UEFA European Championship 2021

On a sour note believe it or not i guessed all 3 penalty misses right Rashford because he hasn't played a single game,Sancho because he has barely played a game and Saka because he is really young and inexperienced to take a pen in this magnitude in this type of game.

Sad for England but i guess it is a step in the right direction.

(19-06-2021 10:31 )Sm© Wrote:  England will still go far in the competition, maybe not as far as some of you think they should though...

Nailed it

Have the bookies made England favorites for the World cup yet?

Italy made England look poor at times. They were pretty rough though. Overall, it was a disappointing final and England did get the penalty takers wrong. Feel bad for Gareth most of all but maybe in Qatar, just maybe .....

(11-07-2021 23:02 )Kingsmind Wrote:  On a sour note believe it or not i guessed all 3 penalty misses right

Congratulations.

(11-07-2021 22:35 )fazzer77 Wrote:  With a bit of luck all the Football's coming home now stops ......

I can hardly wait for the football is coming To Rome remix.

Gianluigi Donnarumma has kept goal in 5 penalty shootouts - 3 at club level and 2 for Italy. He's been on the winning side all 5 times.

(11-07-2021 23:28 )Tractor boy Wrote:  I can hardly wait for the football is coming To Rome remix.

Yep that is definitely going to happen.

England have a really young and talented squad & the Premier League attracts the best managers to develop this squad over the last few years day in day out: Klopp, Guardiola, Biesla, Tuchel, Pochettino. So there is plenty of reasons to be optimistic for England.

Watching this match felt like watching England vs Croatia in the world cup, England scored early with one of their wing backs, in 2018 it was Trippier in the 5th today it was Shaw in the 2nd. England were the better team in the first half but when the opponents came out in the 2nd they seized the game & took it to England with Perisic scoring in 68th minute & Bonucci in the 67th & both teams go on to be the better team for the rest of the 120 though England were better in ET this year than they were in 2018.

What was also similar in these matches was that despite that it was obvious that momentum had swung to the opponents Southgate changed nothing, Mancini made subs that were game changers & Gareth did not learn the lesson from 2018. Now obviously unless he decides otherwise, Gareth will be the manager in the next world cup & England will have one of the best squads but when you compare Southgate to the provisional managers for that world cup provided all the big teams qualify:

Germany - Hansi Flick - 2 league titles & a champions league

Italy - Mancini - 4 league titles & The European Championship

Spain - Luis Enrique - 2 league titles & a champions league

France - Deschamps - 1 league title & the world cup or Zidane - 1 league title & 3 Champions Leagues

England - Southgate - 12th in the league followed by relegation

Managers at the end of the day are what make the difference, though the two teams were evenly matched overall if I was to rate both teams based on the individual talent of the players when playing for their clubs, England would be an A & Italy a B. Now you could argue that every dog has its day especially in a knock out tournament with only one leg per fixture but Italy have now had 34 days in a row that include Belgium (#1), Spain (#6) & England (#4) in their last three games, that is not luck

I think Southgate needs to be braver, braver in his selection leaning into England's strength which is their overwhelming attack power, not playing 6 or 7 defensive players like he did most of the tournament & braver in taking risks to change things when necessary in the big games. You can't sit & watch an opponent outplay you for 20+ mins after the restart with only a 1 goal lead & do nothing only to make changes after they equalise with momentum in thier favour & have any complaints about losing

(11-07-2021 23:14 )Sm© Wrote:  

(19-06-2021 10:31 )Sm© Wrote:  England will still go far in the competition, maybe not as far as some of you think they should though...

Nailed it

Have the bookies made England favorites for the World cup yet?

Oh I'm sure they will soon enough, after all it's only logical, semi-final, then runners up, next one they have to be nailed on to win it

Did we believe our own press hype? Did the press make the expectations too high so that the occasion became way too much for the players to handle??

Southsidestu you make excellent points about 2018 and last night and honestly the comparisions were so strikingly similar. I wonder had he made changes at half - time would that had made any difference to the result, bt one thing has to be clear : - if we are going to win a major
I think in certain games we have to become ruthless and kill off games, and in others we have to be patient, but - (and this is a BIG BUT) - if we want to reach & win the Qatar World Cup Final next winter, we have to be far more ruthless far more strong minded and determined, and Gareth HAS to allow the players the need to be let off the leash and play their own natural games and think if we had done that last night I reckon we would not have needed extra time or penalties. The Italians literally took the game by the scruff the neck in the period sfter half time and ran the legs out of us. Part of me wanted us to think back to the Ukraine game I don't think the Italians would have lived with us had shown that same kind determination. Mancini probably knew our weak points quite early on and his substitutions made the difference. The 20+ or so minutes or what ever it was between the end of the 1st half and the start of the second, we were a different team and we lost the momentum to pressure tjhe Italians and you could see the Italians were growing in confidence.

If Gareth was to stun us this morning and he decided to quit, England could do no better than bite the bullet and look to a coach abroad that could likely or totally reinvent us for Qatar in a style of play that stops us playing sideways and back, and put ia bit of fear factor into us, which in turn could give us fans back that excitement. Someone in the Bobby Robson mould so to speak.

Sadly, I think we blew the best ever chance of winning a major international tournament in my lifetime.

But if we can put resources into creating a British squad capable of bringing home the Olympic Gold Football medal in the next Games after Tokyo, then I'm sure many of the England players in that squad could form the nucleus of our team to challenge at the next Euros or World Cup after Qatar. We have to start planning NOW for the future of the England team. We rely too much on tactical approach and we stifle the natural playing flair of our players to the point that even when we lay down a marker to our opponents, often we end up being taken apart too easily. There were players on that bench last night that I think that could have grabbed that momentum back. Also I felt Gareth was not even pjuttin g the confidence into the players from the touchline like Mancini who was encouraging his playeers nesrly every five minutes!!

It didn't take long for the racial abuse online to start,on Rashford Sancho and Saka that alone had made me ashamed and I think they are going to get far worse in the coming PL season.