Ho, hum. Even more politico-sociological potential than usual. Have at it!
ND
PS: was it a particularly eye-catching streaker that the TV wouldn't show or talk about? Or something political? (Or both?)
If nobody actually knows, we can have a compo and guess ...
15 comments:
It's coming home - eventually
The best team in the tournament beat the second best team.
I felt better about the final loss than the semi final loss last time. Croatia were not better, overall, than England. As shown by they haven’t beaten England since.
I am only really upset about about losing our fifty year, 100% victory record, at the finals of major soccer tournaments.
The people shrieking loudest about the glorious diversity of the England team and how we couldn't possibly beat anyone without it
a) don't give a hoot about football but find it a useful lever in the ongoing dispossion campaign
b) are the same people shrieking about anyone on social media who noticed the unfortunate pattern in the penalty shootout. If that pattern had been reversed and we'd won, they would be shoving the 'Three Kings' at us 24/7.
c) are also the same people praising Sterling to the skies. Sterling's fast and tricky, but the number of times he's beaten three players and then lost the ball is much too high - he doesn't seem to know when to play a pass. Given the ball outside the area his first instinct seems to be to play the ball back, which nearly cost us against Germany. Not a great game last night either.
The England goal was a corker but the better team won even though it took a scruffy goal and then penalties. The Eyetie defence kept the three England attackers pretty quiet, apart from Kane's pass to Trippier delivered from the midfield.
I was struck that Rice two or three times burst upfield but simply carried on until he was robbed of the ball. Did none of the attack take up positions to receive a pass from him or did he just get too excited?
The England substitutions didn't work. Grealish got no service; Saka and Henderson were poor. Bringing on specialist penalty takers didn't work either.
I suppose you could say that Southgate did well to get this mob through to the final. If your attack relies on head-down Sterling and drop-deep Kane you will find it hard to do well against the best teams. But who would you replace them with?
The streaker was some wannabe boy band prick who'd not earned the right to be on the field but wanted attention.
Southgate is my kind of Alpha. Understated and inspiring respect and a desire to deliver through not wanting to let him down rather than fear of him. I worked for one once and my performance was transformed.
He will be the best psychological counsellor for the penalty missers too and, boy, those poor lads will need it.
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Some fans let England down badly. I can see why other nations didn't want us to win - I was with Welsh chaps yesterday and I told them not to mind me and speak freely. I could not argue with their dire assessment of us one bit.
The BBC are straight at it with "We need more BLM" and "There will be a spike in Covid and we'll need more lockdown."
These two things were coming whatever the result.
Our country faces a dire threat from Marxism and masks are the ultimate symbol of oppression. It's what they put on women to shut them up and abuse them. See The Handmaid's Tale or ... ahem... I can't even say it, things have got that bad. (A teacher is in hiding and no-one gives a fuck.)
Boris has bottled it and said they must stay - so people like me are going to have to bear the brunt of stigmatisation and am doing so; it's not nice but there you are.
These things are now permanent.
Boris' own goal is worse by a factor of a million than anything Pickford let in last night.
Then there is the issue of those poor kids who did a wonderful video to support the England squad and were silenced by Marxists.
Nothing from Rashford on that. They were hung out to dry. The 'starving kids' in my road (a deprived post code) drink Fanta rather than tap water and are obese - their mums smoke fags and sit in dressing gowns all day.
Nothing from Southgate on the laser incident during the Denmark match but I wonder what would have happened had the goalie been black.
This BLM thing only holds up if we ignore the recent stabbings and slashings of white people and there seem to be two categories of crime - First and Second degree, First if the crime is white against black.
I'm sure white players got trolled online too but that's OK.
All in all I'm glad England lost. I feel for the players but the English have their eye off the ball in more than one sense at the moment.
(How's that for cliche' abuse, Anon ?)
Anon at 1pm
Those saying that only a diverse team could get us where we are. A dodgy argument. The issue shouldn't even be raised. It shouldn't even be noticed but the BBC shit stirrers are determined to keep that pot boiling.
