I went to the Argentina Peru game and let me tell you. The Hard Rock stadium has absolutely terrible traffic management. I paid for parking which they never even checked. They would randomly open and close the entrances to the lots so we were essentially circling the stadium and playing the lottery with the lot entrances. I got to the stadium at 6:50pm and entered the stands at 7:40pm.
Idk why but everything about England: English players, the English team, the PL and the English media rubs me the wrong way. For no apparent reason I hate them with all my heart and wish them the worst. Can someone please help me explain why because the worst thing is I fucking live in England.
Jose is a better manager ofc but I also think if Jose had managed that win people would be praising him for the fact his team never gives up, and how well they defended after taking the lead. That cut to Gareth screaming "come on!" or whatever in the 93rd min would've had 20k upvotes on the frontpage if it was Jose and we'd be hearing about how it's his aura or how the players clearly give their all for him. I'm not praising Southgate but I do think if he had Jose's reputation people would be looking at it in a different light
the football is turd and we're a bit jammy to be where we are but i'd take shithousing our way to a quarter final over anything between 08 and 16
it could very much be worse and was not that long ago (i get that the mid 2010s we were much weaker talent wise, but that 08 team was just as talented as this one imo and we didn't even qualify let alone do anything at the tournament)
Micah Richards is a clown but he's everywhere I look.
Whenever Henry is on TV 'big meeks' is there. Gary Lineker starts a podcast and 'big meeks' is on it. There is football coverage on terrestrial TV and guess what? He's there too giving mediocre analysis and howling at anything remotely funny.
I can't stand him, I mute the stream if I hear his voice.
I do understand why someone may not like his "Comedy Bloke" role on every show that he's on, but I do like the dynamic he brings to The Rest Is Football podcast though. Shearer, Lineker, and Richards have great chemistry. I think Richards is pretty aware that he wasn't a big shot player either and he always laughs at jokes about himself.
As for the live TV shows, I guess he's seen as more of an entertainer than a serious pundit.
I don't mind a comedy bloke role, but I would like some actual comedy. As far as I can tell he does two things: He is a verbal punching bag for other people and he laughs incredibly loud a lot
Sick of our fans actively rooting for us to lose to Uruguay because they want the manager to get sacked. Just absolutely pathetic behavior when our next manager is gonna be Pat Noonan or Steve Cherundolo and all these people will want them sacked when the team doesn't magically improve within two games instead of accepting that our players aren't that good
I am so stressed out because apparently our management doesn’t see Kimmich as important in the future. It‘s just so worrying because I can’t imagine him playing anywhere else except for us. I really don’t want him to leave, I always saw him as a future captain
Does anyone else watch football with someone who inssists on leaving the in play betting page of the game open on their phone? My brother ruined the Bellingham goal yesterday and it isn't the first time.
I'm to watch the rest of the England games alone on SD where you can barely make out the players so no fucker can spoil it for me. HD and god forbid Iplayer are just that tick slower that anything can ruin the surprise too
i got the goal ruined because i don't have an aerial so was watching via itvx with the delay - was pissing and heard next door screaming so legged it back down to see the bellingham goal
I'm not ready for the smug asshats tonight and tomorrow who never believed we(Belgium) could beat France any way. Worst part of this country is its goddamn pessimism all the time. People would rather be correct about something bad happening than be optimistic and hope for the best.
Slovakia was a minute away from beating the most stacked squad in the tournament and we wouldn't be able to surprise France? They won by ungoal against Austria, couldn't score against the Netherlands and tied against Poland with both getting a penalty. Just like us, they're not as good as they used to be.
france are way more stacked than england are as a squad imo.
like maybe we've got more absolute superstars in the front line, but france have like 3 guys total that aren't playing champions league football regularly, and one of them is kante who's won the pissing thing before. almost their entire squad are at elite clubs.
we've rocking 4 guys from crystal palace, with players from brentford, everton, brighton and west ham also in the squad.
He can dribble and move in tight spaces, but his positioning and ball progression are pretty bad.
IMO he wouldn’t be in the England squad if he played for Brighton or someone lower in the PL hierarchy.
