Wednesday night, from somewhere in Russia. Who do we want, Russia or Croatia? Russia for me but both teams are beatable. Oh and GTFI, we are in the semi-finals of the World Cup
In theory, Russia should be the easier team to beat, but playing in a home tournament gives them a big advantage **** it, don't care - we're in the semi
Russia for me because I think they would be the relatively easier of the two teams to play. My problem is that on the 15th July at 3pm I will be on a plane heading to Italy. If only I knew which idiot organised that...
Either of them are capable of whooping our candy asses. We are **** and have **** players. And Sterling is our number 10 ffs.
Channel your footballing hero Sterling ..and after all the intricate build up ..miss the plane [/QUOTE]
I can't see why not. If you look at their record of late, they were second to Iceland in their world cup qualifying group and had to beat Greece to get to the finals. They lost to Turkey and Iceland during the qualifiers, scoring 15 in 10 games but only letting in four. Yes they've picked up momentum with wins against Nigeria and Argentina but have looked tired in the last two game. I think our set pieces will be crucial, Maguire and Jones will be obvious threats from corners. The good thing is that our goals are starting to get shared around, Kane, Lingard, Alli, Maguire and Jones. We just need Sterling to score now!
Reaching the semis has made me wonder (and I'm sure a few others as well) why it has taken 28 years to get there? There's plenty of talk about this not being the best team we've ever produced but one that has a blend of youth and self-belief, instilled in them by a manager who to be fair, wasn't many people's choice when he took over. You can argue that we've been a little unlucky in the past or we've lost on penalties but what is so different this time? We don't seem to be suffering from the fear factor in this tournament. Is it all in the head?
No, we simply haven’t been good enough. One or two tournaments you could argue luck or lack of but not 28 years. The so called “golden generation” of Gerrard etc were never a “golden generation” and were, as a group, over-rated and not even as good as the previous bunch including Shearer etc.
Perfect storm. So lucky with other teams failure and our own defeat to Belgium paved the way for this route. Southgate has done well to get the media onside and relax the group. Having no big name apart from the 9 up front has really helped; honestly thtink that’s played a huge role just as it did in 96.
This is best England team since 1996. The dpirit and togetherness has got us this far more than anything. I can see us turning over Croatia and actually going on to win the trophy. France and Belgium, whilst being technically very good, are not all that.
