Football Focus

[Pacific231G]

I'm sad after tonight's bad result for England, but proud for just how far they had come in this tournament.

 

Sam

 

 

I must admit to hoping that, either way, it would be decided by proper goals not another wretched penalty shoot-out with all the opprobrium that gets dumped on whoever (from whichever team) that slips up in that. 

 

I didn't understand the commentators saying that England would "never" get another chance like this. Never is an awfully long time. 

[rockershovel]

In other words, "it's Croatia! WCPGW?"

Is that the name of the capital, or the captain?

 

Ho hum, it’s over for another ... well, until the next circus rolls into town, or onto the tv.

 

One thing I do find rather odd, is the emphasis on Croatia’s “experience”; one might almost believe that the game had only lately arrived in this sceptr’d isle. What does this mean? That Croatian players, man for man, have more experience of playing for the REAL top tier of the club game?

 

Because surely that’s the problem. The Premiership might well be the most successful mechanism ever for selling tv rights and replica shirts, it might be a highly effective vehicle by which international investors enrich themselves and load clubs with crippling debt, but as a player (or, indeed, manager) development process it seems sadly wanting.

 

England last scored a goal in open play, in the 58th minute of the game against Sweden, and their last two games have gone to extra time. That means they have played the equivalent of three full games, without a goal in open play. That doesn’t, to my admittedly uninformed eyes (the last time I paid to watch football, Derek Dougan scored a goal...) seem like the record of a championship winning team. Their captain, faced with an open goal and with a player across from him, fell over his own feet instead of making the lead 2-0.

 

Whatever happened at half time, it seemed that the Croatians had drawn some important tactical conclusion, to which England had no answer.

[br2975]

Well it's all over................

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What did England 'really achieve' ?

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At no time did they excite; but such is the pressure of the 'final' stages of competitions such as the World Cup or the Euros. .

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As a team, they were 'workmanlike' - almost German - they had a job to do, and did enough to get that job done.

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Some 75% of their goals came from set piece / dead ball situations.

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Now, if Gareth Southgate can keep this squad together, in four years time they will be that much older, wiser, experienced and meaner...........and hopefully, the heat and humidity will be their biggest problem at the next finals.

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It was enjoyable while it lasted.

[BlackRat]

It's started.......

 

[Stubby47]

I'd like to see the game on Saturday played in the style of a Testimonial - open, exciting football, where Hazard and de Brune can show off their skills, Kane can confirm his Golden Boot, Sterling manages to score and Henderson actually passes a ball forwards.

[br2975]

What do these two copies of The Sun have in common ?

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On the left, The Sun on the day of the Wales v Portugal, Euro 2016 semi-final

.

On the right, The Sun on the day of the England v Croatia, 2018 World Cup semi-final.

.

Before anyone emphasises the difference in the competitions, please also bear in mind the achievement of Wales reaching a Euro semi is more or less on a par with the achievement of England reaching a FIFA semi.

.

Whilst I don't subscribe to the 'us' and 'them' - "I support any team that's playing against England" attitude, one can understand how this divide is maintained by the media and especially a jingoistic rag like 'The Sun'

.

Having lit the blue touch paper, I will now retire................................

[Hobby]

One thing I do find rather odd, is the emphasis on Croatia’s “experience”; one might almost believe that the game had only lately arrived in this sceptr’d isle. What does this mean? That Croatian players, man for man, have more experience of playing for the REAL top tier of the club game?

 

I'm sure I read that the average age of the Croation team was higher than the England team, so their "experience" at International level was more. Most of them play for top European clubs as well, though not EPL ones, but bearing in mind who won the Champions League, that fact is largely irrelevant.

[NorthBrit]

I gave up watching the match when England got the ball near the Croatian penalty area, then proceeded to pass the ball to Jordan Pickford.

[luckymucklebackit]

I was looking through some archive football stuff and I can across the results of the old "Football League XI" a concept that was discontinued back in the 1970s.  Given the amount of time that commentators spend talking about the English League Clubs that the players in just about all the International teams participating in the World Cup the think it would be quite interesting to see this tried again, how about a  "Football League XI" vs "La Liga XI"!