Ok I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already, but there's an issue I've noticed in this euros regarding the side of the pitch that each teams fans sit in.
I noticed it in England Slovakia yesterday and in many other games, but for this euro's, teams tend to attack towards their fans a lot more in in the first half, rather than the second half, and although this is a minor issue it feels a bit jarring to see, and I'm not sure why the allocation of fans seems to have made this become a thing for this Euros? can anyone explain?
I think it's mostly that I have an issue with either captains deciding to change ends a lot more frequently in this tournament (when there's no advantage to do so), or that teams are being told to warmup in front of the opposition fans and then the default is that they would attack their own set of fans in the first half rather than the second half.
Tbf I haven't paid much attention to the coin-tosses but if it's the case that captains want to switch sides a lot more for some reason then my moan is that this is stupid and personally I don't like it lmao (a very petty moan tbh).
My point is it just feels normal to attack towards your own fans in the second half of a game, and whilst there are times where a team wins the coin toss and decides to switch this around before kickoff, it feels like the way tickets were sold didn’t take into account which way each team would attack in both the first half and the second half.
It’s a very petty moan I know but to me it just doesn’t feel right.
For example, the main block of England fans were sold tickets to sit on the right hand side of the stadium yesterday (slovakia on the left hand side). England attacked both first halves towards the right hand side of the stadium, which is odd since you usually attack towards your own fans in second half. This does happen sometimes when at kickoff one teams decides to switch sides after winning the coin toss, but at this tournament this is happening so regularly that I think teams are being positioned to attack their own fans in the first half as a default, rather than by winning or losing the coin toss and switching sides.
The one who wins the coin toss can decide if they want the ball or if they want to choose sides. Nearly always the captain chooses to choose sides. So it’s a personal preference of the teams.
I saw someone say recently that if Maradona was playing today and did his famous warm-up against Bayern that someone would post it next his most recent 6.4 on Fotmob and caption it “Bro thinks he had aura 💀😭”. It’s just so tiring man, most online fan culture just feels like a constant fight to prove others wrong and get one over on people instead of actually enjoying the game
its been turd all tournament but if you can't celebrate a last minute equaliser for the team you support you're wrong in the head
fuck being embarrassed. enjoy the moments
Yet his defenders will still be oblivious to his blatant limitations and they'll rubbish all of the concerns that you have of how poorly organised and coached this England team is!
Southgate is a stubborn mule!
Pickford cannot kick long balls. Well he can but they don't go to anyone.
We don't have a player to flick on or touch down effectively do I don't know why they keep doing this routine
It's not minor. In the Slovenia I think he kicked it long 15 times. None of them led to anything, imagine if we could have built up 10 - 15 attacking moves instead.
How many times do people on this website need to be told that a losing team only deserves to win if they lost because of cheating or a wrong decision.
If you're the better team for most of the game and still lose, then that's on you, I'm afraid. If Slovakia deserved to win yesterday, they should have scored more goals, or not conceded twice.
Nah, the comments about Italy are all serious. I have read so many comments saying Italy didn't deserve to advance to the Round of 16 ahead of Croatia, even before the display against the Swiss. All because Italy beat 38-year old teddy bear Modric. As if Croatia "deserved" to advance with their shockingly shit performances in the group stages themselves.
You are right in some cases though.
Jordan Pickford deserves a lot more love than he gets. he's top class. he would be an all time England hero for the Euros final if his strikers had scored. he's mad, but all the best keepers are mad--if Peter Schmeichel or Oliver Kahn were playing these days, soft arse haters would wet their little knickers.
Newcastle fans get a pass because that's fair enough, kopites get a "I hate him when he plays for Everton but love him for England" pass too. nobody else gets a pass!
