• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

The European Football Championship

Hope this is correct. The pairing of matches represent the quarter finals.

Switzerland v Italy
England v Slovakia

Romania v Netherlands
Austria v Turkey

Germany v Denmark
Spain v Georgia

France v Belgium
Portugal v Slovenia
 
Jurgen the German said:
Fair point. Spain hadn’t won anything for donkeys years until they got over the line in 2008 though. Same with Argentina, hadn’t won the World Cup in decades. I think it would help if we just accepted we have some great players but a lot of other countries also do and they don’t have the same level of expectation that we do. Uruguay have won more world cups than us and you don’t hear them claiming to be one of the favourites every World Cup or Copa. We almost need to forget about 1966 and just go out there and try and enjoy the occasion. It’s not like we have a pedigree for going close in tournaments either until very recently, compared to Germany who have reached 8 World Cup finals and Holland (a much smaller nation than England) having reached more World Cup finals than us.
Click to expand...
The pressure in Brazil for Brazil to win the WC is as high as the pressure is in England for England, it might actually be higher as Brazil is a touch more football crazy than the UK/England is. The same with Argentina, the same with Germany and I think France also. England aren't really a special case in that regard tbh.
 
Bishop said:
The pressure in Brazil for Brazil to win the WC is as high as the pressure is in England for England, it might actually be higher as Brazil is a touch more football crazy than the UK/England is. The same with Argentina, the same with Germany and I think France also. England aren't really a special case in that regard tbh.
Click to expand...

Yep. Imagine the pressure of playing for the 5 time World Cup winners. They still have an aura or mystique in some people’s eyes (not mine personally) even if they’re not the same force they were 20-30 years ago.
 
Baleforce said:
It's the shirt, you see the same thing with United now, it gets in opposition heads.
Click to expand...

I’d put Brazil around 6th or 7th in the world right now personally. I’d definitely put them behind Argentina, Germany, France, England, Portugal and Spain. They could beat any team on their day as international football is pretty even nowadays with no standout team but they’re not a scary side like they were in the 70s, 90s and early noughties.
 
Bishop said:
The pressure in Brazil for Brazil to win the WC is as high as the pressure is in England for England, it might actually be higher as Brazil is a touch more football crazy than the UK/England is. The same with Argentina, the same with Germany and I think France also. England aren't really a special case in that regard tbh.
Click to expand...

That may be true, but the proof is there that the English can't handle the pressure. Same with Brazil. 7-1 in the semi final of their home World Cup. The other countries have emphatically proven they can handle it on multiple occasions.

The majority of English media exist only to build people up to bring them crashing down in spectacular fashion, and to capture the whole thing. This England team looked like they were getting past that nonsense thanks to Southgate. But the media will always win. They've been chipping away at him and the squad and before this tournament even began people were asking for him to be fired. On the back of the best ever Euro campaign and a semi final at the World Cup. You only have to look at this and other threads on here to see that you've all been sucked into the media narrative. And you wonder why you never win anything.

So beat Slovakia 2-0, lose to Italy 2-1, sack Southgate and start the whole process again for the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Euros and we'll have this conversation after that quarter final loss.
 
tommysvr said:
That may be true, but the proof is there that the English can't handle the pressure. Same with Brazil. 7-1 in the semi final of their home World Cup. The other countries have emphatically proven they can handle it on multiple occasions.

The majority of English media exist only to build people up to bring them crashing down in spectacular fashion, and to capture the whole thing. This England team looked like they were getting past that nonsense thanks to Southgate. But the media will always win. They've been chipping away at him and the squad and before this tournament even began people were asking for him to be fired. On the back of the best ever Euro campaign and a semi final at the World Cup. You only have to look at this and other threads on here to see that you've all been sucked into the media narrative. And you wonder why you never win anything.

So beat Slovakia 2-0, lose to Italy 2-1, sack Southgate and start the whole process again for the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Euros and we'll have this conversation after that quarter final loss.
Click to expand...
You only have to look at the speed that Foden returning home was reported … and the rumours that quickly followed
They then issued a clarifying statement I assume to stop the rumour mongering. But it was priority mainstream news FFS
 
I think the media have been pretty fair over the last 4-6 years with England, Southgate had a lot of support with how he's dealt with various situations but it's definitely coming to a head now. Regardless of what happens now it's time for a new manager anyway, need to build towards the home euros.
 
