FINAL - Italy (p) 1-1 England - Sunday 11th July, 2021

[Inverted]

I think it’s worrying for England that their two last runs had the same basic pattern. 

Fairly assured runs past opposition who were all less fancied (barring maybe Germany, but certainly weaker in form) before running into a seriously difficult opponent. Take an early lead in the tie, and then just crumble under the pressure of being in what should be an ideal situation.

England are physically dominant compared to most international sides, they’re defensively very solid, and they have the best selection of pacey, skilled attacking players in Europe. 

Being forced to open up and chase a goal against England should be a death sentence, and yet when they’re defending a lead they hardly string a counterattack together. It seems like they’d rather just win a free kick, have Maguire go for the header, and reset. 

[internationalsfan]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57823364

We're definitely not hosting 2030.

 

I fully expect UEFA to throw their support behind the Spain-Portugal bid now. 

[Guest]

A comedian who I've never heard of called andrew Lawrence has made a racist tweet about the black players missing penalties. I hope this guy never works in comedy again 

[Reluctant Striker]

On Southgate being non-commital on his future.. I think it must be near 100% that he does carry on to the next World Cup. He just doesn't have the will right now to be talking going that 1 next step. Based on his last 2 tournaments, there will be increased expectations. That will have to be the motivation pep talks he gives out at some point.

After Qatar, perhaps only a World Cup win sees him carry on to Euro 2024. If it feels at all after Qatar that England has somehow taken a step or 2 back.. I think he'd want out himself. Because then it's back to when he came in & it's either him or the players that have been wrong.

And on striker options other than Kane (27) there is:

Rashford (23) ok not being used centrally too much by Man United. He would be by a number of other sides & I'm not sure in these 'big 6' times that it shouldn't phase England to do so either.

Dominic Calvert Lewin (24) looks awesome in the air & becoming a potent one touch finisher. He's just doing it in an Everton shirt.

Ollie Watkins (25) plays the central striker role for Villa in 4-3-3. Does have a Vs San Marino goal in an England shirt.

Tammy Abraham (23) he could be a great striker, IMHO the best Kane backup right now, but frozen out at Chelsea. I think he'd have still been in Switzerland's squad.

Perhaps none are title winning strikers, at club level at least, but England should be ok for Number 9's for the next few tournaments.

[Reluctant Striker]

12 minutes ago, internationalsfan said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57823364

We're definitely not hosting 2030.

 

I fully expect UEFA to throw their support behind the Spain-Portugal bid now. 

An England-Wales-Scotland-All Ireland World Cup did sound good.

But then you realise it would be 5 'home' nations.

And you just know Wembley gets the final.

The Ireland's have to pay a few knock out games in England.

Scotland get drawn in the Group of Death, Hungary style.

The 2nd semi final is the Etihad rather than the Millenium Stadium.

And you kind of realise Spain-Portugal probably makes more sense really.

An Olympics, a significant amount of a European Championships & a World Cup, within 18 years? When so many want a piece of the action? Seems optimistic, depending what they look at & consider.

[Danny]

1 hour ago, Inverted said:

I think it’s worrying for England that their two last runs had the same basic pattern. 

Fairly assured runs past opposition who were all less fancied (barring maybe Germany, but certainly weaker in form) before running into a seriously difficult opponent. Take an early lead in the tie, and then just crumble under the pressure of being in what should be an ideal situation.

England are physically dominant compared to most international sides, they’re defensively very solid, and they have the best selection of pacey, skilled attacking players in Europe. 

Being forced to open up and chase a goal against England should be a death sentence, and yet when they’re defending a lead they hardly string a counterattack together. It seems like they’d rather just win a free kick, have Maguire go for the header, and reset. 

Wouldn’t say it’s worrying, we’ve overachieved this tournament so expectations that we’ll do it again need to be dampened. We defend well because we park the bus, not because we have world class defenders. This tournament we’ve beaten Croatia, Germany and bar a couple of attempts in the second half Italy didn’t look like beating us apart from the penalties.

