UEFA Euro 2024 Final Spain v England ** spoilers ** [Sunday 14th July 2024]

[a1ex2001]

Its slacktivism. It’s better than doing nothing but not by much. They are happy to take oil money, they are happy to play in Qatar, they are privileged beyond belief and could use their platform and wealth to do so much. It’s just much easier and cheaper to take a knee than actually do something. For some reason I don't really put much stock in people who take the knee, black out their profile picture on twitter and other such performative action. If you care, put your money where your mouth is. Plenty do but far far more don't.

An awful lot of top footballers give significant sums to charities and do a lot of good work they just don’t make a big song and dance about it. Of the three England players subjected to horrible abuse for missing penalties Rashfords record of doing good speaks for it’s self, Saka supports a charity giving life saving operations to kids in Nigeria and Sancho paid for a new football pitch where he grew up (just the stuff that gets reported) so labelling them all as slacktivists is just more lazy shots from the sidelines from people who just don’t agree with ‘taking a knee’. I can dig through the rest of the England squad to pull up all the other charity work they don’t that makes you feel better?

 

[a1ex2001]

Is the aim to win trophies or just to "do well"?

Even if it's the latter, did we even do well...

Of course the aim is to win trophies but that shouldn’t mean if you fall short you haven’t done we’ll.

I’m still not convinced by all the talk of the squad is so good we should be winning every tournament like either. Yes we have some outstanding players and are well stocked in certain areas particularly attacking midfield but other areas are paper thin! Kane is brilliant but behind him we have Aston Villa and Brentford’s centre forwards. John stones is world class but alongside him we have Crystal Palace’s centre back with some youngsters on the bench in defensive midfield we have Rice and a kid who’s played 25 professional games right back is ok although two of them are now ancient and left back has been decimated by injuries and loss of form leaving us with half fit Shaw and a right back! Pickford is solid but will never be the calm headed play it out from the back keeper people seem to crave. We are never objective about the England squad currently it is good, great in places and should be competing at the business end of major tournaments but it isn’t so good we should be running away with it.

 

[Joxeon]

Of course the aim is to win trophies but that shouldn’t mean if you fall short you haven’t done we’ll.

I’m still not convinced by all the talk of the squad is so good we should be winning every tournament like either. Yes we have some outstanding players and are well stocked in certain areas particularly attacking midfield but other areas are paper thin! Kane is brilliant but behind him we have Aston Villa and Brentford’s centre forwards. John stones is world class but alongside him we have Crystal Palace’s centre back with some youngsters on the bench in defensive midfield we have Rice and a kid who’s played 25 professional games right back is ok although two of them are now ancient and left back has been decimated by injuries and loss of form leaving us with half fit Shaw and a right back! Pickford is solid but will never be the calm headed play it out from the back keeper people seem to crave. We are never objective about the England squad currently it is good, great in places and should be competing at the business end of major tournaments but it isn’t so good we should be running away with it.

On paper our squad is better than Spain but Spain play as a team and while we may defend as a team, going forward look like a bunch of individuals with no cohesion or style of play.

Spain could put the reserve team on and still play in the same style press and passing game as the first team.

For Spains first goal they dropped a midfielder into right back and pushed the right back forward to create an overload, this clearly looked like something they’d worked on at the training ground. There was nothing like this kind of tactical play going forward from England who wasted 3 games at the tournament just trying to figure out who would play alongside rice.

 

[a1ex2001]

On paper our squad is better than Spain but Spain play as a team and while we may defend as a team, going forward look like a bunch of individuals with no cohesion or style of play.

Spain could put the reserve team on and still play in the same style press and passing game as the first team.

For Spains first goal they dropped a midfielder into right back and pushed the right back forward to create an overload, this clearly looked like something they’d worked on at the training ground. There was nothing like this kind of tactical play going forward from England who wasted 3 games at the tournament just trying to figure out who would play alongside rice.

Is our squad better than Spain in all positions of is it reality that in some positions Spain have better players than us and vice versa? I’d take several of spains starters over their English counterparts and in a few other cases it is very hard to argue that one is better than the other.

If Rodri was English there would have been no need for the midfield shuffle or the eventual selection of a teenager with 25 games for Man U

 

[Shamikebab]

Spain's midfielder is better than ours but our defence and attack are better on paper. Keepers might be a wash, they both have an error in them.

 

[The_One]

Accurate tbh

 

[Mr Jack]

Only in this country do we accept losing 2 finals in a row as doing "exceptionally well".

