Right, the whole of England will be waking up with a semi on Wednesday...from somewhere in Russia. First though, France play Belgium on Tuesday. There are now only four games left to play in this World Cup, if we win two of them it's ours
Agree I think it's got the making of a great game. Think the Belgians might just have the edge in theory but I've got a feeling for the French.
I want Belgium to win as I think we have a better chance against them but both are more erratic than us. I'd say England are a consistent 7/10 team whereas France/Belgium are 6 to 9 out of 10 teams. On that basis I'd say 25% we win, 25% penalties, 50% we lose irrespective of the opponent. I'd take that to be honest. As for Croatia if you'd asked me a couple of games ago I'd have made them favorites but they were lucky to get past Denmark (and looked jaded) and lucky to get past Russia (and looked totally dead on their feet). On paper they have a strong first 11 but a few of them have been much less impressive recently. Belgium have bottled it a few times in recent years and France bottled it on home soil 2 years ago when they were comfortable favourites. I don't think England will bottle it, we may just get beaten by a better team or performance from any of the other 3 teams - that's ok though. They've already done enough to come home to a heroes welcome, anything else is a massive bonus.
England are the 4th best team remaining we are long ball specialists i dont think we will go all the way bt can see us beating croatia possibly
Not sure I agree with that. I think Croatia should be more worried about us than we are about them. Also, I don't think that France or Belgium are nailed-on to give us a battering...you never know, maybe it IS coming home....
I'm feeling better about playing Croatia also. They have made heavy work of the last couple of games. If we get to the final that is actually ridiculous. What a turn around!
Modric - their main threat - could barely walk by the end. Those 2 pen shootouts will have tired them mentally and physically.
I'm not surprised.Did you see him towards the end of the 120 minutes, he was still chasing everything.
Gareth is right, we will never have a better chance. It's like Leicester's title win or Pardew finishing 5th; every external factor has fallen in our favour. The one game where "anything" can happen is a final.
There was one point in the 115-120m he mis-controlled after receiving the ball and just couldn't run to try and get it back, looked absolutely shattered to me. Don't blame him though, he's missed 25 mins of the entire tournament so far in their final group game. Great player and I really like him but was praying for the Russians to step on his ankle in the last few mins.
I thought Modric, Rakitic and particularly Mandzukic all looked exhausted. With the 30 mins against Russia and Denmark and the fact they couldn't afford to rest anyone in their last game like we could then most of their team have effectively played 1-2 more games than ours have. I appreciate we had extra time against Colombia but we were also able to coast it towards the end against Sweden and the only other game I'd say we exerted ourselves in was Tunisia. Heck Kane was even subbed off 60odd minutes into the Panama game, he's probably played 2 games less than Modric et al. We have no excuses for not beating Croatia but if we lose then the lads have still covered themselves in glory. Anyone who wants to go on about how we're rubbish and lucky to have got this far can form their own society and go live in a hole somewhere - the rest of us are happy, deal with it.