Our biggest problem imo is that we don’t have the midfield to properly counter attack, Phillips and Rice are defensively minded and Mount struggled to make an impact as the only attacking midfielder. Bellingham is potentially the key to this midfield getting better but he and Mount are driving midfielders, not possession recyclers so we won’t play possession football against the big sides but we will look to hit them on the counter instead.

Grealish and Sancho also haven’t really settled themselves into the starting eleven yet.

One thing I’ll say for Southgate is that he is a learner, I know people will say did our attack get better than the last World Cup but the way the team played as a whole did get better. He’ll be aware of what our drawbacks were this time around so I wouldn’t write off that the likes of Bellingham, Grealish and Sancho will get more game time and the team will look a bit more progressive.

[internationalsfan]

4 minutes ago, Reluctant Striker said:

An England-Wales-Scotland-All Ireland World Cup did sound good.

But then you realise it would be 5 'home' nations.

And you just know Wembley gets the final.

The Ireland's have to pay a few knock out games in England.

Scotland get drawn in the Group of Death, Hungary style.

The 2nd semi final is the Etihad rather than the Millenium Stadium.

And you kind of realise Spain-Portugal probably makes more sense really.

An Olympics, a significant amount of a European Championships & a World Cup, within 18 years? When so many want a piece of the action? Seems optimistic, depending what they look at & consider.

The automatic host qualification would almost certainly be scrapped for 2030, as it has been rumoured will happen for 2026. 

I mean in reality Uruguay are top of the list for 2030 anyway due to sentimentality even if they're ability to host it is god-awful. 

 

It's beyond annoying because in terms of stadiums with big enough capacity's** in relatively close proximity we're such an obvious choice thanks to the Premier League and football's popularity domestically, but in terms of hotel space for FIFA, reliable transport infrastructure, training camps and ability to guarantee there'll be no major security issues were absolutely fucked on any bid we put forward - this was the case before Wembley on Sunday night. If they were still awarding it based on the old system we've now got a government who would probably be willing to pay the bribes, but with an FA based vote, it seems highly unlikely we'll get it due to our fans reputation abroad and serious concerns about security at home.

 

[Tommy]

A 50 year old man racially abusing someone not even half his age. And he's a youth football coach too, which makes it even worse. 

[Andronico Remarco]

Just now, Tommy said:

A 50 year old man racially abusing someone not even half his age. And he's a youth football coach too, which makes it even worse. 

What he will say when this guy will score the golden goal at the 90 minute against France and give the world cup 2022 final to England?

[Stan]

32 minutes ago, Tommy said:

A 50 year old man racially abusing someone not even half his age. And he's a youth football coach too, which makes it even worse. 

Beyond belief. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 hours ago, Inverted said:

I think it’s worrying for England that their two last runs had the same basic pattern. 

Fairly assured runs past opposition who were all less fancied (barring maybe Germany, but certainly weaker in form) before running into a seriously difficult opponent. Take an early lead in the tie, and then just crumble under the pressure of being in what should be an ideal situation.

England are physically dominant compared to most international sides, they’re defensively very solid, and they have the best selection of pacey, skilled attacking players in Europe. 

Being forced to open up and chase a goal against England should be a death sentence, and yet when they’re defending a lead they hardly string a counterattack together. It seems like they’d rather just win a free kick, have Maguire go for the header, and reset. 

I think the biggest worry is honestly the seeming inability to change things up (at least early on) when plan A isn't working. In this tournament in particular, the two examples I can think of are Scotland - where we had no answer going forward... and we never really looked like getting passed the Scotland defense - and Italy, where after the early goal the plan seemed to just be to soak up pressure... and giving Italy chance after chance like that made it feel inevitable they would score - we just had no foothold in the midfield.

Tbf, I think Italy had the best midfield in the tournament - so we may not have had an answer to it because I'm not sure many sides in Europe do have an answer to it.

I think we've got a good side and for the most part Southgate's tactics may not be the most adventurous... but they've worked. But up against the best sides or sides we should be beating but can't break down, he needs to be able to change the gameplan quicker when the plan clearly isn't working.

