World Cup General Discussion Thread - 2030 The Jokes On You

But disappointed but not quite gutted. I thought we gave them a really good game and were definitely the better team on the night. However they are world champs for a reason and that is the extra little bit of quality they had.

I think there is real cause to be optimistic going forwards. If we were in the other side of the draw we were going to make the final. Going forwards players like Bellingham, Foden, Saka are the lynchpins that this team needs to built around. It’s frightening how good all three will be.

 

It’s hard to disagree, he was card shy and got basically every major decision wrong. We only got the second penalty because of VAR.

 

I don’t know, statistically at least he is the best - Sven who is the most directly comparable (many people, I would imagine mostly those who didn’t like Sven, would’ve picked Robson or Venables as our best post-Ramsey manager but they were overrated for years because the former before Southgate was the only manager to get England to a semi on foreign soil and the latter had that famous win over the Dutch) had arguably a similarly talented squad but didn’t get past the quarters in three attempts. Though you could say he was unlucky with injuries to key players when it most mattered - Beckham, Gerrard, Rooney (twice), Owen out of the top of my head.

 

I Don’t feel at all bad about this defat like I did Italy, this one wasn’t Southgate’s fault at all, it came down to a penalty kick which was missed,‘it’s just joke of those things.

 

I’m sure this is true but a footballers career is short and these tournaments relatively infrequent. Any of those players could be injured in four years, other countries will have regrouped etc. it’s just like last year in a way - fairly easy passage to the final of a home tournament (more or less) - an opportunity not taken.

You really have to take the chances that present themselves and on balance in the here and now, this was a real chance to go further. But hey ho, they played well and certainly exposed some flaws in the French. I think they can hold their heads up high.

 

Not that I’m holding it against him four years on given it was his first tournament, but I still say the semi against Croatia was the biggest opportunity blown. Aside from a beating of a shambolic Argentina side Croatia had looked pretty ordinary throughout the tournament (ironically, some of their best football came in the final against France when they went 4-1 down) with an ageing team and only one outstanding player in Modric. We were 1-0 up and looking quite comfortable (didn’t we have a good chance to extend our lead at one point?) - average sides like Denmark and Russia managed to take them to penalties, which we couldn’t even manage in the end.

 

Well, the losers of all 4 quarter finals have had problems with the refereeing of their matches, and Argentina also despite winning. I think the penalties were correctly awarded, but it feels like the first time VAR has got much involved in any game - in a positive sense - since quite early on, and to be fair, it’s not often anyone gets 2 pens in a game (even more so when solely down to VAR) - more than that would have been incredibly unusual. They really had to find a way to score from open play at some stage.

 

Get McCullum in charge.

Seriously.

He’s the polar opposite of Waistcoat, as are his results.

 

Agreed. Southgate has rarely, if ever, changed things in a game that’s ever finished with a change of result. Which shows when ever when we play a decent side. Tactically inept. Same players game in and game out and hope plan A works. Kane, again, was trash tonight but will he ever be substituted? No as he only took two strikers and the other one has supposedly been injured the whole tournament. Still, at least he equalled a meaningless record with yet another penalty.

Game changers like Maddison and Rashford either not used or sitting on the bench the whole time. Is Mason Mount really going to change the game over a Rashford in the scenario tonight? Was Kalvin Phillips’ 5 minutes in a previous game worth taking him over a workhorse like Bowen who can change things with his pace?

Southgate is a likeable loser in charge who is going backwards in terms of performances and results. But we like likeable losers so leave him there. Despite the fact he’ll never be an elite manager and if he was linked with any job of high quality, the fans of that club would be up in arms at the thought of him. Just like Belgium, wasting a generation of talent with a substandard manager and back room team.

 

Exactly.

I didn’t even see Waistcoat’s face on the pitch tonight.

 

This is behind a ‘paywall’.

 

We were the better team. France were mostly absolute crap.

Kane absolutely bottled it. He's barely even a striker at this point. Ambles around on the half way line trying to act like he's prime Pirlo. Was clearly nervous and it was a woeful second penalty. If you're in doubt just smash it down the middle. Missing the target entirely and by such a long way like that is just unforgivable.

Southgate is never, ever going to be the manager to get us through against the better sides. It's just the same old ******* story. Look half decent against minnows and then fail to get the job done as soon as we come up against a proper side. Croatia, Italy, now France.

That said it's not just on Southgate, as much as he's an unbelievably average manager. It's just built into English footballers. Zero bottle or ability to see the job through. He can't control Kane shitting his pants and taking a laughable penalty.

Still a **** manager, though.

 

So just before France scored their second a group of lads started doing a round of Ten German Bombers, They were shouted down, but too late, the goods of fate made sure that we would not go through, they then smashed their glasses at full time. #engerland

 

FIFA have already planned it out. Got to give the golden boy Messi his World Cup winners medal.

 

Surely even bang up for it England fans had to laugh when little Mason, the manager’s son got thrown on for a run around.

Southgate reminds me of Rodgers in a lot of ways, obviously without the world class ego. He needs the players to like him because he doesn’t really know how to influence a match from the sidelines, so he makes preplanned subs so his little favourites can get on and do as they’re told.

Unlike Rodgers, Southgate seems petrified of creative or mercurial players. As good as Saka is he basically does the same thing over and over and over again. It just loads pressure on to the other areas of the team.

