Final: Italy vs England

Thats the kinda shit on a stick attitude of modern youth I'd expect. Entitled arseholes who can't handle not being no.1.
If you make it to the top of sport that’s the attitude you have. Win at all costs, second means nothing. Doesn’t mean you have to be unsporting, but keeping a second place medal is just silly.
 
so should Utd players cherish their runners up medals this season? Well done lads you lost to the city scum you should be proud.
 
If you make it to the top of sport that’s the attitude you have. Win at all costs, second means nothing. Doesn’t mean you have to be unsporting, but keeping a second place medal is just silly.

This is not an universal stance, not by a longshot.

I quite vividly remember both this forum and the English media mocking Belgium for celebrating finishing third in the previous World Cup, but guess what, those people and their fans were genuinely happy about it. There is a huge difference between doing better than, say, 16 out of 32 teams in a tournament and doing better than 31 out of 32 teams in the tournament.

The sort of attitude you are quoting reeks of arrogance and this is particularly entertaining when seen in England fans, given that their country has one a grand total of one major international tournaments in their history.
 
If you make it to the top of sport that’s the attitude you have. Win at all costs, second means nothing. Doesn’t mean you have to be unsporting, but keeping a second place medal is just silly.

Nonsense. You can do what you want with the medal after the fact but having respect and not being a cry baby at the stadium during the ceremony cause you just lost is pretty important in sport. Its a horrible attitude, win at all costs is important so is accepting defeat. Half these cnuts couldn't beat Villareal in the Europa and the other half got twatted by Chelsea in the CL final and they think they're too good for a Euro's runner up medal that players 10 times there level never achieved? The proudest I ever was of Guardiola at City was when sterling tried this bullshit and he made him put the medal back on, but then again Pep's not a winner right...

Pure and utter shite because they're sore losers. This is why they'll never win anything for England, cause they can't handle things going wrong without spitting the dummy out. I wonder did Chiellini refuse to wear his runner up medals in the 3 major finals he lost previously?
 
Agreed. I wasn’t happy about second place in fecking primary school. Guessing these guys were brought up by the “it’s just a game” brigade.
Proper weird. We used to take runners up medals off straight away in under 9s football 20+ years ago. No idea why it's suddenly considered disrespectful or whatever.
 
Can't find another thread to put this, but how good was Pickford's save vs Jorginho? Possibly the best penalty save I've ever seen.
 
Nonsense. You can do what you want with the medal after the fact but having respect and not being a cry baby at the stadium during the ceremony cause you just lost is pretty important in sport. Its a horrible attitude, win at all costs is important so is accepting defeat. Half these cnuts couldn't beat Villareal in the Europa and the other half got twatted by Chelsea in the CL final and they think they're too good for a Euro's runner up medal that players 10 times there level never achieved?

Pure and utter shite because they're sore losers. This is why they'll never win anything for England, cause they can't handle things going wrong without spitting the dummy out. I wonder did Chiellini refuse to wear his runner up medals in the 3 major finals he lost previously?
Didn't City players do the same after the CL final? Foden didn't even put it on!
 
Nonsense. You can do what you want with the medal after the fact but having respect and not being a cry baby at the stadium during the ceremony cause you just lost is pretty important in sport. Its a horrible attitude, win at all costs is important so is accepting defeat. Half these cnuts couldn't beat Villareal in the Europa and the other half got twatted by Chelsea in the CL final and they think they're too good for a Euro's runner up medal that players 10 times there level never achieved? The proudest I ever was of Guardiola at City was when sterling tried this bullshit and he made him put the medal back on, but then again Pep's not a winner right...

Pure and utter shite because they're sore losers. This is why they'll never win anything for England, cause they can't handle things going wrong without spitting the dummy out. I wonder did Chiellini refuse to wear his runner up medals in the 3 major finals he lost previously?
I’d be amazed if he didn’t. It’s a losers mentality. Happy to be proven wrong
 
Didn't City players do the same after the CL final? Foden didn't even put it on!

Yeah and Pep made them, you'll see in my post I literally mentioned City players too getting twatted by Chelsea so don't try and make this a United vs City thing... its a spoiled English player thing.
 
Can't find another thread to put this, but how good was Pickford's save vs Jorginho? Possibly the best penalty save I've ever seen.
Maybe at Everton his form isn't always great, but he has been heroic for England in the past 2 tournaments.
 
It really isn’t arrogance it’s realism. You are taught in sport that second place is nothing. Having a medal of that just reminds you of your failure. Not for me!
That's not true. Like England is used to the golden medal... and in lot of sports even a 3rd place is an achievement.
 
Yeah and Pep made them, you'll see in my post I literally mentioned City players too getting twatted by Chelsea so don't try and make this a United vs City thing... its a spoiled English player thing.
I think you are clearly too obsessed with good sportsmanship. It’s clear why most professional players wouldn’t want those medals. Even young kids don’t want second place medals. As the old adage goes, “you win nothing for second place”.
 
That's not true. Like England is used to the golden medal... and in lot of sports even a 3rd place is an achievement.
In the Olympics I’ll concede. That’s different to other sports especially football.
 
It really isn’t arrogance it’s realism. You are taught in sport that second place is nothing. Having a medal of that just reminds you of your failure. Not for me!
I'm not seeing the issue with them taking the medals off, it's always happened. I used to notice it when I was a kid.
It's their medal, silver or gold they can do whatever the hell they want with it.

All I'm seeing is people looking for another stick to beat with.
 
