? 2012 decent group effort, pretty bad knockout showing. 2010 a disgrace, 2008 didn't even qualify, 2006, 2004 and 2002 all pretty much par for me - very much on the end of tight margins which seems to be the theme with England, but the theme as well is that in all of them we weren't given kind draws. Southgate's luck with draws has been barely believable and he's still yet to convert it into a trophy. There's a lot of arguing going on in here but I think the truth is to be revealed this week and that nobody can really definitively say. If England go out this week I think basically every word DDW has said has been correct, and up until now, it's correct because we haven't won anything. If England do end up winning this tournament though, everything that you, Stan etc.. say about not caring about the performance if we're winning is totally valid. I think the not caring about the performance is fine when a trophy is won, but up until then, with no precedent of this actually delivering England any tangible success then I can't make any case for it. We shall see. It's going to be interesting. This has provided a quite interesting read for me in the last hour or so

Man, non-elite clubs don't really stand a chance in contemporary football. Bologna had a great season, qualified for Champions League and their prize is losing their coach to Juventus and their best players, such as Callafiori and Zirkzee.

I have it in black and white that we as Australians are in fact [just] 'English people but cool', if that isn't a endorsement of the superiority of our moral fibre than what is. This is just another circumstance of the son having to beat the shit out of the father for being a dumb cunt, as we both have experience in for some reason.

Leave me out of this sunshine.

You lost me with the racist bit.

And here I am neck deep in mouth breathers trying to be a nice boi and put aside my Australian language to make grounded points as a basis for debate. And you go trying to wind me up. What a naughty naught boy you are. It's 11.30, so I'll depart. I will point out that since I posted my manifesto not a single person has offered any counter to it except @Gunnersaurus, who felt Southgate would have done a bit better but probably still shit in the period prior. Other than that, it's just been the basic point of 'okay we're shit but I still want us to win until we're knocked out'. Which of course you do and have every right to. And mr devil man making a list for comparisons sake but then saying 'nooooo you were supposed to compare germany to France and Italy' who aren't even the topic of discussion and are irrelevant to this conversation. I also couldn't come up with such a list because the only 4 teams who's games I tend to watch religiously are Germany, Australia, England and Hungary. Probably in that order of preference. @Spike take the night shift, use my baseline and take these fuckers to task please. If I wake up tomorrow and no Englishman has admitted their fucking dogshit team has reached 3 semis in 4 tournaments based on a fixture list that's kinder than a kindergarten teacher rather than any actual tactical or skill input, I will be sad.

I can't actually believe what I'm seeing. I offered that England had won 1 game in 6, when it came to facing opposition that was considered equal or superior by myself. You then offered a shitty list of games in which you thought Germany were equals or underdogs with the same idea. That they struggled in those circumstances too. I gave my own list, and then pointed out that in mine or yours, Germany still had a FAR better record in games as equals or underdogs. You now say 'why are you comparing them to England'. Is English that far your second language? if I offer a list of games, and you do the same literally for comparisons sake, yes, I'm going to compare them. Because that was the whole point.

Nice since you failed to mention @Devil-Dick Willie's adopted team won 7-1 in a WC semi against Brazil in Brazil, where almost all forum members said this would be Brazil's time on home soil, which shows they scored more goals against a football giant in 1 semi final on opponent's soil, than England scored in 5 matches against small to medium sized football nations combined during this tournament. Also wasn't it you who said Argentina would win the WC 14 final because no European team could ever win in SA? but hey, why would you mind your yesterday's talk?

Right now I don't care we're playing shit as we're still ultimately getting through. I wouldn't say it's all I care about in general. But we're doing just enough. Do I expect more with the players we have? Certainly. Am I 'happy' with how we're playing? Not really. Am I content that we're still in the tournament. Yep. To me that's pretty clear.