 

Jim

[NorthBrit]

I was looking through some archive football stuff and I can across the results of the old "Football League XI" a concept that was discontinued back in the 1970s.  Given the amount of time that commentators spend talking about the English League Clubs that the players in just about all the International teams participating in the World Cup the think it would be quite interesting to see this tried again, how about a  "Football League XI" vs "La Liga XI"!

 

Jim

 

Not many English footballers playing then eh!   

[Hobby]

I gave up watching the match when England got the ball near the Croatian penalty area, then proceeded to pass the ball to Jordan Pickford.

 

They've been doing that all of the time. What he needs is some decent attacking midfield players who can stop the back line passing it amongst themselves and have the confidence to play it forward to the midfield who can then give Kane, Sterling, etc., the service they need. Hopefully by Euros 2020 he'll have that sorted... If we have a repeat of this, though, I'll be the first to ask for his head, surely we must have some English attacking midfielders?

[rockershovel]

I'm sure I read that the average age of the Croation team was higher than the England team, so their "experience" at International level was more. Most of them play for top European clubs as well, though not EPL ones, but bearing in mind who won the Champions League, that fact is largely irrelevant.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether the England team are straight from school, or nigh-on geriatric: the result seems to be much the same...

[Gareth Collier]

And now on to the most pointless match that exists. Lineker and Klinsmann were talking about it the other day, you're out, you're deflated, you want to go home yet you're forced to play a game that has no significance other than generating money for FIFA.

[Joseph_Pestell]

And now on to the most pointless match that exists. Lineker and Klinsmann were talking about it the other day, you're out, you're deflated, you want to go home yet you're forced to play a game that has no significance other than generating money for FIFA.

 

Don't go on about it. Or the FA will have a 3rd place game in the FA Cup.

[Hobby]

It doesn’t seem to matter whether the England team are straight from school, or nigh-on geriatric: the result seems to be much the same...

 

A lot of countries will be saying that after this years results! Only France and Belgium can hold their heads high out of the "elite" teams...

[wombatofludham]

Somewhat annoyed to see that the odious Sun and equally bad Mirror both use the word "Heroes" to describe the England team.  Given what has just taken place in Thailand where real heroes risked their lives to rescue a group of equally brave young lads from certain death, you'd have thought that even the gutter red top rags would have thought debasing the language by describibg a dozen well paid, cossetted footballers as heroes for kicking a bag of wind from one end of a Russian lawn to another a bit of a trivialisation of the word, but no, typical British press, sense of what is important completely a*se about face.

[Legend]

What do these two copies of The Sun have in common ?

.

On the left, The Sun on the day of the Wales v Portugal, Euro 2016 semi-final

.

On the right, The Sun on the day of the England v Croatia, 2018 World Cup semi-final.

.

Before anyone emphasises the difference in the competitions, please also bear in mind the achievement of Wales reaching a Euro semi is more or less on a par with the achievement of England reaching a FIFA semi.

.

Whilst I don't subscribe to the 'us' and 'them' - "I support any team that's playing against England" attitude, one can understand how this divide is maintained by the media and especially a jingoistic rag like 'The Sun'

.

Having lit the blue touch paper, I will now retire................................

It’s the same in Scotland , but I think you have to get over the fact that England’s a much more populous country . I don’t know the numbers off hand but it must be something like 6 million Scots, 2 million Welsh and 58 million English, so isn’t it natural that England get a lot more coverage? I really can’t abide the “support anyone but England” attitude that’s prevalent up here. That said given some of the media coverage I can understand how it incites it, but we should be better than that.

 

Anyway as we all know Scotland beat the 1966 World Cup Champions in 1967 , thus becoming unofficial World Cup holders .

 

Running for cover.............