I think you are clearly too obsessed with good sportsmanship. It’s clear why most professional players wouldn’t want those medals. Even young kids don’t want second place medals. As the old adage goes, “you win nothing for second place”.

Yeah, and you do that after the ceremony, you have respect till it over, if I saw someone at our martial arts club do that after losing, he'd never represent us again. Go home have a whinge, throw the medal in the box, do whatever but disrespect the tournament like that and they'd be done. This doesn't mean you don't want to win, it means you are petty and spoiled.
 
So the greats are happy to accept defeat?

Its nothing to do with being happy, you lose, you lost, having a tantrum and being disrespectful doesn't change it. You can't change it, you learn from it, like well Italy did today. You use it to harden you up but you respect the team, person that beat you and those who organized the tournament and put you in such a position.
 
Its nothing to do with being happy, you lose, you lost, having a tantrum and being disrespectful doesn't change it. You can't change it, you learn from it, like well Italy did today. You use it to harden you up but you respect the team, person that beat you and those who organized the tournament and put you in such a position.
I just don’t think it’s disrespectful taking off a second place medal. I agree you should always be a good sport especially when you are fairly beaten but I don’t think second place medals represent that. To me all I see in a second place medal is failure and nearly men and thats from my own experience in sport. Depends perhaps on the way you are wired, Ive always been ultra competitive but also a good sport.
 
It really isn’t arrogance it’s realism. You are taught in sport that second place is nothing. Having a medal of that just reminds you of your failure. Not for me!
What medals have you got in your trophy cabinet then? :lol: :lol:
 
What medals have you got in your trophy cabinet then? :lol: :lol:
Even in primary school I’d have thrown away a runners up medal. It means feck all. I don’t even see how that’s controversial. You win absolutely nothing for coming second, I’m a very competitive person.
 
Disappointing in the end. But a deserved win for Italy, the team that seemed to want it more.

Like Southgate as a person & think he’s done a great job at building a fantastic team spirit throughout the England camp. However, his in-game management decisions are extremely questionable:

- Shutting shop after scoring and just allowing Italy to have the ball for what seemed like the whole game. We were never going to be able to park the bus for 88 mins and not concede in an international tournament final.
- Bringing on Henderson & Saka when we needed game winners, instead, bringing them (rashford/Sancho) on with 3 seconds to go.
- Putting Sancho/Saka as the 4th/5th penalty takers. Nothing against Saka & I don’t blame him, but that’s an incredible amount of pressure that Southgate put on a 19 year old.

If England want to be winning tournaments, they need to show a bit less respect to their opponents & go for the jugular. You wouldn’t catch a prime Barcelona, or Brazil parking the bus after 2 mins.

As many people mentioned, doesn’t hurt anywhere near as much as Utd in a CL final.
Just like Ole.

Too defensive. Too slow to make changes resulting in more tired legs on the pitch. Lack ideas. Only trust the first 11 and doesn't trust the whole bench.
 
Even in primary school I’d have thrown away a runners up medal. It means feck all. I don’t even see how that’s controversial. You win absolutely nothing for coming second, I’m a very competitive person.
Well I think what you have to realise is is that it is a finalists medal which is an achievement in itself.
When the Olympics are on it is not looked upon as a Silver or Bronze Medal represents failure.
If Federer, Nadal or the Joker lose to another player in a Major final I can understand their feelings towards not winning but we are talking about football where there are so many factors which determine winners and losers.
We are talking elite sport here and not playground competition and there is no shame at falling at the final hurdle.
 
I just don’t think it’s disrespectful taking off a second place medal. I agree you should always be a good sport especially when you are fairly beaten but I don’t think second place medals represent that. To me all I see in a second place medal is failure and nearly men and thats from my own experience in sport. Depends perhaps on the way you are wired, Ive always been ultra competitive but also a good sport.

Maybe its a culture thing or an age thing and I'm just an old fashioned grumpy old man, anyway chin up with a bit of luck we'll get as far as throwing away our WC runners up medals next year.
 
In the end the team with the best coach in the euros won the cup, the idiots who control the national teams don’t understand or is because interests always get a shitty coach who didn’t prove anything to be there. We had 4 teams with good players on the paper at least but they played like shit because their coaches.
 
Meanwhile Rashford, Sancho and Saka are racialy abused all over the internet. There are some rumours that some black people were abused in the streets fter the game. What's wrong with you people?
 
Even in primary school I’d have thrown away a runners up medal. It means feck all. I don’t even see how that’s controversial. You win absolutely nothing for coming second, I’m a very competitive person.
But the players are representing their countries, not themselves.

Your attitude is too self-centered essentially.

A second place medal for your country is a recognition for how well you did for your country. Even in war, the losing country typically has medals for bravery, why do you think that's the case? It's a recognition for how well they did for their nation. It's not about the individual's self-appraisal.

I would extend the same reasoning to second place medals in club football finals.

Also, this idea that second place doesn't matter is absolutely false.

To give a vivid example, let's suppose your football club couldn't sign the best player in the world. Wouldn't you want them to sign the second best player in the world? Or would you say second place doesn't matter?

Case closed.
 
Scary how similar tonight was to those defeats against Germany in 96 & Croatia in 18, scoring that goal inside the first couple of minutes playing well until half time and then not keeping the ball well enough in the second half. We are never going to win anything until we learn to control the games better and if we can't then score that second goal instead.
 
I’ve had a couple of hours to drink on it and well, it’s a real shame. It was close. Both teams can do much better than this. Engyland had a higher level, but never really reached it.
 
Should Jude Bellingham have played ? He had appeared in some big games in the champions league recently.

I'll always wonder if he could have made a difference.