Football - Euro 2020 Championship

Fretwired

Credit to Southgate for an honest interview this morning - you can watch it online - he didn't duck a question and gave straight answers. He's going to consider his future (he's out of contract but the head of the FA wants to give him another one). With the World Cup next year it makes sense that he stays and reflects on the positives of the Euros.

TheBigDipper

Grumpyrocker said:

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I've fallen out of love with club football in the last year or two. Fed up of the stupid financial shenanigans and super league skullduggery. But I've really enjoyed Euro 2020 immensely. I particularly enjoy the group stages of these tournaments because you get so immersed in game after game, often with teams you've not seen much of before.  

When things open up further, try going back to a stadium and watching a Championship or League1/2 team. The Premiership is a business in the entertainments sector that has lost its soul and has little connection to local people. They get nearly all the TV time, so if you don't watch live football it's hard to know what it's still like in the lower leagues. I still enjoy Championship football and hated my teams recent time in the Prem (QPR, FWIW, but it wasn't their dreadful performances - it was the whole circus).

I go and watch Christchurch FC sometimes. The standard is low, but the passion is strong - and you realise the joy doesn't come from watching the best players in the world, but from the passion of the players you are standing in front of on a cold Saturday afternoon. It can be reaffirming.

DrCornelius

p90fool said:

MagicPigDetective said:

England should drop this Coming Home business. It sounds ridiculous to other nations even galvanizes them.

Definitely. As a non English person I just find it annoying that a country who've fluked a single win in a century or so have such a sense of entitlement about where the trophy(s) belongs. 

Just as the 55 years of hurt thing implies that a second tier sporting nation have somehow been robbed of their rightful place on the podium for generations rather than just being an average team, these things must sound even more pathetic to countries who have won the European Championship or the World Cup many, many times.  

If Greece banged on about football coming home or seven years of hurt English fans would laugh in their faces, but their winning record is identical, except it was 48 years more recent and was even filmed in colour.

Surely its more to do with the fact that the game was invented in England, thats why its 'coming home' ? (or not as the case may be !)

WiresDreamDisasters

If all you see is twats, then I'd say that you're choosing to focus on the twats.

I live in Queensbury, which isn't far from Wembley. It's majority Romanian, Indian, and British-Indian. There was a pretty awesome camaraderie in the air throughout yesterday. I even got sucked into it and watched the game, and I usually scoff at all this shit!

I stood at the door before kick off waiting for my brother in law to turn up. When they did I shouted it's coming home, and a load of people on the street joined in, and it was hilarious.

axisus

Gutted that we lost. Sport can fly you high as a kite or kick you hard in the bollocks in a way that hurts for a long time. 

Penalties is a terrible way to decide something like this. I imagine that some players who miss will be psychologically scarred for life. I don't know what a better solution would be. 

DefaultM

Just seen some of the racist twitter stuff and wow. Some of these same people will have happily taken the Aldi vouchers Rashford helped get them to help in the school holidays.

Creed_Clicks

@p90fool that is a good point. I don't think Italy or Spain are as obsessed with trophies "coming home". I didn't realise it would have been on the radar for the Italians (it's coming home) so can understand the Italian gloating online since.

guitars4you

axisus said:

Penalties is a terrible way to decide something like this. 
 I don't know what a better solution would be. 

score in the 90 mins + ET that has been allocated to you

Years ago did we not have European game/tournament a while back were it was awarded on a toss of a coin ? - think both club level and country 

Bridgehouse

I'm disappointed.

We lost - and I'm disappointed about it. But I'm more disappointed by the pundits reactions today. There's talk of whether Southgate is the man for the job. There's talk of the team not being good enough. 

Phil McNulty writes this on the BBC website: "England went a step further than their defeat against Croatia in the 2018 World Cup semi-final in Moscow; progress of sorts but not enough to soothe this suffering"

His whole article has dropped back to the familiar territory of "just not good enough"

I get the feeling that nothing will be good enough until England win a tournament and utterly romp it right through. 

Spain's golden generation in 2008-2012 didn't romp it.

Euro 2008 results:
4-1 win against Russia
2-1 win against Sweden
2-1 win against Greece
4-2 win against Italy
3-0 win against Russia
1-0 win against Germany

Their world cup win in 2010 came after:
0-1 defeat to switzerland
2-0 win against Honduras
2-1 win against Chile
1-0 win against Portugal
1-0 win against Paraguay
1-0 win against Germany
3-2 win against Uruguay

In 2012 at the Euros:
1-1 draw against Italy
4-0 win against NI
1-0 win against Croatia
2-0 win against France
0-0 draw with Portugal, 4-2 on penalties
4-0 win against Italy.

Their 4-0 Italy win in that last final was clearly built on their WC and 2008 experience. I wouldn't say they romped either of the last 2 tournaments. There were matches where they had the rub of the green. What is clear is the 2008 experience really helped them - in 2006 they went out in the round of 16 and in the 2004 euros they went out at the group stage. If anything their record in conceding is the most interesting - 5 in 2008, 4 in 2010, and then only 1 in 2012. 

