Jump to content
talkfootball365
  • Welcome to talkfootball365!

    The better place to talk football.

Would an England defeat to Sweden spell failure?


Recommended Posts

Seen on Facebook two people debating this. One reckons it’s not a failure as it’s England’s best performance at a tournament for a long time (2002, I think) and another is saying it’s failure because Sweden are “shit”.

Now I don’t necessarily think Sweden are shit because they’ve beaten some very good sides during qualification and at this tournament to get to this stage but I think the point was suppose to be that England are perceived to be better than Sweden. 

Interested to see opinions here. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sign up to remove this ad.
  • Replies 27
  • Created
  • Last Reply

England are perceived to be better by melts in the media that want to build them up and tear them down. It’s all I’ve know since becoming aware of the hysteria since ‘98.

England have a pretty shit record against Sweden, with Southgate admitting past teams had completely underestimated them. If England go out, it not a failure. It’s knockout football. The team have now experienced extra time and a penalty win. Take that as a victory and move forward.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finally enough, we were having this discussion yesterday in the pub before the chaos ensued. 

I think for 60% of instances if you lose to a team that you expect to beat in knockout football then that spells failure even if you have reached your target pre tournament.

However there are circumstances where that doesn't happen, and I think we are on the verge of that after last night. We haven't beaten a big nation since 2002, and whilst this Columbian team are not the biggest they're definitely been our biggest scalp since Argentina. Then you have to consider the manner of the victory, we scared and intimidated them to the point where they had no interest in playing football against us (I never expected that before a tournament, real testiment to the set up and brand of football encouraged by Gareth). They wanted to foul, cheat, decept the ref and play for penalties. Yet we overcome it. To win a penalty shootout too is a huge weight of over 20 years off our shoulders too.

Given the progression we've shown, unless we completely fold against Sweden or Russia I think this is the most progress we've ever seen England make over a tournament, and it has to be considered a success.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrator
30 minutes ago, DeadLinesman said:

England are perceived to be better by melts in the media that want to build them up and tear them down. It’s all I’ve know since becoming aware of the hysteria since ‘98.

England have a pretty shit record against Sweden, with Southgate admitting past teams had completely underestimated them. If England go out, it not a failure. It’s knockout football. The team have now experienced extra time and a penalty win. Take that as a victory and move forward.

Agree with this. 

Not a failure for me but a lot of it would depend on the manner of the loss, should it happen. Southgate is right not to completely underestimate them as teams have been punished for it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We made the quarters, blitzed qualification where in the past we'd struggle and won a penalty shoot out. An actual penalty shoot out.

We should beat Sweden but we're not leagues above them. This tournament has been a success for us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There really isn’t any such thing as failure unless you’re cleaned off the park. Football is a sport of fine details, improvisation and errors (although many errors have been cleansed with VAR). It’s one of the only sports where you can dominate the statistics on any given game and still end up losing.

For these reasons in my opinion there aren’t many reasons for an analysis of failure and only disappointment and sadness. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

England lost to Iceland in euro 2016. They didn't get out the group in the last world cup. Anything from here onwards is a bonus

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Subscriber

Unless they get weirdly twatted by Sweden, England have given a good account of themselves at this tournament.

You might counter this with many arguments and there's no time like the present but it's worth factoring in that this is a young side and a quarter final run at the World Cup shouldn't be sniffed at.

Looking at the draw though a loss to Sweden would be a huge missed opportunity to get to the last four or the final.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Failure is a strong word but yes I would say England would have failed. If you don't beat someone you should on paper then yes you have failed. 

It doesn't matter what stage of the tournament you are at you can only beat what is put infront of you. You can only be judged on that otherwise you are judging based on the luck of the draw which is an odd way to do it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not English (sort of) so I can't really speak for general public, but if I was I would be disappointed if they can't beat Sweden. England can keep evolving all they like and may even become a world class team in the future, but there really isn't a better opportunity for them to go all the way. Even if they do become that, they could come into a strong German team in 2022 and then the match could go either way. This is their best chance really.

Quarter finals is a step in the right direction, but given the circumstances you can't think a team with the mentality of England getting to the quarter finals to lose to an inferior team is just OK just because they got further than before. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Spike said:

Not really as long as England uses this tournament to continue evolving and moving forward. If England do poorly in the next tournaments, then this is for naught.

