Day 11: England vs Panama, Japan vs Senegal and Poland vs Colombia

Do we want to finish second in this group? One half of me wants to batter Belgium and prove ourselves, the other half is considering the quarter finals where we’ll be playing Mexico/Switzerland instead of potentially Germany/Brazil.
 
Random Task said:
I gave you the reaction you were looking for, then. Silly me.
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I don't see why you would presume I'm trolling. I don't have any problem with England, but they just don't very good players right now, and the manager is clearly nothing special (he froze against Tunisia and a corner got him out of trouble). Pre-tournament every England fan was rightly pessimistic, but a freak result like this is just the thing to give everyone false hope. Hence I think it'll end in tears.

Sure, you have to beat what you're up against, but it's not like there was any signs of great play (Lingard goal aside), almost every single goal they've scored at the tournament has been down to horrific defending at set-pieces. In other words, they ain't gonna score against teams that can defend, and their own defence is horribly mediocre. A good team will demolish them.
 
Brwned said:
I don't think playing well in the group stages proves anything, personally.

Take 1966 as an example. Only two teams won all three games - Portugal and the Soviet Union. They both lost in the semis to England and Germany respectively, who won 2 and drew 1. In 1954, Hungary finished above Germany in the group stages and beat them 8-3 (!), but lost to them in the final. Uruguay and Austria were the only other teams to win both their group games, and they both went out in the semi-finals.

England's 2nd best World Cup in 1990 saw them draw their first two games, needing a win to get through. The two teams to win all their group games were Brazil and Italy - Brazil got knocked out in the last 16, Italy got knocked out along with England in the semis. On the other hand in 1982, England won all three of their group games and then got knocked out in the 2nd group stage without a win. The only other team to win all their 1st stage group games in 1982 were Brazil, who suffered the same fate as England.

So I think saying they have proven people wrong is getting carried away, because there's nothing to suggest group stage performances translate into anything more than that...and doing well in a group with Tunisia and Panama is not remotely impressive.
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Personally, I expected this England team to fail spectacularly as it was, on paper anyway, one of the weakest squads we have ever sent to a major competition. They have proven myself and a great many others completely wrong. They deserve credit for their performances thus far in the tournament.
 
I wouldn't be against the idea of playing the second string in the Belgium game. Give the first XI a rest.
 
Dante said:
The bumpers between the ITV ad breaks are about an England fan who thinks we'll win the World Cup. It's comic relief because England fans don't actually think we'll win it.

If you take the bluster at face value you completely miss the point.

At the end of the game, you'll almost certainly see Lineker make a comment about 'winning the cup' with a cheeky grin on his face. It won't be serious, but I bet there'll be plenty who'll cry about it being exactly that.
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There's nothing tongue in cheek about the BBC calling England "incredible" for beating Panama. That's genuine celebration of the national team and the coverage throughout has been very positive - that's a very deliberate attempt to create an atmosphere. And that's a good thing. But it's not uncommon for them to stretch the truth to the point where it bears little resemblance to reality, and they do it without any tongue in cheek. Sometimes it's tongue in cheek, sometimes it's people getting carried away - you're very quick to focus on the latter and dismiss the former for obvious reasons.
 
SqueakyWeasel said:
There's a load of Iceland fans in Viking helmets laughing at this statement :angel:
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Oh yeah nothing’s easy with England, but I’d certainly rather play Mexico/Switzerland than Brazil/Germany. Brazil are the winners for me.
 
Random Task said:
Personally, I expected this England team to fail spectacularly as it was, on paper anyway, one of the weakest squads we have ever sent to a major competition. They have proven myself and a great many others completely wrong. They deserve credit for their performances thus far in the tournament.
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Statistically you were in the minority as England were strongly favoured to get out of their group. They haven't achieved anything more than that yet. They deserve credit for playing well but saying they've proven people wrong is praising them for just looking like they could go far. That's a long way away from actually doing anything noteworthy. It's plainly getting carried away.
 