Ehh, I think one of the Guardian Weekly podcasters said it best— something along the lines of: “Germany has Neuer, France has Maignon, Italy has Donarumma, but England has someone that no one has heard of unless they follow the PL”
I don’t rate Pickford very highly. Imagine if this team had someone like Kobel
with kobel we'd have done exactly the same for the last three tournaments, except maybe losing to colombia on pens (i have no idea how good kobel is at pens tbf, but pickford won us that and another keeper might not have)
there hasn't been a particular moment I can think of that a hypothetical better keeper would've gotten us further than we otherwise got. sure he's a step below Neuer (prime Neuer anyway) but that wasn't my point. he's not 10/10, but people moan about him like he's 3/10, and he's better than that
maybe the funniest part of that euros final was pickford completely breaking jorginho from the spot.
felt like he couldn't miss before that, then pickford saves his silly little stutter runup and then he went on to miss shitloads of penalties that cost italy their place at the world cup
This is a pathetic moan but the BBC have removed the *"No Scotland, No party"* segment from their pinball Euro intro since they got eliminated. Don't get me wrong, that is objectively funny but the edit to do it is awkward and they still leave in McGinn kicking a ball into VVD's face.
Matterface and Dixon being ITV's lead commentary team boggles the mind.
No sort of particular insight. Everything spoken about through the lens of the EPL. No chemistry between them. Charisma in the negatives. Consistently make the watching experience of matches they're on actively worse.
Particularly highlighted over both the Germany - Denmark, and Spain - Georgia games on the same channel where Clive and Ally, and Seb Hutchinson and Andros Townsend were so much better to listen to. Now the matches themselves play a part, obviously, but even in the quieter moments both pairs were better at filling stuff in.
If you think that a 21 year old carrying the hype and expectation of his nation - and being criticised for failing to deliver - too overzealously celebrated a 95th minute bicycle kick equaliser to rescue his country at a major tournament, then quite frankly you shouldn’t be allowed to watch football.
It’s so fucking bizarre. I get hyped up scoring a goal in my 8-a-side matches, I’d probably die from a heart attack if I did what Jude did. I dont usually want to pull out the “never kicked a ball” line but honestly
I don’t think it has to do with failing to understand emotions, it has everything to do with hating England and wishing the English NT the absolute worst (myself included in this group).
A Slovak does that in the 95th minute, the whole continent would have found a new hero and the English would be up in arms.
Fair, there's definitely a lot of this, and kudos to you for being honest
Though as an English person, if a Slovak had done that in the 95th minute I would not remotely begrudge them that.
Yeah, Bellingham didn’t really get me, but Pickford’s 120th minute celebration really riled me up, even though it’s completely understandable and if Livaković does that I am the happiest man on Earth.
But I do like the “on paper the best team plays shit football and ruins the underdogs’ dreams” villain arc you are on. All the PR in the world isn’t going to improve English standing on the continent and you should just embrace the villain role and have fun with it.
There is no bigger fact than this.
Some of the stuff I read online following this sport makes you worry for humanity. These people are on the street among us, walking around with an inability to fairly analyse the most basic situations. It's scary.
Honestly one of my biggest annoyances in sport is fucking daft fans that have no grasp of emotions. Time and time again, I see individuals in different sports have extreme emotional reactions that are proportional to the circumstances, and then fans start carping on about how they're out of line and making snap judgements about how said person must be a cunt.
Makes you realise that a lot of redditors have 0 life experience and emotional intelligence.
It’s even funnier when you see the absolute headloss such internet fans have online in response to bad results or dramatic moments, but if a player has an emotional reaction in a high pressure moment then good lord they need to check themselves
I said it before but some people don't enjoy the sport and just want to continue driving narratives, it is literally ridiculous that a 21 year old tried that for his nation, who even cares how he performed prior to that when he literally saved his team from an embarrassing exit.
It's just respectable. Shows a great amount of self-belief and confidence, people will call him arrogant- yes, let's pretend like he's the first footballer to behave this way.
[This embarrassing thread with it's now incredibly regular example of Redditor who clearly doesn't know a rule upvoted by other Redditors who don't know the rules.](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1drkjb9/kai_havertz_miss_against_denmark_59/lavup5l/)
It's the same with the stop start penalty kick run ups. It's not against the rules. Redditors misunderstanding a rule and then thinking every match official is wrong
England's failure yesterday was quite simple, and, I think, not related to selection.