I think England is on the right path. They remind me of Spain in the beginning of the last decade. Spain was also known for not having it in decisive moments, but the good work in youth football changed the history of spanish football. England holds the U-17 and U-20 World Cup championships. 

Last year, in the U-17, Rhian Brewster killed Brazil. The kid scored a hat-trick against us and England had several good players in their side. If the transition to pro football is done carefully, England will have talented and deep squads in the next decade. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, El Profesor said:

I think England is on the right path. They remind me of Spain in the beginning of the last decade. Spain was also known for not having it in decisive moments, but the good work in youth football changed the history of spanish football. England holds the U-17 and U-20 World Cup championships. 

Last year, in the U-17, Rhian Brewster killed Brazil. The kid scored a hat-trick against us and England had several good players in their side. If the transition to pro football is done carefully, England will have talented and deep squads in the next decade. 

That U20 English side last year was class. I'm not sure it was all down to squad quality though but rather I thought Paul Simpson had done an excellent job geling them all together. The only ones I was overly impressed with was Jonjoe Kenny, Ademola Lookman, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Freddie Woodman. The rest were just there, especially Solanke who somehow won the best player of the tournament, when he wasn't even one of England's best xD

In my opinion, the U17 side is more exciting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Blue said:

That U20 English side last year was class. I'm not sure it was all down to squad quality though but rather I thought Paul Simpson had done an excellent job geling them all together. The only ones I was overly impressed with was Jonjoe Kenny, Ademola Lookman, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Freddie Woodman. The rest were just there, especially Solanke who someone won the best player of the tournament, when he wasn't even one of England's best xD

In my opinion, the U17 side is more exciting.

It´s better not to talk about that U-20. How in the world a team with Douglas Luiz, David Neres, Richarlison and Lucas Paquetá didn´t even to quality to the U-20? :61_sob:

Yes. Their U-17 was a very good team. They had talent in all positions and Brewster in special really impressed me. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Blue said:

That U20 English side last year was class. I'm not sure it was all down to squad quality though but rather I thought Paul Simpson had done an excellent job geling them all together. The only ones I was overly impressed with was Jonjoe Kenny, Ademola Lookman, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Freddie Woodman. The rest were just there, especially Solanke who somehow won the best player of the tournament, when he wasn't even one of England's best xD

In my opinion, the U17 side is more exciting.

I thought Nya Kirby was excellent. To the point when I was estatic when I realised the Ruud Gullit lookalike was actually Nya Kirby, and he plays for us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Being bitterly disappointed doesn't mean you failed. If Sweden bundle you lot out then yes you should be upset by the result, and yes, it would be a HUGE opportunity to make the world cup final down the drain. But that doesn't mean you should consider this world cup a failure. Unless you're on the broad spectrum of 'every team at the world cup wants to win it' and in that case there will be 31 failures in a few weeks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Harvsky said:

If we go out to sweden I might get so angry I throw a council bin across the street, climb on top of a bus stop or furiously shake a lamp post on my way home

So you are going to do what you normally do every weekend when you are out on the lash??  being as this only comes round once every 4 years I thought that you might have put a bit more thought and effort into your reckless behavior... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Bluewolf said:

So you are going to do what you normally do every weekend when you are out on the lash??  being as this only comes round once every 4 years I thought that you might have put a bit more thought and effort into your reckless behavior... 

I was going to refrain from public urination because afterall it's not failure if England go out

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is England's best chance of getting to a World Cup final since 1990 - although the eventual winners and a top side in West Germany stood in their way. For that reason it would be a let down if England failed at this hurdle as on paper Sweden are one of the weakest sides that you could possibly hope to meet in the quarters.

Winning a knockout game for the first time in over a decade and winning a penalty shootout for the first time ever in the World Cup does represent success and should be applauded, but it'd be disappointing to waste such a good opportunity should Sweden win.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are the Swedes known for being humourless? Have to be the only country who think the It's Coming Home jokes are meant seriously.

Queue usual suspects to agree with Sweden and moan about how unfunny it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.


Sign up or subscribe to remove this ad.


×
×
  • Create New...