[wombatofludham]

It’s the same in Scotland , but I think you have to get over the fact that England’s a much more populous country . I don’t know the numbers off hand but it must be something like 6 million Scots, 2 million Welsh and 58 million English, so isn’t it natural that England get a lot more coverage? I really can’t abide the “support anyone but England” attitude that’s prevalent up here. That said given some of the media coverage I can understand how it incites it, but we should be better than that.

 

Anyway as we all know Scotland beat the 1966 World Cup Champions in 1967 , thus becoming unofficial World Cup holders .

 

Running for cover.............

 

There's a fabulous screen grab on the internet showing the BBC commentary team the day Wales snatched victory from England in the six nations rugby.  John Inverdale, Jeremy Guscott and some other commentator all have faces like smacked behinds whilst "Jiffy" Edwards has a grin like a Cheshire cat sat on a vibrator.  It sums up the attitude of the press in one photo.  If it ain't Ingerland they can't be bothered.

 

When Wales came back from their stonking Euro football adventure BBC Wales showed them arriving back at Cardiff airport.  The reaction they got was brilliant but what was even better was the way the players were stopping to sign autographs, chat and interact with the fans and generally make the event more of a celebration for the fans.  As a confirmed hater of all things football, even I was impressed and thought it was a nice, uplifting event.  I seem to recall it made very little comment in the UK news.

 

Sadly this bias and blatant elevation of England to the status of the UK representatives is what drives some of the more militant reactions from some fans.  The UK is unique in having representative teams from nations that are not fully sovereign states and I think it's beholden on the press, especially the BBC where the first B stands for British, not English, to give equal coverage to all three nations regardless of population (PS Wales is just over 3 million population).

[BoD]

As the Croatia match was on ITV the different 'companies' didn't have to show it.

 

Pedantic mode on.. I don't think that Sun front page is from the semi final. Which in a way proves your point even more.

Edited July 12, 2018 by BoD

[Hobby]

It’s the same in Scotland , but I think you have to get over the fact that England’s a much more populous country . I don’t know the numbers off hand but it must be something like 6 million Scots, 2 million Welsh and 58 million English, so isn’t it natural that England get a lot more coverage? I really can’t abide the “support anyone but England” attitude that’s prevalent up here. That said given some of the media coverage I can understand how it incites it, but we should be better than that.

 

Anyway as we all know Scotland beat the 1966 World Cup Champions in 1967 , thus becoming unofficial World Cup holders .

 

Also the Scots have their own nationals and many of the red tops have their own Scottish versions which are different to the English versions from what I've seen when we get both versions on the train. My brother in law was complaining about the same thing but I have thought they've been quite restrained this world cup, up to the Semi's anyhow!

[Metr0Land]

Don't go on about it. Or the FA will have a 3rd place game in the FA Cup.

 

Actually there used to be one from 1969-74?  Not much interest so it died.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Actually there used to be one from 1969-74?  Not much interest so it died.

 

So little interest that I did not even know about it.

[Horsetan]

And now on to the most pointless match that exists. Lineker and Klinsmann were talking about it the other day, you're out, you're deflated, you want to go home yet you're forced to play a game that has no significance other than generating money for FIFA.

 

This pales into insignificance when you remember that FIFA is expanding future World Cups to cover 48 teams from 2026 onwards rather than keeping to the present 32. Sure it'll be a great revenue-feedfest for FIFA, sponsors, and anyone with a related business, but spectators will probably need to take some form of endurance training to make sure they don't lose track of all the matches.....

[Kelly]

This pales into insignificance when you remember that FIFA is expanding future World Cups to cover 48 teams from 2026 onwards rather than keeping to the present 32. Sure it'll be a great revenue-feedfest for FIFA, sponsors, and anyone with a related business, but spectators will probably need to take some form of endurance training to make sure they don't lose track of all the matches.....

The next world cup will also be in winter and speeded up in terms of games per day. If I'm remembering correctly it also increases the number of teams and introduces changes to how the groups are played.

[ColinK]

While everyone was watching the football last night, I went to Morrisons for our weekly shop. Brilliant, there only two other customers in the supermarket.