Semi Finals

[Pommy]

England deserved to lose the moment they threw the Belgium game.

The entire world will be going for Croatia in the final, surely

Lol Australians make me laugh.

Belgium will smash England, Belgium beat England and its they threw the game!!!!

 

[Danish]

Lol Australians make me laugh.

Belgium will smash England, Belgium beat England and its they threw the game!!!!

Every Pom I know talked up how clever you were for losing to Belgium and getting into the “easy” side of the draw.

Can’t have it both ways now

 

[Pommy]

Every Pom I know talked up how clever you were for losing to Belgium and getting into the “easy” side of the draw.

Can’t have it both ways now

And if Belgium had lost?

 

[JJ]

Better team won I think (but just a couple of poor defensive efforts were the difference), but the English really should be proud of what they achieved, and I think be very excited about the future with this team and the next generation which seems even more promising

 

[shiznit]

Pretty sure we have a star above the three lions.....

Fair play to Croatia three 120 minute games in a row.
The future is bright for England as far as I’m concerned a young team, success at youth international level football is coming home it just wants a trip to Qatar beforehand.

I still can’t fathom Qatar... how the f**k is that even going to work.

They are 1/10th the size of us(NZ) and have half the population we have...

And to me we are miles too small to ever host a World Cup.

 

[Aus_Dog]

England choke as good as the Eels do

 

[Tommy Smith]

Pretty sure we have a star above the three lions.....

Fair play to Croatia three 120 minute games in a row.
The future is bright for England as far as I’m concerned a young team, success at youth international level football is coming home it just wants a trip to Qatar beforehand.

I'm not so sure.

No way England make a World Cup final in my lifetime. I don't want to hear how "brave" we were when we beat absolutely no one.

We'll never get anything close to a chance like that again.

1 shot on goal in 120 minutes. One goal from open play in the knock out phase - a header.

That game illustrated just how average at this level the likes of Ali Sterling Lingard and Rashford are. Very lacking in technical ability and struggle to even weight a pass properly.

Watching Modric with his techincal ability really showed the gulf in class.

I'm not angry and congratulate them on a good run but no doubt a soft draw made an average team look better than they are.

 

[Smack]

This Croatian team has some special players to be fair.

 

[veggiepatch1959]

Gotta love Lucy Zelic's fake Effie accent.

No. Not really. She is a fake...a fake....a fake.

 

[myrrh ken]

Honestly what is the obsession with english long ball. Works in premier league only.

 

[Tommy Smith]

This Croatian team has some special players to be fair.

They have one special player - Modric.

Who showed the massive MASSIVE gulf in class. If Sterling is a 50m pound player then Modric is a 250m player.

 

[Danish]

And if Belgium had lost?

I fully expected Belgium and England to just have a friendly training run draw like the Dutch and French did prior to that game, since there was little to gain for either side.

I was pleasantly surprised that Belgium didn’t just chuck it in, and disappointed that England didn’t even seem to care about trying to save it once they went behind.

Every Pom to a man - including you - were quite happy with your “strategic” loss and the opportunity it gave you. So clearly you were of the opinion that the team tanked it on purpose.


As it stands, England are out having only beaten Tunisia, Panama, and Sweden during regular play

 

[Pommy]

I fully expected Belgium and England to just have a friendly training run draw like the Dutch and French did prior to that game, since there was little to gain for either side.

I was pleasantly surprised that Belgium didn’t just chuck it in, and disappointed that England didn’t even seem to care about trying to save it once they went behind.

Every Pom to a man - including you - were quite happy with your “strategic” loss and the opportunity it gave you. So clearly you were of the opinion that the team tanked it on purpose.


As it stands, England are out having only beaten Tunisia, Panama, and Sweden during regular play

I don’t think they tanked it on purpose but I won’t say I was disappointed at the result.
This result tonight probably shows it wasn’t on purpose, we have struggled to score goals in open play all tournament.

 

[Canard]

I don’t think they tanked it on purpose but I won’t say I was disappointed at the result.
This result tonight probably shows it wasn’t on purpose, we have struggled to score goals in open play all tournament.

They made 9 changes to the starting 11 and rested Kane.

The definition of tanking in the dictionary has been amended to use this as it's primary example

 

[Canard]

Congrats France on their 2nd World Cup.

 

[Tommy Smith]

I fully expected Belgium and England to just have a friendly training run draw like the Dutch and French did prior to that game, since there was little to gain for either side.

I was pleasantly surprised that Belgium didn’t just chuck it in, and disappointed that England didn’t even seem to care about trying to save it once they went behind.

Every Pom to a man - including you - were quite happy with your “strategic” loss and the opportunity it gave you. So clearly you were of the opinion that the team tanked it on purpose.


As it stands, England are out having only beaten Tunisia, Panama, and Sweden during regular play

But it was a good loss.

We are an average team and would have been beaten 3 nil by Brazil.

So by losing it gave us our only chance of ever making a final in my lifetime - by taking advantage of a soft draw.

I'm under no illusions as to England's quality. We're well below the elite teams and somewhere just above the likes of Sweden.

We're probably on a rung with the likes of Uruguay and Croatia.

That's our level. I know this because we haven't beaten a world class side in the knock out phase of a major tournament since Euro 96. And even that took penalties to beat Spain.

Before that you'd probably have to go back to the 1966 World Cup to when we beat one of the big guns.

So we are an average footballing nation and that strategic loss gave us our only chance of making a world cup final. So of course we were happy about it.

 

[Pommy]

I'm not so sure.

No way England make a World Cup final in my lifetime. I don't want to hear how "brave" we were when we beat absolutely no one.

We'll never get anything close to a chance like that again.

1 shot on goal in 120 minutes. One goal from open play in the knock out phase - a header.

That game illustrated just how average at this level the likes of Ali Sterling Lingard and Rashford are. Very lacking in technical ability and struggle to even weight a pass properly.

Watching Modric with his techincal ability really showed the gulf in class.

I'm not angry and congratulate them on a good run but no doubt a soft draw made an average team look better than they are.

How old are you exactly? Any terminal illness?

We overachieved this World Cup that’s clear to see but compared to where the national side was 2 years ago there has been so much progress made. In my opinion we have a coach who should be given a 4 year deal as soon as the tournament is over and let him work towards the next World Cup.

 

[Pommy]

They made 9 changes to the starting 11 and rested Kane.

The definition of tanking in the dictionary has been amended to use this as it's primary example

England made 8 changes Belgium made 9.

 

[Twizzle]

I don’t think they tanked it on purpose but I won’t say I was disappointed at the result.
This result tonight probably shows it wasn’t on purpose, we have struggled to score goals in open play all tournament.

one shot on target and that was Trippier's goal, that has to be disappointing

not to worry, its a very young team and did well to make the semis and will be better for the experience

 

[Tommy Smith]

How old are you exactly? Any terminal illness?

We overachieved this World Cup that’s clear to see but compared to where the national side was 2 years ago there has been so much progress made. In my opinion we have a coach who should be given a 4 year deal as soon as the tournament is over and let him work towards the next World Cup.

Southgate did a tremendous job and should get a long extension.

But you're still over rating a very average bunch of footballers in attack.

I can only hope that the successful U17s and U20s have players of technical and playmaking ability because we'll never win a World Cup with the likes of Sterling Ali and Lingard.

How many passes did they overhit tonight in half chance situations? Very average players at this high level.

We scored one goal from open play in the knock out phase - a header vs Sweden.

I'm sure they'll get better but we're still miles below the likes of France and Brazil so no, I don't think we'll improve on that semi final spot going forward with this group.