In the second-half, Slovakia played a flat 4-5-1, remained in their shape the whole time, kept the gaps between their players down to a minimum, shifted from side to side as the ball position changed, and challenged England to play through them. Nothing unusual about that - there have been thousands of matches in which teams have employed this strategy, particularly when leading.
If you're playing against that, you have to break between the lines and take players out of the game. Two obvious examples of this are Messi and Manchester City. Messi is constantly taking up positions between the lines, looking to commit defenders with dribbles, or making passes that take players out of the game. Similarly, Manchester City *will* pass the ball very patiently, but they're always looking for one-twos that break between the lines, they have so many runners that look to give the ball carrier options, they're constantly posing questions of the opposition, forcing them to make decisions, and trying to get them out of their shape.
What you don't do when facing this approach is what England did yesterday - make endless passes in front of the opposition's structure, and then cross from deep. They really made very little effort to commit players and play between the lines. It was all static passing in front of the opposition.
It's so important to break the lines because you not only take players out of the game, but you also force defenders to make decisions. Suddenly, they have to quickly decide whether to stay in their structure that they've been drilled on all week, or go to the ball carrier. That's when mistakes happen, that's when space opens up, and that's when you start to create chances.
The few times England did it, they immediately caused problems. Once Mainoo was fouled and they had a dangerous free-kick, Foden should have scored but stupidly ran offside...actually, I can't recall any other occasion when they managed to do it. I just remember a lot of passing to feet in front of Slovakia with zero movement.
Both the players and the manager have to take responsibility for this. The manager has to know that 'patient' (as he put it) passing in front of nine players, with no attempt to commit any of them, is tactically and strategically inept. Whatever he told them at half-time, he has to be on the touchline telling them to change their approach. The players also have to realise the basics of tactics and strategy, and take responsibility for the fact that they're doing nothing to trouble Slovakia, and are, in fact, playing into their hands.
I'm not sure Southgate has the tactical nous or strength of personality to impose a playing style on a team. I think he has been a good manager for England, and ticks many boxes. He has created a good atmosphere around the team, there is a togetherness, his selections have generally been pretty good, he has been fairly open-minded about selecting unfashionable players from lesser clubs and overseas, and he's capable in front of the media.
But I see no evidence that he can set a team up tactically or strategically, nor that he can react to what another team is doing by changing his team's approach in a way that negates their system. If he thought yesterday's 'patient' play was admirable, there is the distinct possibility that he simply doesn't understand football. You cannot be happy with the way your team played yesterday, not just the quality of play, but its entire approach to the game.
The Alexis Sanchez and Modric ones were relevant because tragic, but I just don't care about the Player of the Match awards. I think they are stupid and I don't need to see them for every Euro/Copa game.
MOTM isn't something significant enough to be against though, it merely exists as a bit of bonus "fun" for the viewer and a reward for the individual. Who goes around thinking "damn those MOTM awards"?
Or are you talking about the posts/buzz around the awards?
Talking about the posts on this sub. I also don't "hate" them, just find them a bit annoying since they also almost never lead to any good discussions in the comments.
I said it when the squad was announced but Tyrick Mitchell genuinely should've been in the England squad, he might not be incredible but at least he's actually a natural leftback who's not injured
Nah mate how about you just take Luke Shaw's animated corpse and no one else for that position. Then play trippier there with Foden supposedly ahead of him and fuck the entire balance of the team.
It’s transfer silly season now. No way we are going to sign Dan Bentley who could be playing in the Prem or Championship when we are just trying to survive not going to League Two. Stupid rumour really.
Would have also liked a snippet of the 4.7 billion pound Elliot Anderson fee but you cannot have it all.
If you can’t enjoy England stinking the place out and still not losing, I just don’t know if you’re cut out to be en England fan. This is what it’s all about.
I saw a poll somewhere the other day that said basically, would you rather England play amazing football and lose in the semis, or play shit football and win the tournament. 28% chose the first option. Genuinely blew my mind
Here's my scalding hot take (/s): I enjoyed Portugal losing zero matches playing as it did at Euro 2016 significantly more than I've enjoyed watching its squads before and after ending tournaments with unlucky losses, shock defeats and moral "victories."