But it's hard to say Southgate should be replaced even with this flaw considered... simply because of the fact he's done a pretty fantastic job and (at least imo), exceeded expectations with England in both the World Cup and the Euro. It's just something he needs to be mindful of for qualification and the next world cup.

Easily the best England manager of my lifetime though.

[ScoRoss]

21 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

All these fucking politicians criticising the players are an absolute joke, tbh.

The England players fought harder for the country than these politicians have ever done in their careers. And that's with Tory cunts like Priti Patel fanning the flames of racism around our players.

Imagine the lack of awareness from a politician telling a black footballer to know their place...

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 minutes ago, ScoRoss said:

Imagine the lack of awareness from a politician telling a black footballer to know their place...

I will never be shocked by the lack of awareness of our politicians. Utterly repulsive human beings, tbh.

[Stan]

6 minutes ago, ScoRoss said:

Imagine the lack of awareness from a politician telling a black footballer to know their place...

 

3 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I will never be shocked by the lack of awareness of our politicians. Utterly repulsive human beings, tbh.

Enjoyed this retort though...

 

[internationalsfan]

9 minutes ago, ScoRoss said:



Imagine the lack of awareness from a politician telling a black footballer to know their place...

 

[Honey Honey]

Is it a lack of awareness though? It looks to me to be fairly on point to what the non knuckle dragging Conservative voting base have promoted and think. That football and politics shouldn't mix. Now that might really mean someone else's politics shouldn't be allowed in football, some probably just don't like black politics full stop, but let's take it at face value instead, that they genuinely don't like political gestures in the game. The size of the support for that claim and retort probably is enough to not be out of touch.

[internationalsfan]

2 minutes ago, The Premier Steve's said:

Is it a lack of awareness though? It looks to me to be fairly on point to what the non knuckle dragging Conservative voting base have promoted and think. That football and politics shouldn't mix. Now that might really mean someone else's politics shouldn't be allowed in football, some probably just don't like black politics full stop, but let's take it at face value instead, that they genuinely don't like political gestures in the game. The size of the support for that claim and retort probably is enough to not be out of touch.

See the tweet I posted in between that post and yours. Lack of awareness definitely, the only way this was ever going to come across his him telling black people what they can and can't say. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

3 minutes ago, The Premier Steve's said:

Is it a lack of awareness though? It looks to me to be fairly on point to what the non knuckle dragging Conservative voting base have promoted and think. That football and politics shouldn't mix. 

I think that is a lack of awareness in itself amongst those knuckle-draggers.

If football and politics don't mix, Rashford probably couldn't have had any success in campaigning to make sure kids got fed. And if football and politics don't mix, there's shitloads of fanbases around the UK, the continent, and the world that need to be told that because some clubs fanbases and their political views are heavily intertwined. 

But this particular instance of "mixing politics and football" directly concerns the footballers in question. They don't want to be racially abused so they've taken the knee as a political statement against racial abuse. It's an issue that's directly impacting them as they try to do their jobs as footballers. Why wouldn't they use their platform as footballers to spread a message that directly concerns them when they play football?

[internationalsfan]

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/wembley-stewards-cash-bribes-without-tickets-euros-final-england-fans-080745584.html

 

This is the 'something's clearly gone wrong' from the other night - stewards taking bribes to let folks in.  Was obvious to any of us who've ever worked in stewarding there was something more than bad stewarding at play here. Hopefully the CCTV was actually working at Wembley last night and the police can arrest and make an example of these disgusting scum who are tarnishing an entire industry that relies on public trust to work.

[Honey Honey]

5 minutes ago, internationalsfan said:

See the tweet I posted in between that post and yours. Lack of awareness definitely, the only way this was ever going to come across his him telling black people what they can and can't say. 

I get that he used the word "football" to describe the retired Sol Campbell instead of his correct title of Wealthy Property Magnate and Conservative Party Candidate, which is what he was around the time of that tweet. Hypocrisy is human, I don't think it will make a difference to the signalling he's making.

 

1 minute ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I think that is a lack of awareness in itself amongst those knuckle-draggers.