This is the elephant in the room, the monster under the bed, and the fart in the elevator all at once though. YOU AREN'T GETTING RESULTS. Flash back to WC 2014. You think a Southgate side who plays southgate football gets out of that group? Brother you just got a miracle from Portugal VS Georgia so you could play slovakia instead of the netherlands... then you got your cheeks clapped by fucking slovakia, and should have lost, but you didn't. Then you should have lost to switzerland, and were bailed out again. Can we all stop living in crazy world where England are this effective football machine that makes semis on the reg because they're sacrificing good football for results? Because you aren't. You suck AND are playing shit football. But for some reason the computer + jesus have collaborated and decided you don't have to play anyone harder than Ukraine until the semis for a 10 year period.

The way I see it is we either inevitably fall apart at the first time we actually play someone decent, as has happened before under Southgate. And then worst case scenario is we’re knocked out and get a new manager. Or he keeps getting lucky as fuck. Either way we can’t really lose

Found this thread very interesting as well. Both England and France got taken to penalty shootouts by inferior opposition. France ended up on the tougher half of the draw by failing to beat an already eliminated Poland. I'm not so sure the defensive approach is really all that great this time around. England of all teams definitely cannot claim penalties are something we can rely on either:

England can't yet be compared to Greece or Portugal because we haven't won it. This sort of talk needs to be for when its won. We are one loss away from this tournament being blasted as Southgate's most abject by a mile and two bits of individual brilliance are the only thing thats kept us alive. We're giving too much credit to the organisation of Southgate this time around, game state is the main reason we haven't conceded many chances having only spent around 20 minutes of a game in front since Serbia. We've looked very vulnerable when attacked.

1994 is a good example of a faustian bargain made by Brazil. And you're correct, nobody cared about the terrible quality of the football played by that side. 1994 Brazil played incredibly boring and defensive-minded football. At the same time, I was 6 back then, I don't think I've ever been part of such genuine explosion of joy. I lived in a very small town and everyone went to the streets to celebrate. It was crazy. The same happened all over the country.

I completely agree, Spike. But, in my opinion, the main culprits of sucking the life of football in the last decade aren´t traditional pragmatists like Mourinho, Simeone and Deschamps. Those type of coaches have always been there, such as Helenio Herrera, as you have mentioned. I blame the "Juego de Posicón" crowd, which Guardiola is the main exponent. Those dudes are control freaks, directing every little movement from their players and using ball possession to completely control the game and minimize any threats opponents would pose. Grealish, for example, went from a creative, inventive player at Aston Villa to a robot that it´s afraid to take on defenders and lose the ball. Traditional pragmatists don´t control the flow of the game, they let the other team do it. This is why I believe they are way less harmful. I will go to my grave saying 2010 Spain is one of the biggest disgraces in the history of football. The general public was gaslighted into accepting that team played attacking football, when they were the most negative and boring world champion I´ve ever seen. Another aspect I would like to point out is the early specialization. Palmeiras, for example, recently handed out a big contract to a 10-year old child! Those children, by all means, are already professional footballers. Football is the only sport they practice from a very young age and in consequence they don´t develop a variety of skills and movements. The result, at least here in Brazil, is a bunch of players with great physical skills but who can´t improvise and dribble in short spaces. Maybe what all I am saying is bollocks, I am not a professional coach or scout, but those are some of the problems that in my view are hurting modern football.

All the best to a fantastic talent that I hope reaches his full potential.

But I have to say Turkey's Ferdi Kadıoğlu looks like a really good player. Easily Turkey's best this tournament IMO.

We have a winner! Everyone was able to pick a team to progress to the Quarter Finals, either Spain, England or Portugal, so we moved onto the Anytime Goalscorer phase of the tie breaker. With the others backing Kylian Mbappe or Cristiano Ronaldo, the latter even missing a penalty, it was @Pyfish who ended up coming through to win thanks to Harry Kane's goal in Extra Time for England against Slovakia. Congratulations to @Pyfish and thanks to everyone for taking part!

Scott Irwin in 1997