 

I don’t know what was more surprising though - him missing the second penalty yet scoring the first when he looked much less confident. 99% of footballers likely would’ve missed if being distracted by something like their socks being down.

ITV showing that kid crying after the penalty miss was cruel BTW - just hope none of his schoolmates are mean to him next week.

 

I just wonder who is though? It’s not just Southgate - apart from Argentina and Germany in ‘66 we’ve only once beaten a big team in a knock-out game and that was Germany, who’ve been crap since Euro 2016, only last year (Spain in Euro 96 barely counts as we were so lucky to scrape past them on pens and they’d only won one trophy at the time). As far as I know we haven’t even beaten Italy or Brazil in a competitive game once - that’s pathetic for a supposed top footballing nation. Perhaps once again the problem is the players? But many of them have shown their quality against world class players in the Champions League and against the top Prem sides.

You could be right about the mentality thing and that seems to apply not only to the players but much of the nation as a whole - when an aging France team who needed Zidane to come out of retirement to help them even qualify faced WC winners Brazil in 2006, they just were able to get on with the job and beat them convincingly - no question of their being plucky losers, same against Germany in Euro 2016.

 

Ref rightly getting a lot of stick but that linesman who had an unobstructed view of the foul on Saka and the challenge on Kane was a disgrace.

 

It was no different to Brazil the other night with the subs tbf, manager put his usual players on not as good as the starting 11 hoping something would happen. Not sure what you mean by Saka doing the same thing over and over again, he's a right sided attacking player, does a specific job, and was probably the best player on the night.

Southgate's loyalty to Maguire is my one criticism of him as Maguire doesn't play for his club due to being error prone so shouldn't have started here imo. Before the tournament my main concern about England was whether Maguire would be at fault for an opposition goal especially against decent sides if he was picked again. He was picked and was at fault for an Iran goal and again last night for what turned out to be their winner.

 

Saka was excellent and he’s a lovely player but England’s entire attacking strategy was to get the ball to him. I didn’t mean for that to come across as me criticising him but as France adjusted and started kicking lumps out of him, there was no adjustment to open up other spaces.

The plan to keep Mbappe quiet worked to a large extent with Henderson joining Saka on the right and allowing Walker to stay back. In the end though that created enough space for Griezmann* to run the game.

Agree about Maguire and with Kane clearly not that fit it just seemed to lump even more into the shoulders of Saka and Bellingham.

*Head and shoulders the best player I’ve ever seen play live. When Atletico team knocked us out of the CL five years ago it sadly signalled the end of an era for us but one positive was seeing him play. Silky smooth, so intelligent, tough and just effortlessly glides around the pitch. Turned out to be the difference last night.

 

Agreed, I don't want to denigrate Croatia too much as they're absolute warriors, and, as now, probably had the best midfield in the tournament, but they were old, and had been through two penalty shootouts against mediocre teams. We did have a big chance to make it 2-0 which probably would have been game over, but looked more and more clueless as the game went on. Italy though, that was the one, literally everything was geared towards England that tournament, to go a goal in front after 2 mins against a historically weak Italy team who couldn't even qualify for either World Cup either side of that Euros, and then not have a shot on target for 120 mins is very poor indeed

 

I did wonder what the point of keeping Kane on the pitch for the whole game against Senegal was, once we went 3-0 up he should have come straight off. Wasn't he a doubt for that game? Very odd to play 90 mins when 30 mins of it was effectively a dead rubber

 

Another thing about Griezmann (I swear I don’t have a crush on him) is that despite usually being the most gifted player on the pitch it’s never ‘The Antoine Griezmann Show’ which is refreshing, given the amount of bum licking devoted to Messi, Neymar and Ronaldo recently.

 

Again, another key difference last night. Kane got frustrated and went foraging. Giroud patiently waited and gobbled up the chance to win the game.

 

Every corner and every free kick floated towards Maguire's huge bonce. No imagination at all

 

Yes , Giroud scored, and as they say "look in the book" but he scuffed it off his bonce onto the defender.
IMO , Kane changed his mind at the last moment which led him to skying the ball into Row Z .Maybe his relationship with Lloris was the cause of this , he was overthinking what the keeper was going to do instead of just focusing on what he was going to do?

 

Thankfully "The Snu" does not represent me as a person or us as a country, so no, I dont feel ambivalent whatsoever.

 

Anyone else want a Croatia v Morocco final now?

 

We have the best squad in Qatar but the worst manager. His subs last night were literally horrific. You get used to defeat over the years so it doesn't hurt me today.
It went off big time in the pub after the match which was a lot more entertaining than watching a Southgate teams build up play.

 

Literally everyone.

 

Two things that always stick in my mind about English football. The first is, a long time ago, from Mark Hately when he went to Milan in the early 80's. He said that a warm-up to training used to be that a group of plays formed a circle, passed the ball to one another and a player in the circle had to try and intercept it. He (and another English player) literally couldn't do it - and always ended up fouling a player.

The second is Barnesy talking at a TftVL event talking about 'that' New Order song and 'that' rap (and performing 'that' rap). When they finished it, and finally laid down the track, then England squad (via Barnes) was asked about filthy lucre: two grand up front or 25% of worldwide sales - the 'team' wanted the cash.

We produce, in the country, technically limited and thick footballers.

 

I didn't think the performance against the World Champions was a backward step last night. As for so-called elite managers doing a better job - England have had the likes of Revie, Robson, Venables, Erikson, Capello in the past, and they never got England to a final let alone win.