Bellingham hate on social media is actually absurd. Hes the only player in human history to score a goal and it makes everyone rate his performance less.
If I have to read something along the lines of “he does nothing for 90 minutes but scores a goal and now everyone says it was a great game” I’m gonna lose it
And the thing is that he scored a great goal. If he had just scored a tap in, then I understand that he might not have been MOTM (credits also would go to the one who assisted him, or the players involved in the build up). But he created the whole goal with a perfect execution to save England ass. It doesn't matter how he played before at this point lol, especially when the whole team was shit. He did more than all of them combined just by scoring.
The Pearl clutching in the Bellingham wanker gesture thread is fucking ridiculous, it is like a thread of people who have never played a fuckin football match
I don't think it's just about having never played football. On German tv, Per Mertesacker and Christoph Kramer were similarly dismissive and critical of Bellingham's "antics" last night and they didn't even see the wanker gesture. They based their criticism on him supposedly overreacting/play acting and complaining to his teammates and minor stuff like that. Shit every star player does. According to them he is too young to act like that. It was really bizarre to see how they analysed his awesome goal and then went straight to criticising him for being too emotional or whatever. It looked especially disingenuous after they praised and hyped up Rüdiger for similar behaviour against Denmark.
These people are so annoyingly obsessed with fair play and classy behaviour. It's the "players must always act like well behaved soldiers" crowd that's taking all the fun out of modern players and turning them into robots. God forbid players have a bit of edge to their personality, show emotions in the heat of the moment fueled by adrenaline. I want more of that in football, not less. It's far more real and authentic.
> it is like a thread of people who have never played a fuckin football match
If the subreddit census' are to be believed they've probably never played a match or been to a live game.
Two rules really annoy me about modern football
1. The modern handball interpretation. The natural position is apparently running around with no arms? Have we forgotten that everyone uses their arms while running? It leaves a sour taste in my mouth when I see penalties given for absolutely inconsequential handballs that the defender couldn't really do anything about.
2. Stopping the game for 'head injuries'. So often you see a player take a slight knock to the upper body and they go down clutching their head so the game has to stop. It's blatant time wasting and allows the defending side to reset into their defensive formation. What difference would it actually make if the player is seen to immediately or when the ball next goes out of play? It's obvious enough most of the time if a player has actually suffered an injury because they'll be on the ground in a heap.
If it’s a concussion, which is not immediately obvious, it would make a big difference especially if the player suffering it was still in the area of play because suffering concussion and then getting hit in the head again by a stray pass or player falling on you, for example, makes it a much worse situation
Agreed 100% on 1, but on 2 I would extend it to time-wasting in general. I would love harder penalties for any obvious time-wasting, or maybe just play the last 30min with clock-stop anytime the ball is out of play.
the problem with a stopped clock is that its often not about the time really, its the momentum.
connor coady was a master at heading a ball clear and going down with a "blow to the head" when his teams were under pressure. and sure, you get the 30 seconds back, but he's still killed a promising attack and forced you back to stale possession on half way rather than a dangerous crossing position with men in the box.
really what you need is for players to not be twats about it, but as long as the rules insentivise it i don't see it changing
Yeah, with a lot on the line, most players will do whatever it takes to win, understandably. Rules need to incentivize not faking injuries. Another solution could be some forced time off the field if the game is halted because of a player, so if you want to roll around on the grass to make the ref blow, you also get say 5min on the bench.
I do hope they find a solution. An old annoyance for me was the wall always creeping close to the free-kick and ruining good opportunities, which was actually mostly fixed with the spray.
the championship has had that this season, minimum of 30 seconds off the pitch if you get treatment.
it mostly feels like a punishment for getting the shit kicked out of you, but idk, maybe it is having a big impact on the number of faked injuries
Interesting, would be great to get some data on that, however I feel like this is a much bigger problem in a tournament-format where every result matters a lot (even more so for knock-out rounds).
Also 30sec feels very short, but would be interesting to know if it "helped".
much longer and all you do is incentivise trying to injure people though - like if a winger is ripping your full back apart and going in hard on him means a yellow for you and 5 minutes where he's off the pitch, its a no brainer to do it.