Brwned said:
There's nothing tongue in cheek about the BBC calling England "incredible" for beating Panama. That's genuine celebration of the national team and the coverage throughout has been very positive - that's a very deliberate attempt to create an atmosphere. And that's a good thing. But it's not uncommon for them to stretch the truth to the point where it bears little resemblance to reality, and they do it without any tongue in cheek. Sometimes it's tongue in cheek, sometimes it's people getting carried away - you're very quick to focus on the latter and dismiss the former for obvious reasons.
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Such as?

The only time there's been real hype was during the 'golden generation'. and in that instance it was at least somewhat justified given the quality in the squad.
 
LennonNL said:
Oh yeah nothing’s easy with England, but I’d certainly rather play Mexico/Switzerland than Brazil/Germany. Brazil are the winners for me.
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Not been that impressed with any of the favourites so far to tell you the truth. I think at least faced with an opponent that has form, we'll not underestimate the task at hand – which might be the problem going into the KO stages.
 
Anyone got Lingard celebration?
 
The second half takes the gloss off a bit for me, amateur mistakes & poor defending. Still a great feel good win though. In this system, Kane, Lingard & Trippier are our most important players, was wise to take them off. Sterling & Maguire need to improve or risk being dropped for Rashford & Cahill against a top team.
 
Dante said:
Such as?

The only time there's been real hype was during the 'golden generation'. and in that instance it was at least somewhat justified given the quality in the squad.
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I just gave you one. They've just called this England team "incredible" for beating Panama. It's nice that they want to inspire positive emotions in their fans but you can't hold it against non-fans for finding that a laughable description of events. It simply wouldn't happen if they weren't so starved of success.
 
Random Task said:
Personally, I expected this England team to fail spectacularly as it was, on paper anyway, one of the weakest squads we have ever sent to a major competition. They have proven myself and a great many others completely wrong. They deserve credit for their performances thus far in the tournament.
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Tunisia and Panama are like non-league sides. Rio said the same of them in this game.

It's crazy to view beating them as proving anyone wrong.

Brwned said:
Statistically you were in the minority as England were strongly favoured to get out of their group. They haven't achieved anything more than that yet. They deserve credit for playing well but saying they've proven people wrong is praising them for just looking like they could go far. That's a long way away from actually doing anything noteworthy. It's plainly getting carried away.
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Agree completely.
 
Brwned said:
I just gave you one. They've just called this England team "incredible" for beating Panama. It's nice that they want to inspire positive emotions in their fans but you can't hold it against non-fans for finding that a laughable description of events.
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6-1 against any team is incredible at World Cup level.
 
Ashley Young does not look his age. I'd put him in his early twenties.

He's the same age as me, but he looks about ten years younger than me.
 
The commentators on TV were completely insufferable. They were acting like Kane was Ronaldo and waxing lyrical about his performance under pressure. Completely ignoring his average big game record as well as his poor overall play against Panama.

Lingard only got credit after he scored the goal, despite being our best player. A lot of english media view the game completely different to everyone else, they are former players yet have the understanding of a fan.
 
breakout67 said:
The commentators on TV were completely insufferable. They were acting like Kane was Ronaldo and waxing lyrical about his performance under pressure. Completely ignoring his average big game record as well as his poor overall play against Panama.

Lingard only got credit after he scored the goal, despite being our best player. A lot of english media view the game completely different to everyone else, they are former players yet have the understanding of a fan.
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To be fair, Danny Murphy was only just talking about Jesses runs off-cam that he could see and we couldn't when the goal went in. He and co-comm said immediately that the best player on the pitch has got the gaol he deserves.
 
People were saying last week how good Belgium looked after they struggled first half against this Panama side.

Can people not just enjoy our biggest ever win in the world cup for one day.
 
SqueakyWeasel said:
To be fair, Danny Murphy was only just talking about Jesses runs off-cam that he could see and we couldn't when the goal went in. He and co-comm said immediately that the best player on the pitch has got the gaol he deserves.
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Danny Murphy was having an orgasm over Harry Kane's first penalty for 5 minutes. He also made some strange noises and mumbled 'pressure' and 'Kane' over and over for his 2nd penalty.

I was watching with 2 Brazil supporters and they kept on commenting on how annoying Danny Murphy was.
 
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