UEFA Euro 2024 Final Spain v England ** spoilers ** [Sunday 14th July 2024]
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Caporegime
El Tel beat prime Holland and Spain in a single comp and lost the Semi on penalties to Germany but both teams would have been worthy victors.
Hoddle won against eventual 98 winners France and 1994 runners up Italy in the 1997 tournament that led up to the world cup. Also only got knocked out by Argentina due to Beckham just being a noob.
Agreed since then we have been pretty poor but we played rigid 442 when in reality we should have been going to 433 during the 00's and we had the players for it too.
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Soldato
You’ll enjoy this if you haven’t read it before!
Harry Kane has actually scored precisely zero proper goals for England
Harry Kane having 66 England goals would indicate that he's good. That won't do, so here's how none of those goals actually count.
www.football365.com
Soldato
I would have peak El Tel back tomorrow he had England playing better than any other manager I remember and it was a shame his off field problems saw him leave just as we had a group of even better players coming through.
England only played Argentina that early because Hoddle mucked up the group game against Romania! Had we won the group we would have played Tunisia but then Hoddle would just have got a lucky draw right?
Caporegime
Romania were a good side in the 90's though. England were ranked 10 and Romania 13th at the time.
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Soldato
The England manager also chose not to start Michael Owen and David Beckham despite the fans and media clamouring for both and them transforming the team when finally included, it was incredibly similar to the clamour for Watkins and Palmer this year but it’s ok Hoddle wasn’t Southgate so gets a free pass!
Caporegime
Hoddle wasn't starting Beckham due to off the field stuff so was totally different. Owen was also a kid and had played a couple of games for England. Hoddle also had a plethora of strikers to choose from at that time.
The two couldn't be any more different.
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Soldato
He wasn’t starting Beckham because Hoddle was being a petty child and didn’t like his celebrity status, he was on the back of a good season at United and every fan and pundit thought he should be starting. He had an aged Sherrigham starting in front of Owen who was in amazing form once again every fan and Pundit was crying out for Owen to start to say anything else is just revisionist nonsense. We should have beaten Romania and if we’d out out our best side probably would have done, Hoddle had a decent record as England manager but was flawed.
Soldato
Agreed but it doesn’t make the criticism rational, just a few posts ago someone gave El Tel credit for beating ‘peak Spain’ at euro ‘96 in what was actually a pretty poor match where the Spanish had two goals chalked out for dodgy offside calls and a clear penalty not given before we squeezed through on pens. Maybe it’s because it was so long ago that the details have faded!
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I'm no fan of Southgate, but does anyone on this forum know for certain that it's Southgate that is telling his players to play like that??
Or is it just the players themselves and their own fear of failure at this level?
Or is it just the players themselves and their own fear of failure at this level?
England played Tunisia in the group stage (I remember because it was an early kickoff and I had an A-level exam that day, so was trying to avoid hearing the result but overheard cheers in town), there's no way we could've played them in the last16.
edit: Looking up who Romania faced, they met Croatia who were a good team at that point with Suker and finished 3rd in the whole tournament. Don't forget Croatia thrashed Germany 3-0 in the quarterfinal and also beat an elite Dutch team (who ignoring a loss on pens to Brazil were undefeated in every match except Croatia, they also beat Argentina thanks to Bergkamp)
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Soldato
We beat Tunisia in the group stage. Shearer scored.
I love the hand wringing after the latest England failure. The looking for answers, the hating on the manager and to a lesser extent the players. I think in truth the fans love it too. This thread would be dead had England won other than people still wanting Southgate out because the football was dull as anything. It's been the same since I can remember England not being completely useless like they were in the 80's.
I actually think Southgate has overachieved with this group of players. He's largely eliminated the embarrassing losses lower ranked teams and made two finals and a semi and taken them from FIFA ranked 13 to an average of 4 in the last 8 years. 4th in the world seems about right.