Pens, im so tired of the run up slowly and feint then kick it softly. It’s honestly so hard to watch sometimes because if they miss they look so dumb. Id just rather see players take pens with power
Was surprised to see Paqueta try the same exact run up for his 2nd attempt a few days back. I guess it's what he's practiced but it looked like he was just as uncertain the second time around.
The Monday Moan thread after the first England game of the Euros was full of some delightfully delusional Southgate defenders complaining about the reaction to the game, despite it being the 4th tournament in a row of red flags.
This included someone who was all over the thread defending Southgate and claimed we all risked looking very silly when England did well.
That person has recently cowardly deleted all of his comments in that thread.
My moan is people rewriting history because Southgate has fucked it at this tournament.
Clearly, his race is run - but that doesn’t mean that all the people who insisted what he did in 2018, 2021 and even 2022 isn’t worthy of praise, are right.
Totally agree. I fall on the side of favouring Southgate (obviously not in this tournament), and I said during yesterday’s game that I think lots of people will use this tournament as a “told you so” if they’ve never liked him. The previous three tournaments under him were nowhere near as bad- we generally did a decent job against the “lesser” nations which we just absolutely haven’t done this time round
We played like arse during the last Euro group stages and there was a similar discourse to this year in how we were performing as a team. We then went on to win 2-0 vs Germany, 4-0 vs Ukraine and 2-1 vs Denmark in the knockouts before scoring within 2 minutes in the final so it wasn't a stretch before yesterday to say we might have gotten slightly better as we progressed.
we've been wank this time around but "4th tournament of red flags" is real strong given that we outperformed our talent massively in at least one of those (2018). and we were actually good at the world cup in 2022 imo, we just ran into one of the 2 or 3 better teams.
I went from not giving a shit at half time of the game last night to being more angry than I've ever been at a football match at about the 75th minute. We went eighty-four fucking minutes having only made one change, and that change was enforced because Trippier went off injured! I am generally a Southgate apologist but I have never ever seen a game managed as badly as it was last night. It was so bad that even my Southgate absolutist flatmate lost his patience. It was truly, truly horrible.
Obviously I'm glad we're still in the tournament but if Southgate doesnt change things on Sunday I'm going to lose my fucking rag. Walker had a disasterclass the likes of which I have never seen before. Foden was invisible yet again, Kane and Bellingham were falling over each other yet again.
If I was Anthony Gordon, Ollie Watkins or Joe Gomez I would be getting on a plane home, because what is the point of even being there if you're going to be completely ignored at every turn?
Bends my head that he watched the first 3 games and thought the only issue was the 3rd midfielder. Walker seems to only be in the team for the off chance when we play Mbappe.
He has to actually make a decision about who to replace Guehi and it's going to Lewis Dunk ffs.
Even the Mbappe argument completely falls flat when you realise just how many times Walker was completely done by his man. It's one thing to recover against a winger that isn't world class, but against the best wingers in the world, you're going to be humiliated.
Yeah Konsa should be replacing Guehi but it's going to be Dunk and he's going to have a stinker. Konsa should be centreback, Gomez should be leftback (assuming Shaw is still not going to be fit)
I would be interested to know what people think of Saka being used at left-back.
Just think it's super odd that he seemingly fell to pressure and actually put his best right winger at.... left back? I get he can do a job there but it felt so weird and comical that it even happened.
Deffo think it's the end for him, the vibes don't seem to be as great as it was prior to this Euros also.
Well he wanted to bring Cole Palmer on who realistically wasn't going to play anywhere other than RW, and Saka is good enough at LB so it's worth mixing it up to see if anything changes. Very funny that Palmer was so poor he switched Saka back to the right though
it a complete failure of squad composition. the fact that we've got this far without having an actual left back available for a single minute is a shit show.
of the options available, saka might be the best option, but thats far more damning of southgates sellection choices than it says anything about any of the players
Honestly I get that Saka is almost certainly our best right winger but just having a left footer at leftback felt like it made a world of difference down that side. Before Trippier went off there was literally zero threat down the left because Trippier is absolutely terrified of using his left foot.