If football and politics don't mix, Rashford probably couldn't have had any success in campaigning to make sure kids got fed. And if football and politics don't mix, there's shitloads of fanbases around the UK, the continent, and the world that need to be told that because some clubs fanbases and their political views are heavily intertwined. 

But this particular instance of "mixing politics and football" directly concerns the footballers in question. They don't want to be racially abused so they've taken the knee as a political statement against racial abuse. It's an issue that's directly impacting them as they try to do their jobs as footballers. Why wouldn't they use their platform as footballers to spread a message that directly concerns them when they play football?

There argument is it shouldn't mix not that it can't or that it can't work. It's an irrefutable position as it is a preference not an argument.

The preference and view of there being no place for politics in football long predates BLM. Do I think some use that long tradition to mask in that setting their own wider opinion of BLM, absolutely.

As much as we support Rashford and taking the knee, I just don't buy this idea that an MP that doesn't is making some sort of massive mistake. What I'm hearing and what I'm seeing is that there's maybe a good size audience who will respond well those MPs. The question is whether there are swing voters who would be turned off by it. That much I don't have an opinion on right now. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 minute ago, The Premier Steve's said:

I get that he used the word "football" to describe the retired Sol Campbell instead of his correct title of Wealthy Property Magnate and Conservative Party Candidate, which is what he was around the time of that tweet. Hypocrisy is human, I don't think it will make a difference to the signalling he's making.

 

There argument is it shouldn't mix not that it can't or that it can't work. It's an irrefutable position as it is a preference not an argument.

The preference and view of there being no place for politics in football long predates BLM. Do I think some use that long tradition to mask in that setting their own wider opinion of BLM, absolutely.

As much as we support Rashford and taking the knee, I just don't buy this idea that an MP that doesn't is making some sort of massive mistake. What I'm hearing and what I'm seeing is that there's maybe a good size audience who will respond well those MPs. The question is whether there are swing voters who would be turned off by it. That much I don't have an opinion on right now. 

I see what you're saying. I think he's made a massive mistake... from a moral/ethical standpoint, but you raise a fair point that he does have a decent sized audience who'll respond well to shit like that and I guess I didn't think of it from a purely political perspective, just more from a "fuck this guy for tacitly condoning racism perspective." But he's a politicians so he's always looking through a political lens thinking about how his constituency might respond.

I still think he's scum 

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, The Premier Steve's said:

Is it a lack of awareness though? It looks to me to be fairly on point to what the non knuckle dragging Conservative voting base have promoted and think. That football and politics shouldn't mix. Now that might really mean someone else's politics shouldn't be allowed in football, some probably just don't like black politics full stop, but let's take it at face value instead, that they genuinely don't like political gestures in the game. The size of the support for that claim and retort probably is enough to not be out of touch.

It's like when people boo taking the knee and say its because they dont like politics in football. No its they dont like the message they are hearing 

[Carnivore Chris]

As soon as all 3 players in question missed pens, I knew they would receive racist abuse on social media. Unfortunately it was very predictable. But none of those clowns would say anything to anyone in person and can only do it behind a keyboard and a hidden identity, which makes them even bigger cowards.

It's an embarrassment to the nation. There is no place for it. 

Speaking of penalties, Maguire's was as perfect a pen as you'll see. That's how you take a pen.

Losing a final is shit but getting to one for the first time since '66 shows progression at the same time. 

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, The Premier Steve's said:

Is it a lack of awareness though? It looks to me to be fairly on point to what the non knuckle dragging Conservative voting base have promoted and think. That football and politics shouldn't mix. Now that might really mean someone else's politics shouldn't be allowed in football, some probably just don't like black politics full stop, but let's take it at face value instead, that they genuinely don't like political gestures in the game. The size of the support for that claim and retort probably is enough to not be out of touch.

It's like when people boo taking the knee and say its because they dont like politics in football. No its they dont like the message they are hearing 

[Guest]

Is there any excuse to boo taking the knee apart from ignorance or racism? I mean although I dont agree with it I can understand some people booing it when it was supporting the blm movement because they are a bit controversial. However it is not linked to that  now it is an equality statement. So unless you still think it is linked to the blm it it almost certain racists booing