Day 17: England vs Germany | Sweden vs Ukraine (Ro16 7&8)

padr81 said:
They don't but neither do Belgium, France last 2 competitions, Portugal for the last 8 years etc... When is the last time a national team who plays on the front foot won a major competition.
Germany 2014 if I'm correct... before that we had a very pragmatic Spain team win 3 comps in a row. So between EC and World Cup, one attacking team has won it since 2008.
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I think you're stretching pragmatic with the definition you're giving. There's a difference between pragmatic, tactical football and playing like a total underdog Greece-like team.

^^Greece played better football than England up to this point in their run and I'm actually doing them a disservice as they were an amazingly well organised and drilled side who executed a plan to perfection.

England have a literal wealth of talent at their disposal and could stretch their legs and win games. What Southgate is doing is all well and good until it backfires, then serious questions about under utilisation of the assets at his disposal would be asked.

If Southgate wins the whole thing playing as he is, then all detractors will eat crow, and perhaps rightfully so.
 
GatoLoco said:
I think that, as things stand now, England are the clear favorites to win the tournament.
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Home advantage must be a big help. Still got to win the final, never mind the next two 'easy' games. The England defence looks pretty tight though.
 
RobinLFC said:
Yes because they played exactly like I thought they would before they brought on Grealish, mind-numbingly boring and that's not what I want to watch as a neutral. Of course England fans won't care about that but I do.

I'll give the players credit they won. They didn't win because of their manager, but because they're good players and they faced the worst Germany side in 25 years. But well done of course, never easy to beat them in a KO game during an international tournament.


As a manager you put the best team out to succeed, but he had to make a change first before he gave his team that chance. So unless you're gonna argue that it was his master plan all along to keep the Germans at 0-0 until after an hour and then bring on the people who could make a difference (fair enough), then he didn't get it right but got bailed out by his players.

A game of football is decided in fine margins, you can't just say he got it right because they won. Would he gotten it wrong if Muller scores his wide open chance and Germany goes on to win it, despite not doing anything differently than he did now?
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The irony seems to be lost on so many here. As soon as Southgate made the changes half the nation thought he should have started with, England began to dominate the game and scored two. Before that we struggled to even get in the opposition half, with the best chances falling to Germany.

Maybe, just maybe, if Southgate hadn't been so astoundingly negative in his approach then we wouldn't have struggled quite so much?
 
sebsheep said:
Also got knocked out of a tournament by Iceland...
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You're mixing up managers...

MU655 said:
But he was wrong. We didn't win until Grealish came on. The idea of negativity was completely right.

He was scared of playing Grealish for some odd reason.
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I disagree. Germany has proved to struggle against the tactics used today. Having gamechanger on the bench doesnt seem silly now?

big rons sovereign said:
What utter Bollox. He got the luckiest run to the semis imaginable, including scraping past Columbia on pens.
So far he's played nothing but dull, mindnumbingly negative crap. And got lucky.
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The only negativity about the game is you and many other posters in this thread. The game today was very very good and he got pretty much everything right. Smile a bit if you're a fan. This was solid!

bosskeano said:
brave man to post that after they win.....they were shocking until Grealish came on and lucky not to have been losing so you're the only clueless one
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You are free to go back and see my post before the game.. Luck?

Today game was very solid. If you can't see that, well...
 
United492 said:
Not reading the whole thread, so apologies if I'm reiterating something posted earlier, but I'm ashamed of the continual booing of the German national anthem, and probably others, by England fans. It's honking, despicable, call it what you want, but I find it disgraceful.
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I assume you don't like other teams' supporters because every anthem has been booed (at least in the matches I've seen).

Not just England fans who do it.
 
Didn;t know Hampden had a last 16 match, Sweden done nearly as much travelling for this euros as Wales.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
that’s pretty pathetic tbh.
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Well I think it's quite pathetic to call an opinion pathetic if you disagree with it, each to their own.

If you think he did a good job because you won, fair enough then. I saw what I saw, and you accidently started to play well when he put the player on that I said should've started.
 
padr81 said:
They don't but neither do Belgium, France last 2 competitions, Portugal for the last 8 years etc... When is the last time a national team who plays on the front foot won a major competition.
Germany 2014 if I'm correct... before that we had a very pragmatic Spain team win 3 comps in a row. So between EC and World Cup, one attacking team has won it since 2008.
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Don't agree on Spain. They weren't pragmatic, it's that the opposition just didn't try to attack and were usually defending with 10 men behind the ball because Spain were so good with the ball and suffocated them when they tried to start attacks.

Spain in 2008 showed that when they weren't rated very highly, and teams tried to attack them, they were scoring more and dominated that tournament. After that, the opposition played ultra defensive against them and that's why you usually had those low scoring games. It wasn't because Spain were pragmatic. Rather paradoxically, if the opposition tried to attack more, Spain would've scored a lot more themselves.

France and Portugal were certainly the antithesis of how the best teams were playing before, Spain and Germany. Both tried to dominate games and generally play attacking football.
 
ivaldo said:
The irony seems to be lost on so many here. As soon as Southgate made the changes half the nation thought he should have started with, England began to dominate the game and scored two. Before that we struggled to even get in the opposition half, with the best chances falling to Germany.

Maybe, just maybe, if Southgate hadn't been so astoundingly negative in his approach then we wouldn't have struggled quite so much?
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Agree with that. Of course you can't compare 1 on 1 because a game is different in the opening minutes than after an hour, but still. It's so glaringly obvious it's almost impossible to look past.
 
GatoLoco said:
I think that, as things stand now, England are the clear favorites to win the tournament.
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But probably only because of the draw really. Belgium are the strongest remaining team surely? Italy, Spain and England roughly at the same level I would say. The Danes are handy too.
 
