Final | Spain vs England

madzo2007 said:
Theres only so many times you can try to s**thouse your way to a win

Fully deserved by Spain. Too many England players had an awful tournament, Foden, Kane and Rice. Kane is probably injured but should never have started tonight.

Is Pickford under instruction to play it long all game? Most of his good saves tonight came from his own poor long balls.
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Yeah, bar a freak occurrence like Greece two decades ago it's nigh on impossible for any side to shithouse their way through an international tournament. The cream almost always rises to the top.

But mind you England almost did tonight. I thought if it wasn't for tired legs they would have hung on and extra time who knows -- and especially if it had gone to penalties with their current set of takers I would have fancied them over Spain.
 
MoskvaRed said:
It wasn’t like the Italy final where England really did blow it. Tonight we just gor overrun in midfield and could not cope with the press. Watkins and Palmer on earlier (or from the start) would have helped but, as I’m not aware that there was anyone on the bench who could have improved the midfield, we would still have been feeding off scraps. As for the period after the interval, Spain just reasserted the control they had exercised for 70 minutes. We lost to a better team on the day who have hit top form for the tournament while England have looked leggy. Southgate will be gone now anyway so we can move on.
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We scored and was on the attack, then sat back and got overrun.

As I said, he was about to bring on Trippier and Gallagher as they scored he was playing for a draw.

That was after we started with a team that contained a completely shot Kane and woefully undeperforming Foden.

Nah, not having it. It's just excuse after excuse for failure.
 
Smacky The Frog said:
Really funny that they’re reciting Gareth’s obituary live on air before the medals have even been handed out, after days of over the top, soft focus praise.
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To be fair they did go for him earlier in the tournament, then got criticised for doing it, so started going a bit softer on him. Now he is fair game again.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
Referees getting medals will never not be funny
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This referee earned his medal. It's an impossible, mostly thankless job. There were some real shit show displays from some of these refs in this tourney. As annoyed as I get with referees, if they were respected more and paid better, the refereeing standards would certainly be higher.
 
Bole Top said:
in the end, it was absolutely deserved win for the best team in the whole tournament with vast majority of neutrals also getting the outcome they wanted.

on one side you have England with the most boring manager around, playing their usual shitty football and stinking the place out, getting lucky with the draw yet again while also getting dodgy penalties awarded by referees previously suspended for match fixing. they also field one of the biggest primadonnas in football, such as Bellingham. very little to like there tbf. it's no wonder that bands like Coldplay come from England of all places.

and then you have Spain, playing positive and creative brand of football with some very young players that are actually fairly likeable compared to some diving cnuts they used to have in previous championships. they also eliminated Germany and France, while toying with Croatia and Italy in their group.

this was the preferred outcome for pretty much every neutral fan. bar Germany and Spain, none of those bigger nations even tried to play attractive football and entertain the fans so it's fitting that we got the new champion from one of those two.

yaaaasay.
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What :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
ShinjiNinja26 said:
That would be very nice to see. This getting to finals and shitting the bed is a little too close for comfort for my liking.
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They're the Spurs of international football. No real risk of them actually winning anything

On a serious note: England's problem is the culture. The narrative around the team is too toxic, creates too much pressure. And at the moment of truth they feck up. Like clockwork
 
Wing Attack Plan R said:
This referee earned his medal. It's an impossible, mostly thankless job. There were some real shit show displays from some of these refs in this tourney. As annoyed as I get with referees, if they were respected more and paid better, the refereeing standards would certainly be higher.
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I don't disagree at all. Still think the sight of it is hilarious though.
 
No player scored a hat-trick at this tournament, which I guess is normal (as the 2006 World Cup had no hat-tricks scored). But the fact that there weren’t any direct free-kicks scored is absolutely ridiculous. I blame that on the fact that I watched every game live.
 
So Kane is the fall guy this time? Well I guess at least he probably won't get racist abuse.
 
Cloud7 said:
Has to be Pickford, unless you're only going for outfield players. Pickford kept England in the match
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I thought Stones was very good, I know he kept the striker onside for the winner but I think that was more due to a brilliant ball.
 
MrMarcello said:
Olmo got robbed for the award. Joint top-scorer, dunno about his assists, but he had the game-winning clearance late on in the Final.
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He wasn’t a starter until Pedri got injured through, was he?
 
Wing Attack Plan R said:
This referee earned his medal. It's an impossible, mostly thankless job. There were some real shit show displays from some of these refs in this tourney. As annoyed as I get with referees, if they were respected more and paid better, the refereeing standards would certainly be higher.
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The final's ref earned between 25 and 30k in this tournament alone on top of his annual salary. Not bad i'd say.
 
madzo2007 said:
A few of his good saves came from his own aimless punts upfield. Only "top" team who don't or can't seem to play out from the back
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Every time he plays it to Stones or someone else at the back it just gets given back to him.
 
do.ob said:
So Kane is the fall guy this time? Well I guess at least he probably won't get racist abuse.
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Think there are a few players who didn't live up to their reputations, but the manager takes the blame for Kane playing and not realising it wasn't working.
 
OverratedOpinion said:
I think it's partly Kane but also Southgate for playing him as he does seem to have an injury.
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Think he is definitely either still carrying that back injury or is scared of it occuring again. That is a worry for Bayern. The best side in the tournament won, but with the players we have the performances should have been much better.
 
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