In the entire history of English football, we've managed three finals. Southgate led us to two of them. I'm not sure why England can't equal the footballing achievements of our continental counterparts, but acting like that's on Southgate is daft. His achievements compared to others speak for themselves.

He did better than most England managers

Exactly.

 

[Joxeon]

In the entire history of English football, we've managed three finals. Southgate led us to two of them. I'm not sure why England can't equal the footballing achievements of our continental counterparts, but acting like that's on Southgate is daft. His achievements compared to others speak for themselves.



Exactly.

In both of those euro runs we didn’t have to play a top side though.

 

[Shamikebab]

In both of those euro runs we didn’t have to play a top side though.

We beat Germany...

 

[Joxeon]

We beat Germany...

A poor Germany team who didn’t even get out of the group at 2 WC either side of euro 2021 and barely scraped though the group in that one.

 

[Shamikebab]

A poor Germany team who didn’t even get out of the group at 2 WC either side of euro 2021 and barely scraped though the group in that one.

So when we beat teams that knock out big teams then we had an easy draw. When we beat big teams it's because they're poor. Almost like your argument is rather disingenuous.

 

[Joxeon]

So when we beat teams that knock out big teams then we had an easy draw. When we beat big teams it's because they're poor. Almost like your argument is rather disingenuous.

We had easy draws at both euros and both WCs, how many times in those tournaments did we beat teams like Spain, Belgium, france, Italy, Brazil or Argentina.

 

[Shamikebab]

We had easy draws at both euros and both WCs, how many times in those tournaments did we beat teams like Spain, Belgium, france, Italy, Brazil or Argentina.

Big team Belgium who went out in the group stage at the world cup?

 

[wildman]

Just saying that teams like Argentina, Brazil, Spain and Germany turn up at tournaments and focus on their football rather than grandstanding on other issues.

no, have you read the Spainsh papers leading up to a big Tourney, they are full of the same crap as the English ones, thinking that the other teams don't carry their own baggage in with them like England is delusional.

 

[a1ex2001]

Spain's midfielder is better than ours but our defence and attack are better on paper. Keepers might be a wash, they both have an error in them.

Spain's keeper is in a different league if you want to play the ball out from the back he is much more comfortable with the ball at his feet than Pickford who is a great old school goalie who makes good saves and commands his area pretty well these days. The attack when the players take the pitch I don't think is that much different in terms of ability Spain lined up with Yamal, Olmo, Williams, Morata while we started Saka, Foden, Bellingham, Kane we might just edge it but I think you could make arguments both ways on those. I just think there is some serious delusion going on when people say we have the best squad/team in international football don't get me wrong we have a great lineup at the minute but it is really thin in places and certainly not significantly better than Spain/France/Argentina.

 

[Joxeon]

Let’s face it you put Southgate in at Man City and they probably wouldn’t even make top 6.

 

[CliffyG]

Southgate's route to the England job is pretty mental really, no credentials whatsoever and not a lot of experience. Not saying he hasn't improved things but I definitely think he has hit his ceiling and he is 100% not going to change his tactical approach which is far too defensive and loyalty to players who just aren't cutting it.

 

[a1ex2001]

Southgate's route to the England job is pretty mental really, no credentials whatsoever and not a lot of experience. Not saying he hasn't improved things but I definitely think he has hit his ceiling and he is 100% not going to change his tactical approach which is far too defensive and loyalty to players who just aren't cutting it.

England were in a terrible place when Southgate took over and they needed a quick sensible non-controversial appointment to move on from the big Sam debacle, he has done remarkably well for what I'm sure was originally seen as a stop gap appointment. It will be interesting to see where his career goes from here as I'm sure there will be job offers from premier league clubs this year, I don't see him at any of the big clubs but he could well have a successful career in the middle of the table like Moyes or dare I say it big Sam himself.

 

[fez]

It will be interesting to see where his career goes from here as I'm sure there will be job offers from premier league clubs this year, I don't see him at any of the big clubs but he could well have a successful career in the middle of the table like Moyes or dare I say it big Sam himself.

I doubt there will be many clubs lining up to take him. Ultimately a managers job is to add value to the set of players he manages. To make them better than the sum of their parts. To change games and outwit the opposition manager and his tactics. Does Southgate do any of this to even a passable level? He certainly will be taking a massive paycut for his next job.

 

[uscool]

We had easy draws at both euros and both WCs, how many times in those tournaments did we beat teams like Spain, Belgium, france, Italy, Brazil or Argentina.

Think previous managers played top 10 ranking teams in the round of 16, quarters, Gareth's run seems to meet them in the finals, earlier ones was loss to France in the semis only win Germany