Euro 2020 Final - England vs Italy

[Theroadlesstravelled]

[The Other Foot]

[Arabdownunder]

1 minute ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Southgate has got a fairly limited England to a semi final and a final and they have got there with an obvious managerial game plan.  To only concede twice with a spine of Pickford, Stones, Maguire, Rice and Phillips is pretty good going and a coaching achievement.

However at the end of the day Italy had better form, better performances, better players and a better manager. They were just a better overall team and that's not a Southgate limitation.

If the English public think that all of a sudden they are footballing colossus and can play sexy football and load up the team with the likes of Foden, Grealish and Sancho then it will be back to getting pumped out early in competitions. 

England vastly overachieved at this tournament and, some good fortune aside, it was mostly down to Southgate's pragmatic choices.

Not entirely disagreeing with this. His coaching deficiency is not so much his selection and planning but his in-game management. Both the WC semi and yesterday, the opposition countered England's early pressure with some tactical tweaks. He struggles to do that when England are under pressure.

[Bairnardo]

Said to a couple of mates lastnight, the bile those three young men are going to face after missing those penalties is going to be something esle, and so it has already come to pass with the BBC running a story on Sancho, Rashford and Saka being racially abused already. Between that, booing the knee, the scenes before the game, Southgates dog whistle who won the war shite.... Is it really any wonder the world loves to see them fail. The England football fraternity is the most toxic enviroment know to man.

Get it right fucking up them.

As for the match, Southgate did a lot of things right over the tournament but ultimately, thinkning you can rope a dope for 85 minutes is a mega risky strategy because as we seen its so hard to get going again if you concede.

As for the penalties, well that was a huge risk what he did. Rashford and Sancho cant have touched the ball or barely. Pretty hard to have your eye in in those circumstances.

Anyway, get it up them and get it up Stormzy. A well deserved loss for a horrible, horrible fanbase.

[Only one David Marsh]

Watching the BBC this morning is glorious you could launch boaty mcboatface on the tears alone

[LincolnHearts]

Work is going to be glorious today 

[Ro Sham Bo]

8 hours ago, GNU_Linux said:

Pray for the Dobbies garden furniture.

He should've signed a new deal at QoS and moved up to Scotland if he didn't want his furniture trashed. 

[LondonHMFC]

Me currently having a clear out of all the Moretti I consumed last night.

[sergie's no1 fan]

Southgate has got a fairly limited England to a semi final and a final and they have got there with an obvious managerial game plan.  To only concede twice with a spine of Pickford, Stones, Maguire, Rice and Phillips is pretty good going and a coaching achievement.
However at the end of the day Italy had better form, better performances, better players and a better manager. They were just a better overall team and that's not a Southgate limitation.
If the English public think that all of a sudden they are footballing colossus and can play sexy football and load up the team with the likes of Foden, Grealish and Sancho then it will be back to getting pumped out early in competitions. 
England vastly overachieved at this tournament and, some good fortune aside, it was mostly down to Southgate's pragmatic choices.
 
 

They had an easy route to the final once again, most every single game played at Wembley, bar one.

We have seen from previous tournaments held in England how much of an advantage that is to them. They rarely win knockout games in 90 minutes outside of England.

They did well to only concede 2 but let's be honest, that papers over a lot of cracks. They gave away multiple chances in most games.

Is it Southgates fault they didn't win last night? Partly. They had the Italians on the ropes in the first half albeit they scored with one of their only shots on goal. It was pretty much like for like with the Croatia game. Sat in deeper and deeper and looked more leggy the more the game went on.

At the end of the day Italy were the best team in the tournament and were easily the better team once they got going last night but England had it in their grasp not once but twice. Total bottle job, again.

[Paul Kersey]

PJW is having some fucking meltdown

 

[sergie's no1 fan]

What was bizarre was Henderson getting subbed off again.

I thought he was a regular penalty taker for Liverpool?

A hell of a lot of pressure for young Sako to take the 5th penalty.

I do feel sorry for the 3 penalty missers as the headlines have written themselves already, sadly.

[Dons_1988]

8 minutes ago, Paul Kersey said:

PJW is having some fucking meltdown

 

You have to admire the brass neck to claim a victory there. 

[RandomGuy.]

I guess the way the game unfolded was perfect, really.

- England score early, stroll the first half and the half time break is filled with hubris about how easy it is.

- Italy dominate the second half with everyone fully aware they're building up to a goal. England barely get out their own half. Pickford almost saves them before the goal.

- Italy stroll through extra time not giving a f**k about penalties, whole of England spends extra time terrified of what's to come. Golden boy Grealish appears and yet again offers absolutely nothing except getting bodied a couple of times.

- Italy miss the first penalty to give them hope.

- Jorginho misses the penalty to win the shoot out to give them hope.

- One of their "bright young lions destined to rule world football" absolutely bottle's a vital penalty to lose them the trophy.

So many times they must've had their hopes up before Italy stole it away. Then the crushing irony of Southgate yet again losing to penalties at Wembley.

[RandomGuy.]

21 minutes ago, sergie's no1 fan said:

What was bizarre was Henderson getting subbed off again.

I thought he was a regular penalty taker for Liverpool?

A hell of a lot of pressure for young Sako to take the 5th penalty.

I do feel sorry for the 3 penalty missers as the headlines have written themselves already, sadly.

Saka has apparently never taken a penalty at senior level before.

Quite why you'd have him 5th, so he has the whole shoot out to put pressure on himself, is wild. Presumably he was decent at them in training or something .

[LondonHMFC]

A pleasant walk into work this morn.

 

[GAD]

I have to be honest, I've never been gutted to see an England player miss a penalty before, but I was when Rashford missed his, though I expect I'll get over it.

I don't get why Southgate was so desperate to get two guys on whose first touch would be a penalty when Sterling and "generational talent" Jack Grealish were on the pitch.

[KirkieRR]

Unlike other outlets, the BBC only tokenly reporting on English fan thuggery.

 

One would hope they'll get onto the online abuse black players, including one best known for feeding poor kids, are getting from Brexiteer morons, just for missing penalties.

[mizfit]

Southgate said post match he’d decided who would take the penalties himself. Either doesn’t trust Henderson or Grealish, or knew they’d shy away.

[The Golden God]

Might have been posted but can’t be arsed checking

[EdinburghPar1975]

3 hours ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

 

For me that game was tighter than i would ever have wanted - i had the fear when it went to penalties but that Chiellini pull back on Saka was one of those incidents where you knew Italy's attitude was win at all costs (the other when Jorginho decided to see how well Grealish's knee would bend the in other direction) - utterly ruthless.

McGuire's penalty was tremendous, these staggering run ups deserved what they got. 

The abuse of Saka, Rashford and Sancho was sadly inevitable as were the scenes before and after the game - again not surprised that the fan behaviour is not getting more attention...don't think World cup 2030 will be anywhere near the UK thanks to that.