Great effort overall. Yes you can pick faults in that performance, in the substitutions etc, but ultimately that bit of extra know-how told. Well done lads. The flight home has merely been delayed due to a diversion via Qatar.
You know what. I am gutted, but proud. Football has brought the nation together...more than any politician can do. We lost, we won't win the World cup this year, but football came home. Cheers Gareth. I've always secretly liked waistcoats. #ich
Maybe, but statistically he absolutely deserved to be at the tournament and I don't believe that any of the LB in Russia proved it was correct to leave him out.
So close and yet so far. The better team won on the night. It’s a shame to go out on a poor performance but Croatia were very good (and had the refereeing team onside too which always helps). Overall extremely proud, disappointed but proud.
I’m strangely not suicidal. Normally after something like that no one can talk to me and I am definitely off line. Tonight, I’m gutted, but ok. Looking forward to the new season now - this is going to be our year. Oh wrong team. [emoji38]
Well, the loss extended one of the stranger streaks in football: as far as I can tell, England has never played France in a single-elimination match, in any tournament, and have only played once in an elimination tie of any sort, and that was the preliminary qualifying round for the 1964 Euros. Only have a handful of competitive matches of any sort (I count seven). How do you keep a rivalry going with a single group stage match every decade or thereabouts?
Tonight is for celebrating. This result and this team was 10 years in the making, player knew it's their last chance there were not about to let it go easily. It was desire and belief personified. And quality on top of it. Croatia is playing in the world cup final. Never thought I'd say those words. Magnificent.
Yeah, I've watched it a dozen times trying to figure out if it should have been a foul. If you want a neutral's perspective, I think it's borderline but correctly not a foul. From one angle, it looks like Walker has position and as he goes to head it Perisic sticks his foot from behind Walker to get it and swings it dangerously across Walkers head, barely missing him but could easily have injured him. Were it not for Perisic sticking that foot out, Walker would have headed it. From another angle, it looks like while Walker has goalside position the two players are more moving in parallel across the goal. The way the ball curves it ends up being delivered away from the goal to Perisic's side. Perisic is sticking his foot out not to take it away from Walker but simply because that's the only chance he has of getting to it. Walker is too far away to have a chance. His attempted header is too late and too short and was never going to get there. Perisic ends up semi-kicking it over Walker's head only because Walker is diving towards him. I think the second angle is more accurate. It's close but because of the way the ball was played (short and behind Perisic if he were facing the goal) Perisic actually has position and did not go through Walker to get the bill. And it looks like Walker was never actually touched and his reaction is “Crap, I got beat.” Not “Holy crap, the guy almost took my head off how is that not a foul?” Anyway, decent performance from England. They lost their way a bit in the second half, but **** happens. They were also playing out of heir minds for stretches in the first half. On balance, they gave a good effort, the game could have gone either way, but to me Croatia was just a tad better overall. England had a great draw to get this far, but you can only play what’s in front of you. I don’t know that they were overachieving heroes or anything, but that is partly because I believe the team is fairly talented. What they didn’t do was get into some weird tabloid scandals, play like ass, do something stupid and get knocked out early, or choke horribly in a shootout so that’s a plus. They played like pros and it took a good team to beat them... and just barely. That’s all you can ask. I wish I could say the same for the US Men’s team who didn’t even make it.
Whatever happens from here on, thank you to Gareth Southgate for making me care and feel pride in watching my national team play again. And thanks for being such a decent bloke while you did it.
Delighted for ye! Visited the country a few times and found the people to be sound football mad people! Gives Ireland some hope if we et our act together that a smaller country than us can get to the Final!
Proud of the way we played across the tournament, but massively disappointed with the way we played last night. After we scored we went into our shells and I spent 85 minutes screaming "keep the bloody ball!" at the telly. Oh well. Time to change my vote on the club vs country poll.... Oh and the main thing we have learned is that a nation without a world class creative player is never going to win a big a tournament. I hope we have one coming through...
I did spend the last 60 minutes of normal time and all of extra time muttering to my mates, “Were not keeping the ball.” Sadly we reverted to the old England for that last 60-90 minutes of that match.