1966 FFS ???
We haven't won ANY silverware since.
Anon - c) This is a particular pattern to Sterling's game. His decision making degrades when essentially left to his own devices - crosses too long, passes too early, too late, runs into traffic.
Happened at Liverpool when first given his chance by Rodgers (forgivable in a young, inexperienced player), and then in the second season once Suarez had left and Sturridge had reverted to being injured 90% of the time - less forgivable, and much less now.
As far as Kane goes - far too easily dealt with by competent, organised defences. Partially down to the team set-up by Southgate and the coaching team, which meant that he was effectively sacrificed to create space for Sterling, Saka, Rice and Mount and Co. His natural reaction would be to do a Rooney and start to drop deep after time, taking up space that the midfielders would otherwise expect to exploit.
This is almost the perfect situation for Sterling to regress.
dearieme;
I think the management team, and subsequently the players, got very tightly focused on game management - and there are two distinct phases to the tournament. The implication is that the players were unable to create their own momentum, independently of the bench.
The three misses all came from attempts to fool the keeper with tricky run-ups. If they'd just blasted it into the top corner like Harry Kane then England would have won. Since all three did something similar it must have been something worked out in advance. So we have the novel spectacle of England losing by trying to be too sophisticated. It's an example of over-elaboration and over-thinking a situation leading to failure, or as Napoleon once said, "if you start to take Vienna, put your foot through it".
In the whole match there was only one thing I wanted from the (BBC) commentator. I wanted him to tell me which of the penalty takers routinely takes penalties for his club. He didn't. Hell, it was only ten men. How on earth hadn't he done his homework on that?
I suppose we saw why Guardiola tends not to start with Sterling. We didn't see why Levy thinks he might get £150 million for Kane. Chiesa looked much more like a £150 million man.
The Italians are a pretty good side, strong in central defence and midfield. England were just a little bit weaker in both. But in Qatar those Italian central defenders might both be a bit too old. Keep on keeping on, chaps.
I know nothing about soccer, and think in rugby terms
before the match (as Mrs Drew will testify) from my magisterial sofa I suggested a parallel: an ageing team of masterful reputation, past their best but playing OK on experience and muscle memory ...
vs the popular home side, coming through strongly under a coach who seemed to have a plan for every opponent
so when England brightly scored first on Sunday, the analogy was complete & I knew we were done - and the extension into the lottery of extra time just confirmed it ...
Australia vs England, RWC 2003. Sadly, we were the Australians this time
Seems there's another medal issue too...
Some players took their medals off right away, which seems a bit childish, but in Australia v Egland 2003, the Aussi PM seemed to get really fed up with handing out winners medals to Johnson and co too...
When I was a lad and swapped from football (usually left half) to rugby (usually number eight) I found that the positional sense required was remarkably similar.
The big difference was that football is usually a low-scoring game so luck plays a bigger part in the result than it does in rugby.
Interesting, Dearieme...
In my day, full backs hardly ever got into their opponents' half, it was the centres and wings who did that! The forwards usally followed as they were so unfit, they were late...
Bob Hiller changed much of the full back's game, and all for the better, and it has improved since then (middle sixties)...
I was always out of puff by the time I had to run (as a full back), and winning at Dover in 1968 with a try from my own line, and then having to knock over the conversion is a biding light in a miniscule career as the best sportsman never to play for Sussex...
I was goalkeeper at primary school, which teaches you almost nothing about how to play soccer but is quite a handy training for being a fly half
- taking the ball urgently and feeding it quickly to an unmarked outfielder; kicking from hand and from the spot; throwing yourself at the feet of onrushing forwards; belly-aching about how the defence has let the other side anywhere near you ...
I rather enjoyed being at 10 - until I had a growth spurt and got put into the second row. A year later everyone else caught up, but I was by then initiated into the ways of the pack, and end up a flanker. Happy days.
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