We were leading Italy in the final and then lost on penalties. You often rely on trying to push the idea that the person disagreeing you just "hasn't thought about it enough" but he truth is your argument isn't logical in the slightest. Scotland beat Spain in the qualifying rounds of Euros 2024, I assume they were closer to winning the competition than us then? They pretty much came second. Well done them.
So you admit you're talking utter **** then, as you've watched years of Mourinho and Conte winning that way and celebrated each one. Pretentious ****er.
They can't see past the top line which is we got to a final. Some of us just watch the football and can see the full picture.... the basics and bare principles of the game. England were ****e. I don't know what England's teams you've watched over the years. It's ok you like the top line. I don't I look at how good the side is and how close they run the beat sides.
Wouldn't call Germany biggish tbh. Regardless it's more than we managed in the 40-50 years previously. I always find it odd that we never hear this spoken about for Bobby Robson at Italia '90. 3 draws in the group stage and then scraped two et wins against opposition much inferior to us but that's spoken about as some sort of heroic effort.
Worth noting that under Southgate we on ever lost to winners (Italy and Spain) or finalists (France, Croatia). Prior to this era we lost earlier on in tournaments to teams that promptly got knocked out in the next round. We weren't even in the competition, we were just making up the numbers. I don't think Southgate is/was a good manager and wouldn't want him at my club but I think there's many managers at international football who would be trash by most measures as club managers so you can only judge them by results and how they get their team playing. Southgate had to go as the performances seemed to be going backwards but as regards results I find it astounding that he gets as much abuse as he does. People seemed to have removed from their minds that in the two tournaments prior we were knocked out by Iceland in 2016 and finished bottom of our group with no wins in 2014. We hadn't won a single knock out game for over a decade...
At the time Germany were biggish. Especially with us at home. Agree on Robson but 1990 sounded like a vibe.
In other news I just watched a neighbour try and silence his burglar alarm by taking a crowbar to it for five minutes which was good fun.
Yeah it's an age thing I guess. As someone who's first tournament was France '98 I loved the WC 2018 and following Euros as actually had something to enjoy and hope for which I'd given up on for life after consecutive penalty defeats to Portugal. All irrelevant anyway I guess. Carsley will be judged on his WC performance ultimately and not a match against Ireland.
