They did themselves proud and can hold their heads high. I just hope the girl that is credited with the own goal gets enough support to see it wasn't her fault we didn't win. I'd like to think the teams performance inspires others to take up the sport and they get coached with the same sporting attitude and desire the England team showed.
Own goal was unlucky - player was coming in behind her so at that point she thought she had to go for it Just one of those things They should come home with their heads held high
Big well done to the ladies last night/this morning. They made me proud of English football again on an international level that I haven't felt for a good few years with the men. The way they all sang the national anthem, inc the coach, with pride, passion and the pure joy at just playing football made me so proud. Especially as a female. Respect. Bring on the Germans.
Just what we expect from you. Criticise when they deserve to be criticised, but the ladies' national team had a right go last night and throughout the tournament & deserve all the plaudits they get.
This was the first one I've watched. Heartbreaking for England and Bassett but weirdly familiar; our luck in big games at tournaments, as a country, is absolutely shocking. Both teams lacked a bit of guile in attack but England looked more like scoring. Both penalties were soft. In a weird way, that dramatic, heartbreaking defeat might do a lot to help the women's game to be taken more seriously. It's already being compared to Gazzas tears at Italia 90. I'm glad everyone us giving them the credit they deserve and seeing the performance as well as the result, but I wish people didn't have to constantly compare them to the men. The cliched 'at least they tried unlike the men' was predictable nonsense. And after our penalty award no one can say the girls don't dive, another lazy cliche that.
Whilst I agree with the majority of the post, this bit I don't agree with. When was the last time you saw the mens' team show a bit of passion and fight in a tournament? We certainly haven't seemed to show it under Woy. The last time we probably got closest to it was when we were 2-0 down to Germany in 2010, when we should have brought it back to 2-2 but was robbed.
The last tournament. It's lazy to just use the tired old cliche of 'they don't care' every time they lose. If you think there was no passion, look at Gerrard's reaction against Uruguay, when he knew his error had pretty much knocked us out. I think it was also his goal that sealed qualification for that World Cup, have a look at his celebration to that goal too. Or John Terry trying to stop a Slovenian shot with his face at the previous World Cup. English football still has plenty of passionate players like that who'd do anything to win for their club or country, but it's not cool to recognise them unless they're playing for your club, even less so if they play for England.
The comparisons to the mens game are what annoys people who watch a bit of ladies football like myself, its the same rules but the different physicality between men and women makes it a completely different game to watch. I recommend anybody with BT Sport to watch a few games as it's easy to get into the matches, the highlights show on a Sunday is a good place to start
The men don't show the same do or die attitude, I find Rooney particularly annoying to watch at big tournaments as he obviously hasn't got the right kind of mentality spirit or desire to impose himself on games at the very highest level at finals yet he gets picked regardless and scores for fun in the qualifiers
One interesting thing I heard this week on the radio was one of the guys saying that Rooney was a legend for all the goals he scored but Owen somehow isn't, I'd have it the other way round because when you watched Owen in big tournaments you knew he had the will to win and would give everything whereas Rooney just doesn't. Harry Kane gives me a bit of hope though as I don't think he is like Rooney, more of an Owen when it counts
Strange of you to single him out as in my opinion he's one of the few players that actually shows any passion at all.
Our ladies were desperately unlucky, and deserved to win. The thing which struck me, though - and it's been said by many others, many times over, but a bit more reiteration won't go amiss - is the way they put their male counterparts to utter shame with their approach to the game. No constant and dramatic diving and no whinging to the ref, despite the fact it was the biggest game many of them will ever play in, and the stakes were so very high; they just got on with it. I hear so many bigoted blokes saying women's football is a joke and even a few who say they shouldn't be playing it at all, but how ironic is it that it's taken a ladies' tournament to remind everyone of how the game is supposed to be played?
Another reminder of how cruel sports can be. Poor lass, I hope she can move past the OG as soon as possible. In American baseball, a player named Bill Buckner of the Boston Red Sox let the 1986 World Series winning out pass between his legs for a grievous error, and the other team (New York Mets) went on to win the Series. He never really got over it, nor did the fans. I hope this isn't one of those things for her. At least she lives in a civilized country like England and not one like Columbia. One calls to mind the Columbian defenseman whose OG gave the USA a win in the 1994 World Cup. He was soon assassinated.
He really wasn't killed because of the OG. I watched a couple hour documentary on it and it was really a spat between him and a couple drug traffickers and his frequent visiting of trafficker heavy clubs while flaunting his money in what was at the time the most dangerous city in the world. He was going to die doing what he was doing.
Owen did it on the big occasions for England and was better in an international shirt than in his club career. Rooney has generally been the reverse - since his great breakthrough Euros in 2004 he's been poor at the finals tournaments. PS Trivia moment (that I've probably mentioned before): I was at the last match Andres Escobar played.
To me he just seems invisible or overawed at the big tournaments, it's a strange one as he is up against a lot of the same players he faces at Champions League level and so on. One thing that struck me when I was at the KC last game was how old he looks now too. I know it's going back to 1998-2004 time but when Owen started at the big tournaments you felt he was on top of events and always likely to have a match winning impact, Rooney on the other hand vanishes.
Perhaps he's busy working on keeping the pound much stronger against the Canadian dollar to keep me from revisiting my roots.
