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World Cup 2026: Mexico, USA and Canada

Beyond the obvious 'three lions' spirit there wasn't a lot to get excited about from England in that game (albeit the game itself was exciting/enthralling).

Shearers punditry is laughable, opinions driven by the scoreline. 'great' 'excellent' analysis of the first half. Eh?. Mexico passed it round us, and not just for the sake of it, they created chances as well. We had 2 minutes of 'great' play and scored twice.

The second half was largely a clichéd backs to the wall/park the bus performance once we were down to 10. We did that well, but its not hard to when you're 5-3-1 and have the best players from England to choose from.

I briefly hear Tuchel moaning about the ref? Not sure why, everything the ref gave appeared fair enough?

Bellingham was brilliant and Gordon very good.
I think Pickford is as crazy as a box of frogs BUT he was excellent, really imposed himself on all situations. The subs did well, especially our Djed.(who I thought was listed as injured?)

I'm sure we can grind it out with the best, and we do have a little bit of stardust...no clue how far that can take us though.

We’re not a team that dominates possession or plays with the flair of France, Spain or even Argentina. What we do have, though, is incredible spirit and two players who are capable of winning a football match almost single-handedly.

I agree with you about Shearer’s punditry as well. I get that he’s English and wants England to win, but he’s being paid to analyse the game objectively. Too often he comes across as a fan with a microphone rather than a neutral broadcaster. It’s frustrating how biased some of the pundits and former players can be.

It was actually quite refreshing listening to Joe Hart. He stuck to his guns and said Mexico’s penalty was the correct decision, even though it wasn’t the popular view. He definitely went up in my estimation last night.
 
We’re not a team that dominates possession or plays with the flair of France, Spain or even Argentina. What we do have, though, is incredible spirit and two players who are capable of winning a football match almost single-handedly.

I agree with you about Shearer’s punditry as well. I get that he’s English and wants England to win, but he’s being paid to analyse the game objectively. Too often he comes across as a fan with a microphone rather than a neutral broadcaster. It’s frustrating how biased some of the pundits and former players can be.

It was actually quite refreshing listening to Joe Hart. He stuck to his guns and said Mexico’s penalty was the correct decision, even though it wasn’t the popular view. He definitely went up in my estimation last night.
I thought Shearer was a disgrace to be honest. Really f**king poor.

His analysis of the first half, as @ricky2tricky4city said, wasn't grounded in any reality for me (albeit the 3 in the studio weren't a whole lot better). Then, in the second half, his commentary on the Mexico penalty was laughable. Yeah it was soft but Kane caught their lad and never touched the ball. That happens anywhere else on the pitch, it's a free kick and you don't bat an eyelid. Was a penalty all day long.

Worst of all for me was just after England had the red a ball was whipped in by Mexico. Kane and one of their lads go for it, there is minimal contact (if any at all) and Harry rolled around like he'd been shot to get their lad in trouble. Plain as day. Their lad even gave Kane some brick to get up off the ground. Shearer doesn't call it out for what it is by Kane and just says "Great defending by Harry". Had that been the other way around, he'd have screamed play acting.

Shouldn't be allowed near a microphone for any other England games.
 
You’re absolutely right. Was like watching a Thomas Frank team. But England made it really difficult for them. There was no space to try and exploit in the England defence. Tuchel deserves so much credit for that last 20 mins.
They seemed to get worse with all the attacking subs he threw on. Closest they came was Stones rolling that one past our own post.

Thought we'd gone a bit early with the bus park but dealt with everything very well from there.
 
They seemed to get worse with all the attacking subs he threw on. Closest they came was Stones rolling that one past our own post.

Thought we'd gone a bit early with the bus park but dealt with everything very well from there.
Yeah I thought you went far too early especially as, for the first 5 minutes of it, you literally booted the ball back to them every time coz you had no outball.

You'd have to say, in hindsight, Tuchel got it spot on. I guess that's why he's such a highly rated manager.
 
I can't comment on commentators as had mute on, was confusing with red card and Mexican penalty incidents. Infantino looked very glum when camera showed him on screen, obviously not the result he'd planned for, hope the Mexicans FA and Trump kept their reciept.😁
 
Beyond the obvious 'three lions' spirit there wasn't a lot to get excited about from England in that game (albeit the game itself was exciting/enthralling).

Shearers punditry is laughable, opinions driven by the scoreline. 'great' 'excellent' analysis of the first half. Eh?. Mexico passed it round us, and not just for the sake of it, they created chances as well. We had 2 minutes of 'great' play and scored twice.

The second half was largely a clichéd backs to the wall/park the bus performance once we were down to 10. We did that well, but its not hard to when you're 5-3-1 and have the best players from England to choose from.

I briefly hear Tuchel moaning about the ref? Not sure why, everything the ref gave appeared fair enough?

Bellingham was brilliant and Gordon very good.
I think Pickford is as crazy as a box of frogs BUT he was excellent, really imposed himself on all situations. The subs did well, especially our Djed.(who I thought was listed as injured?)

I'm sure we can grind it out with the best, and we do have a little bit of stardust...no clue how far that can take us though.
This is a tough take. Thought we were pretty good generally, and our core of Kane, Bellingham, Anderson, and Pickford were excellent.
 
I knew there was a very obvious instance that I had missed, Son's red card against Everton was over turned.
Are these not all reviewed afterwards anyway?
If Trump wasn't mentioned I don't think anyone would care.
 
I knew there was a very obvious instance that I had missed, Son's red card against Everton was over turned.
Are these not all reviewed afterwards anyway?
If Trump wasn't mentioned I don't think anyone would care.
What @NoLimits01 said but also, there is a clear process in the EPL for overturning red cards and several precedents.

There has been no transparency on this decision. There have been 13 reds I think in the tournament and only one player has had this treatment without any explanation as to why. It's corruption.

There was uproar over this before confirmation of the Trump phone call.
 
The Trump involvement just makes a very bad decision even worse, obviously. But the whole suspension decision is tinkle poor in itself.

FIFA haven't even bothered to come up with a remotely credible explanation for their farcial decision, probably because they (a) are extremely arrogantly confident in their own power and (b) because they know any reasoning will be used against them whenever other teams suffer red cards.
 
What @NoLimits01 said but also, there is a clear process in the EPL for overturning red cards and several precedents.

There has been no transparency on this decision. There have been 13 reds I think in the tournament and only one player has had this treatment without any explanation as to why. It's corruption.

There was uproar over this before confirmation of the Trump phone call.
The issue is that the World Cup rules do not allow for a red card to be reviewed and, if judged to have been wrongly given, overturned.
That's why they have had to go down the suspension route because there s apparently some vague regulation that allows FIFA to do this (although according to the Belgium FA there are others that contradict that).
So nutshell, no, it could not have followed the same process as the PL (and presumably other leagues) because the WC does not allow it.
Hence the controversy.

Even if there is some vague regulation that allows the suspension, this was supposedly determined by an independent panel. Something must have happened to trigger that panel to review the red card. Which it appears was the intervention of the White House.
 
As i asked in the FIFA thread, hasn't there been a precedent set when Ronaldo was allowed to start the tournament even though he got a red card in the last game of qualifying? Or have i misremembered that?
 
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