So in 2018 England lost in the semi-final and this time, 2022, they have lost in the quarter-final. Is this considered as an improvement or a backward step?
It may have been a quarter-final but the winner has every chance of lifting the trophy, whereas in 2018 if we'd beaten Croatia then the best team in the tournament still stood in our way. Maybe not progress but still half decent.
I said team not squad. Lloris is first choice and was man of the match yesterday, pogba only plays well against sides that give him loads of space - so yeh he looked good against bielsa Leeds but has been widely considered a flop for years by pretty much everyone except maybe you though. Nkunku has had a great year… but which of the forward line are you dropping for him? Benzema is quality of course and would start but France’s record goal scorer has knocked 4 in in his absence. Do Share some of your tactical analysis on what England need to do to change though - so we can draw from your experience and move on from rocking up with the best players we have and trying our best. As that is obviously doomed to perennial failure. If you see making the last 8/4/2 of major tournaments failure. Reality is France weren’t better than us on the night just like Croatia weren’t better than Brazil. There’s no standout teams in world football at the moment - and any of the better teams could beat each other on the day.
So I suppose we Aussies should take heart as we were only beaten by the probable finalists and managed to score a goal, from open play, against both of them. Nah, we lost and need to do something different if we are to get any further in the competition. It's unlikely we will though as football is at least the third sport here but in England isn't football numero uno?
Unfortunately you don't have the talent to compete for the actual trophy. That's as it stands however and who knows in 4 years.
We're definitely improving technically though which is great to see. Every academy in the PL is now producing players of a higher standard than ever before and fortunately some of them are English.
Football is a squad game and having those players available would have provided more depth and given Didier more options, maybe as starters maybe as tactical substitutes. Had yesterdays game gone to extra time then I sort of get what Jammy is saying that the result could have been different. I don't think it is necessarily tactics that England have got wrong but perhaps the system that gets young players into the national team. If I was to ask who the flair players are in modern english football would it be a list of English players? OK there are some but why not more, do they have a similar view of what the style of play is and do they fit into the system, do they have the right mentality? If I had the answers I would be the coach wouldn't I? I don't but repeating the same line that "our team would have won if...." isn't really going to address the potential issues. PS Brazil aren't that great at the moment, the last two world cups for them haven't been good and they haven't won the cup in the last 20 years.
That’s fair comment Eric, but my point was their starting 11 wouldn’t be significantly better on paper. As Jammy says, the English academy system is gradually starting to produce decent young players. We were miles behind other countries for years. We’re not now. We regularly have top age group teams and it’s finally filtering through to the national team. English players are prominent in top club sides. Does it mean we’ll win the World Cup in the next 20/30years? Of course it doesn’t. Because all the top sides in Europe can say the same - but what it means is it’s likely that we will regularly be competitive. That’s the best any country can hope for. Spain and Germany had worse world cups than us, Italy didn’t qualify. We lost a close game to the world champions. Had the breaks gone our way, not theirs, then we COULD have won it. As could several other teams who have already gone home. Football is not a sport where the best team always wins. So nothing any country can do can guarantee success in a World Cup.
I'm not just saying it just because it is France but in the late 80's it was decided that the system in France needed to be improved, academies were established and players trained and 10 years later, 1998 they won the world cup having been nowhere for decades. In my opinion England needs to make an assessment of the system they have and determine firstly if they want a successful national team and if so is the current system aligned with this or is it producing players for clubs only? PS Giroud was man of the match
jesse will be masterminding the US to their first World Cup triumph on home soil in 4 years time Meanwhile Sean dyche will be masterminding Leeds annual relegation battle while Victor orta is rumoured to be launching an audacious, but ultimately unsuccessful bid for ‘under the radar’ sensation kylian mbappe. In other news, Angus kinnear will be submitting plans to extend the capacity of the east stand by 7 seats, the 49ers will be rumoured to complete a takeover ‘soon’ and Andrea radrizzani will be posting regularly on not606, pretending to be Eire Leeds.
Probably both nations are benefitting from the long term effects of immigration, I'm talking football wise obviously and will leave the wider debate for the other thread. Truth is England would be a similar level to Poland and Serbia etc without the additional talent that black players have brought to the national side. For those that don't remember Viv Anderson was the first black player to represent England back in 1978.
Could be worse... Southgate gets the Leeds job (after Jesse is sacked) and it's back to a tour of MK Dons, Gillingham and Bristol Rovers for our weekend football fix. Spoiler alert; Won't be going and they can stick their ST's up their arse
shows what bunkum MOM awards are… French won the euros in 1984, but yes they made changes and so did the Germans a decade later… and so did we finally (after getting royally buttfcked by said Germans in the 2010 World Cup). Our EPPP plan is 10 years old. Not perfect but it has made a significant difference.
Sorry to hear that Jammy, but then again that also means there is one extra ticket for those of us who are not able to get tickets for Premier League games