We have always lacked an England team and Manager that operated as a Team, and had real pressure experience at the very top of an international competition. 

2016 was pretty bad. The defeat to Iceland was probably one of the worst England performances for some time. Our record since then:

2018 World cup:
2-1 win against Tunisia
6-1 win against Panama
0-1 defeat to Belgium
1-1 draw against Colombia, 4-3 on penalties
2-0 win against Sweden
2-1 defeat to Croatia

2020 Euros:
1-0 win against Croatia
0-0 draw against Scotlant
1-0 win against Czech Republic
2-0 win against Germany
4-0 win against Ukraine
2-1 win against Denmark
1-1 draw against Italy - Italy win 3-2 on pens.

So, that's significant progress from 2016 to 2018, but you could argue we still weren't competing with the best teams out there particularly well. From 2018-2020 there's again clear improvement and progress. Bigger teams being challenged and we are starting to prove our ability at the highest level. 5 conceded in 2018, only 2 conceded in 2020.. 

Quite why the pundits are saying that it's "progress of sorts" is beyond me. One or two penalty kicks different and it would have been a different story. In my view, experience won out last night. And we have a young team now who have immensely valuable experience no England team have had for 55 years..

Fretwired

axisus said:

Gutted that we lost. Sport can fly you high as a kite or kick you hard in the bollocks in a way that hurts for a long time. 

Penalties is a terrible way to decide something like this. I imagine that some players who miss will be psychologically scarred for life.I don 't know what a better solution would be. 

A golden goal - it would force teams to play to win. If after a period of time there was no score it could be done on the performance of the teams during the tournament based on wins and goals scored.

However, penalty shootouts make for great edge-of-your-seat TV so I doubt anything will change.

crunchman

p90fool said:

MagicPigDetective said:

England should drop this Coming Home business. It sounds ridiculous to other nations even galvanizes them.

Definitely. As a non English person I just find it annoying that a country who've fluked a single win in a century or so have such a sense of entitlement about where the trophy(s) belongs. 

Just as the 55 years of hurt thing implies that a second tier sporting nation have somehow been robbed of their rightful place on the podium for generations rather than just being an average team, these things must sound even more pathetic to countries who have won the European Championship or the World Cup many, many times.  

If Greece banged on about football coming home or seven years of hurt English fans would laugh in their faces, but their winning record is identical, except it was 48 years more recent and was even filmed in colour.

Bad comparison.

England are on a completely different level to Greece.  Greece have only qualified for the World Cup three times.  Out of those three occasions, they got out of their group once and were knocked out in the last 16.

As well as winning it in 1966, England have been to two semi-finals, and been quarter-finalists on a further 6 occasions.  As far as I can work out, there are only three teams that have made it to the quarter finals or beyond more times than England:  Brazil, Germany, and Italy.  We have reached that stage more often than France, the Netherlands, Argentina, Uruguay, Portugal and Spain.

We were also ranked 4th in the world on the FIFA rankings before the start of this tournament.

Despite our tendency to self-deprecation, we are one of the major teams in international football.  Comparisons with the likes of Greece are ridiculous.

Grumpyrocker

I was in favour of golden goal. Right up until I saw a match won that way. It's awful. 

WeegieBoy

Fretwired said:

axisus said:

Gutted that we lost. Sport can fly you high as a kite or kick you hard in the bollocks in a way that hurts for a long time. 

Penalties is a terrible way to decide something like this. I imagine that some players who miss will be psychologically scarred for life.I don 't know what a better solution would be. 

A golden goal - it would force teams to play to win. If after a period of time there was no score it could be done on the performance of the teams during the tournament based on wins and goals scored.

However, penalty shootouts make for great edge-of-your-seat TV so I doubt anything will change.

Golden goal was an awful way to finish a game in its brief stint at tournaments. Neither team really plays for the win because it leaves them open at the back. Penalties is the perfect way to settle a game after 120 mins of stalemate in my view. It equalises the teams as they're all performing the same action to win. 1 on 1 dual between taker and keeper.  

Basing the end of a game on the record for 4/5 games previously would be dreadfully unfair. It's not the same as settling a league on goal difference as you've had different opposition in tournament football so not a standard comparison Using that logic, France would have beating Switzerland earlier in the tournament which would have been a travesty based on the performance in that game.

CHRISB50

 axisus said:

Gutted that we lost. Sport can fly you high as a kite or kick you hard in the bollocks in a way that hurts for a long time. 

Penalties is a terrible way to decide something like this. I imagine that some players who miss will be psychologically scarred for life. I don't know what a better solution would be. 

All players on the pitch at the final whistle. Inside the centre circle. Anything goes. Last man standing wins.

menamestom

CHRISB50 said:

 axisus said:

Gutted that we lost. Sport can fly you high as a kite or kick you hard in the bollocks in a way that hurts for a long time. 