Sure he's a conservative manager but maybe that's because the players aren't actually as good as the Premier League hype would have you believe. They fail because they are technically inferior and can't retain possession of the ball against the best teams. That has been the failing consistently. The manager and pundits all admit it. So why it that the case? The players are not as comfortable on the ball as the top sides. They key positions in midfield are a perpetual issue. Rice is now the player to take on the challenge and he's an honest lad but he's not at the truly elite level. Mainoo showed some promise but he's 19yo and hasn't even played a season in top flight football (plus he's been in a crap team). Henderson, Calvin-Phillips, Gallagher, Mount, Maddison, Ward Prowse, TTA. Not one of them gives you that Pirlo capability to control a game. The EPL doesn't foster that kind of player anymore which is why Arsenal thought £100m for Rice was worth it as he's the closest there was to that role. He's just not all that at international football.
Without that role and insisting on playing an immobile Harry Kane was England's downfall and will continue to be so unless they start producing more technically gifted players who exude calm when the going gets tough.
I actually think Southgate has overachieved with this group of players. He's largely eliminated the embarrassing losses lower ranked teams and made two finals and a semi and taken them from FIFA ranked 13 to an average of 4 in the last 8 years. 4th in the world seems about right.
Sure he's a conservative manager but maybe that's because the players aren't actually as good as the Premier League hype would have you believe. They fail because they are technically inferior and can't retain possession of the ball against the best teams. That has been the failing consistently. The manager and pundits all admit it. So why it that the case? The players are not as comfortable on the ball as the top sides. They key positions in midfield are a perpetual issue. Rice is now the player to take on the challenge and he's an honest lad but he's not at the truly elite level. Mainoo showed some promise but he's 19yo and hasn't even played a season in top flight football (plus he's been in a crap team). Henderson, Calvin-Phillips, Gallagher, Mount, Maddison, Ward Prowse, TTA. Not one of them gives you that Pirlo capability to control a game. The EPL doesn't foster that kind of player anymore which is why Arsenal thought £100m for Rice was worth it as he's the closest there was to that role. He's just not all that at international football.
Without that role and insisting on playing an immobile Harry Kane was England's downfall and will continue to be so unless they start producing more technically gifted players who exude calm when the going gets tough.
Strange feeling after that defeat, normally when England get knocked out I feel hard done by whether that's due to dodgy decisions, bad luck, penalty agony etc this time it's like, Spain are the best team and deserved to win, so I'm left feeling empty more than anything.
End of the day, best two teams in the tourney were Spain and Germany IMO, as I said pre-tournament I did not consider England favourites anyway, so a silver medal is par for the course at worst.
End of the day, best two teams in the tourney were Spain and Germany IMO, as I said pre-tournament I did not consider England favourites anyway, so a silver medal is par for the course at worst.
I suspect it's a bit of both. Let's not pretend England teams with talented players have always been some swashbuckling maelstrom of footballing prowess cleaving apart allcomers in tournaments. Players like Rooney in 2004 stood out because he was the exception rather than the norm.
I don't think the knockout run would have been easy at that World Cup either way
Argentina > Netherlands > Brazil > France
or
Croatia > Germany > France > Brazil
Carragher himself said when England had an attacking throw in at 1-1 Southgate shouted to throw it backwards. Couple that with Gallacher and Trippier being readied when England equalised suggests that yes, its Southgate.
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I suspect you're correct, but isn't it strange that when we go 1-0 down the players can become more progressive, and then when we get level, they drop back to their own final third. I don't see that coming from Southgate on the sidelines.
So whoever comes in will have more to do that just tell the players to play higher, I think it's a mindset thing when playing for England, and without an out an out captain, i.e. one that can motivate and get his players to follow his instructions i.e. push further up the pitch, then I wonder if it will really be any different under a different manager.
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As I said earlier i'm no fan of Southgate and I think his first thought is defensive as we've seen that before in his starting 11, and also his lack of substitutions or a plan B if we're not playing well.
However I also don't think he's totally to blame, and changing the players mindset at this level may not be as easy as change the manager, hopefully we'll get to see.