Baleforce said:
Wouldn't have been given without VAR, but as the laws is written, definitely a pen, which is why we need VAR, stuff gets missed in real time.

Portugal should have had a pen for the shirt pull on Ronaldo which VAR did miss though.
Click to expand...

Afterwards they said VAR did review it, considering shirt pulling is apparently a focus area this tournament hard to say that's not a pen. About time it got clamped down on.

would have been hilarious if that Portugal shot went in and then VAR disallowed it and went back for a Georgia penalty. Think Portugal got done like that in the Nations League before.
 
Have the rules around entering the pitch been relaxed? See so many instances now of the entire squad running on to pile on the goal celebrations. No one gets booked.
 
P.D. said:
I think the media have been pretty fair over the last 4-6 years with England, Southgate had a lot of support with how he's dealt with various situations but it's definitely coming to a head now. Regardless of what happens now it's time for a new manager anyway, need to build towards the home euros.
Click to expand...

They've only been fair because they've had no choice. The team, lead by Southgate and Kane, have managed to almost completely block out the outside noise since 2016.

Why is it coming to a head now? You've gotten through the group and have a more than decent path to the final. Like I said, you've all got sucked into this narrative that Southgate is completely clueless and despite comfortably getting out of the group -- yeah, boring performances, oh well -- you're already thinking about losing vs Italy because it'll give you a fresh start for a totally different tournament in 2/4 years. Rather than just getting behind the team for another couple of weeks and worrying about the rest later.
 
tommysvr said:
They've only been fair because they've had no choice. The team, lead by Southgate and Kane, have managed to almost completely block out the outside noise since 2016.

Why is it coming to a head now? You've gotten through the group and have a more than decent path to the final. Like I said, you've all got sucked into this narrative that Southgate is completely clueless and despite comfortably getting out of the group -- yeah, boring performances, oh well -- you're already thinking about losing vs Italy because it'll give you a fresh start for a totally different tournament in 2/4 years. Rather than just getting behind the team for another couple of weeks and worrying about the rest later.
Click to expand...
Getting through a relatively easy group and (mostly) being lucky with the side of the draw isn't enough for England to be content with. I can understand that.

Southgate is getting criticism now because he's looking clueless on how to get good or effective football out of a clearly very talented squad. Topping this group like this is not necessarily a sign of being effective.

He isn't completely clueless, he's shown that in the past. Imo he's also not a top level international manager, but that's obviously just an opinion. But right now he looks clueless. Some of the criticism will always be over the top. But some of the criticism is very much valid imo.

I don't think boring performances are that much of an issue as long as the results are there. The problem isn't the boring part, it's the clueless part.
 
tommysvr said:
That may be true, but the proof is there that the English can't handle the pressure. Same with Brazil. 7-1 in the semi final of their home World Cup. The other countries have emphatically proven they can handle it on multiple occasions.

The majority of English media exist only to build people up to bring them crashing down in spectacular fashion, and to capture the whole thing. This England team looked like they were getting past that nonsense thanks to Southgate. But the media will always win. They've been chipping away at him and the squad and before this tournament even began people were asking for him to be fired. On the back of the best ever Euro campaign and a semi final at the World Cup. You only have to look at this and other threads on here to see that you've all been sucked into the media narrative. And you wonder why you never win anything.

So beat Slovakia 2-0, lose to Italy 2-1, sack Southgate and start the whole process again for the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Euros and we'll have this conversation after that quarter final loss.
Click to expand...

I do agree with the gist of what you're saying, however I'm not sure it's because of toxic fans / press that we don't win anything (if that isn't what you meant by the bolded line apologies in advance).

For me it's more that it'd be more pleasant in general if people were on board / positive but even if that were the case we still wouldn't win anything. Similar situation with Spurs I guess. There's always some talented players and occasionally being tantalizingly close to being at the top level but the wheels usually coming off and we revert to being a bit brick again. That said, it's much healthier to have hope and enjoy the ride, even to get carried away whilst ideally falling short of absolute delusion.

You can't control what people think and it's natural that negativity attracts more attention. It'll never change but it's the folks who just declare we'd easily win stuff with a decent manager as if football is ever that binary. If there's moaning mixed in with some actual suggestions/ analysis then fair enough. It'll be fascinating to see which way we go following the tournament, but some may be in for a rude awakening if they think getting in an "elite" coach will suddenly make England brilliant, it's like they were sleeping during the Fabio Capello era as well as the Continho regime.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back