Penalties is a terrible way to decide something like this. I imagine that some players who miss will be psychologically scarred for life. I don't know what a better solution would be. 

All players on the pitch at the final whistle. Inside the centre circle. Anything goes. Last man standing wins.

Play extra time indefinitely taking a player of each team every 5 mins until just the keepers are left.

crunchman

WeegieBoy said:

Fretwired said:

axisus said:

Gutted that we lost. Sport can fly you high as a kite or kick you hard in the bollocks in a way that hurts for a long time. 

Penalties is a terrible way to decide something like this. I imagine that some players who miss will be psychologically scarred for life.I don 't know what a better solution would be. 

A golden goal - it would force teams to play to win. If after a period of time there was no score it could be done on the performance of the teams during the tournament based on wins and goals scored.

However, penalty shootouts make for great edge-of-your-seat TV so I doubt anything will change.

Golden goal was an awful way to finish a game in its brief stint at tournaments. Neither team really plays for the win because it leaves them open at the back. Penalties is the perfect way to settle a game after 120 mins of stalemate in my view. It equalises the teams as they're all performing the same action to win. 1 on 1 dual between taker and keeper.  

Basing the end of a game on the record for 4/5 games previously would be dreadfully unfair. It's not the same as settling a league on goal difference as you've had different opposition in tournament football so not a standard comparison Using that logic, France would have beating Switzerland earlier in the tournament which would have been a travesty based on the performance in that game.

You would be better off using a stat from the game than previous record in the tournament.  Give it to the side that has the most corners, or least bookings, or commits the least fouls, or some combination of those three. That way there is an incentive to get forward and Saka getting rugby tackled would potentially carry a much bigger sanction.

menamestom

Creed_Clicks said:

@p90fool that is a good point. I don't think Italy or Spain are as obsessed with trophies "coming home". I didn't realise it would have been on the radar for the Italians (it's coming home) so can understand the Italian gloating online since.

Coming home refers to modern association football being invented in Cambirdge in the 19th century.  It can only actually 'come home' to England.

Edit:- other forms of the game marginally similar to this were played around the world prior to the English version, but this is considered the closest to what we play now and the origins of the game we see now.

p90fool

crunchman said:

p90fool said:

MagicPigDetective said:

England should drop this Coming Home business. It sounds ridiculous to other nations even galvanizes them.

Definitely. As a non English person I just find it annoying that a country who've fluked a single win in a century or so have such a sense of entitlement about where the trophy(s) belongs. 

Just as the 55 years of hurt thing implies that a second tier sporting nation have somehow been robbed of their rightful place on the podium for generations rather than just being an average team, these things must sound even more pathetic to countries who have won the European Championship or the World Cup many, many times.  

If Greece banged on about football coming home or seven years of hurt English fans would laugh in their faces, but their winning record is identical, except it was 48 years more recent and was even filmed in colour.

Bad comparison.

England are on a completely different level to Greece.  Greece have only qualified for the World Cup three times.  Out of those three occasions, they got out of their group once and were knocked out in the last 16.

As well as winning it in 1966, England have been to two semi-finals, and been quarter-finalists on a further 6 occasions.  As far as I can work out, there are only three teams that have made it to the quarter finals or beyond more times than England:  Brazil, Germany, and Italy.  We have reached that stage more often than France, the Netherlands, Argentina, Uruguay, Portugal and Spain.

We were also ranked 4th in the world on the FIFA rankings before the start of this tournament.

Despite our tendency to self-deprecation, we are one of the major teams in international football.  Comparisons with the likes of Greece are ridiculous.

I'm well aware of that, and conversely that England don't even qualify for the Euros half the time, but I think a team who've won a major international competition once since inventing the sport 170-odd years ago can at best be described as a bit of a hurdle to the major teams rather than as serious, regular contenders. 

England deserve every credit for the way they've played and conducted themselves this time, it's really only the idea that the trophy belongs in their cabinet which is a bit silly, and that's a media rather than a team thing.

Bridgehouse

Actually, I’d like to see 6 or so set pieces. Play continues until the ball goes out of play. 3 at one end, 3 at the other. 3 positions for the set piece to start. Something the whole team takes part in, and can practise in training.

Philly_Q

Grumpyrocker said:

I was in favour of golden goal. Right up until I saw a match won that way. It's awful. 

It leaves a horrible feeling of anticlimax.  In a normal match, or a match with extra time, there's always a chance to get back into the game even if the opposition scores in the last few minutes.  But with Golden Goal it just stops dead and there's nothing you can do about it, it feels horrible.

Plus, as noted above, teams actually become hyper-cautious so as not to concede the Golden Goal.

Penalties ultimately end abruptly, as well.  But at least it's in each player's hands (or feet) to prolong the shootout as long as possible - it's different from the Golden Goal which just snatches away all hope in an instant.