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RobinLFC said:
Well I think it's quite pathetic to call an opinion pathetic if you disagree with it, each to their own.

If you think he did a good job because you won, fair enough then. I saw what I saw, and you accidently started to play well when he put the player on that I said should've started.
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Well I think it’s pathetic to say it’s quite pathetic to call an opinion pathetic if you disagree with it.
 
Wilt said:
Yes, England around 2/1
Spain 3/1
Italy 4/1
Belgium 7/1
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Belgium at 7s is pretty good value. I'd fancy them v England and Spain, just whether they can get past Italy. I assume those are odds made with De Bruyne probably out of QF.
 
FootballHQ said:
Belgium at 7s is pretty good value. I'd fancy them v England and Spain, just whether they can get past Italy. I assume those are odds made with De Bruyne probably out of QF.
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Think the draw and potential semi’s and final at home has given England the edge
 
Fortitude said:
I think you're stretching pragmatic with the definition you're giving. There's a difference between pragmatic, tactical football and playing like a total underdog Greece-like team.

^^Greece played better football than England up to this point in their run and I'm actually doing them a disservice as they were an amazingly well organised and drilled side who executed a plan to perfection.

England have a literal wealth of talent at their disposal and could stretch their legs and win games. What Southgate is doing is all well and good until it backfires, then serious questions about under utilisation of the assets at his disposal would be asked.

If Southgate wins the whole thing playing as he is, then all detractors will eat crow, and perhaps rightfully so.
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No they didn't, people forget just how dull that Greece team were and we're thankfully nothing like them (although full credit to them for their achievments). How many of our goals are relying on booting set pieces to the big man? We're actually playing better football than Portugal in 2016. We've scored 4 in 4 games and conceded 0 but we've also hit the woodwork 3 times (Foden, Sterling and Stones). We played more defensively today than in the group but we were playing Germany, the idea we can play them off the park by playing Grealish, Sancho and Rashford or someone ahead of Sterling and Kane is insanity.

Lets say the fans picked the team today, does Sterling get on the pitch (the guy who scored our first 3 goals of the tournie), does Kane come out 2nd half. Do we have Walker adding his pace on the cover to CB.. no we don't, we probably go out with something like Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire, Shaw, Rice, Mount, Foden, Sancho, Kane, Grealish cuz we is England and have some many amazing youngsters get mullered on the counter and call him team selection naive when we're on the plane.

In our 4 games according to SkySports we've created 10 clear cut chances and conceded 2 against. The much lauded Italy (who have been a joy to watch) have created 10 clear cut chances for and 2 against as well in 4 games against weaker opposition. We might not be as easy on the eye but we aren't fecking Greece and lets not sink to false narratives because Jack "Maradona" Grealish isn't starting. I'd say something if it was prime Scholes or Gerrard or Charlton we were benching but its a 25 year old who's spent most his career in the championship and had a good 2 seasons...

All that said I've love to see Grealish start on the left with Raz on the right but and this is not aimed at you personally but those having hissy fits at a manager for not playing said player with 2 years top level football behind him at 25 is incredible.after we've just beaten fecking Germany for the first time in ages in a football match that really mattered.
 
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sincher said:
I don't agree! Some people are just never happy.

I mean you are right we shouldn't get carried away, but it was a good win and a good performance, and I think England are a team all other teams in the tournie will respect. It is not necessarily the case that England will be beaten by the first 'good' team they play, at all. For a lot of people, that team was Germany, but we beat them, and one of the big reasons they didn't play well is because we neutralized their main threats, the wing-backs. The best chance they got was the result of a brainfart pass too, not anything to do with tactics.
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Let's just put it to bed now. Croatia, Czech Republic and Germany are all good sides. The gap is obviously narrowing between the smaller European countries and the rest. If there's one thing we can take from this tournament after seeing France last night it's that (although admittedly France at top level look indisputably strongest).
 
ivaldo said:
The irony seems to be lost on so many here. As soon as Southgate made the changes half the nation thought he should have started with, England began to dominate the game and scored two. Before that we struggled to even get in the opposition half, with the best chances falling to Germany.

Maybe, just maybe, if Southgate hadn't been so astoundingly negative in his approach then we wouldn't have struggled quite so much?
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The revisionism annoys me so much, he gets praise for doing something that should have been the case in the first place . As if it was all part of the game plan to let Germany have 2 clear cut chances.

Same with Kane. Rice said he ran his socks off - did he feck.
 
padr81 said:
No they didn't, people forget just how dull that Greece team were and we're thankfully nothing like them (although full credit to them for their achievments). How many of our goals are relying on booting set pieces to the big man? We're actually playing better football than Portugal in 2016. We've scored 4 in 4 games and conceded 0 but we've also hit the woodwork 3 times (Foden, Sterling and Stones). We played more defensively today than in the group but we were playing Germany, the idea we can play them off the park by playing Grealish, Sancho and Rashford or someone ahead of Sterling and Kane is insanity.

Lets say the fans picked the team today, does Sterling get on the pitch (the guy who scored our first 3 goals of the tournie), does Kane come out 2nd half. Do we have Walker adding his pace on the cover to CB.. no we don't, we probably go out with something like Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire, Shaw, Rice, Mount, Foden, Sancho, Kane, Grealish and get mullered on the counter.

In those 4 games according to SkySports we've created 10 clear cut chances and conceded 2. The much lauded Italy (who have been a joy to watch) have a 10 clear cut chances for and 2 against as well for the tournie.
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The same instantly bashed pep team selection wrong against chelsea because he played too many attackers.Now blamed Southgate for not playing attackers. He won the game and it's not even debate anymore.
 
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