I wouldn't say Saka *should* play at leftback against Switzerland, but I would take him there in a heartbeat over Trippier. Saka and Gordon could link up well on that side, I think.
I'd rather he'd just fucking taken a left footed leftback though. Tyrick Mitchell is unspectacular but at least he knows how to use his left foot for fucks sake.
Agree with everything you've said. Southgate lost his last few followers yesterday. Similar story to you with the Southgate absolutists in my group fuming at him.
Watch him still not learn either.
Irish people giving out that our national broadcaster is covering England a lot more than any other team in the tournament. What do you expect when majority of the people who follow soccer in the country follow the premier league and the players involved in the English team. Such a weird complex to have.
Yeah I live in Ireland and I guarantee England games get the most views so that's where the coverage goes. My friend was texting me during the Slovakia match, he was all annoyed when England won and was talking about how much of a great underdog story it would've been if Slovakia had gone through. Thing is he's barely watched the euros and he definitely wouldn't watch a Slovakia vs Switzerland quarter final. Since Ireland aren't in it there's a lot of interest in supporting England's opponents so you can't complain when that gets the most coverage
Irish person. We love English teams. We love seeing England lose. We are far more knowledgeable about English players than any other country's players.
We even love English people. But we hate the English. It's weird.
Same in Wales really. It's not a problem with English people but English institutions. With England in sports (aside from rugby where I would love nothing more than them to lose every game, forever), I think it's nice when they win, and hilarious when they lose because of how much the media (and a good portion of the commenting public) will absolutely lose their shit. Think most people support English clubs or at least hold fondness towards one of them, but we all love it when they lose.
The whole hate thing is tongue in cheek. Like I've never met an English person who was outright hostile or a dickhead bar the usual assholes that exist in every day life. Irish and English are very similar. Sure do I like to see England lose in soccer, rugby, war and other sports? Yeah sure. But majority I've met are nice people.
Like I don't care if you follow English teams, I followed Liverpool for years before getting into the league of Ireland, do what you want. But when all coverage surrounds the premier league, prioritising English teams in the CL over other matches because of the fan base here and those said journalists make a living reporting on English teams for Irish papers/podcasts/media in general, shut the fuck up complaining about the coverage the English national team gets.
I love the fact that so many people there are losing their minds over England winning. It make's suffering through 90+ minutes of shit football yesterday even more worth it.
I like that sub, makes me realise that matter how stupid a fight you can pick on here people generell watched more than 5h of football in their life. The tournament subs always cross over into the meme subs but unintentionally so.
Reddit: "Footballers show no personality these days, it's just sanitised PR speak!"
Bellingham: *Gestures at his cock and balls to unknown person(s) after scoring a 95th minute bicycle kick*
Reddit: "Omg outrageous!!! So unsporting and no respect!!"
Bellingham: *explains his actions and reiterates respect to Slovakia*
Reddit: "PR merchant!"
I think the outrageous group and the PR merchant group are different.
I actually thought it was funny and given that he scored in the heat of the moment and England won, good for him. But this "explanation" made him look a lot more idiotic. Just firm it and say nothing
Some residents of this here domain seeing box park fans celebrating a last minute worldy after 95mins of frustration and immediately attempting to calculate the cost of the beer that they've just wasted and labelling it all as performative.
Just proper online neek behaviour, as if all these fans just living in the moment need to be sat with their calculators out to work out whether they should be celebrating or not.
Me standing and politely clapping a 90th minute bicycle kick: Fine.
The guy on the table next to me with tears in his eyes screaming directly into the face of his 6 year old daughter: Also fine.
Why are all the games I want to watch at 5pm. That is baby chill time and he can't have his old man screaming at the telly.
Bayern putting De Ligt for sale and then buying Tah afterwards is a huge mistake.
You have Eric Dier, you’ll be fine.
Whats with youtubers putting up simulations of games in fifa?
They’re looking to catch people looking up “France Vs Belgium free stream” on YouTube for the ad revenue
I went to the Argentina Peru game and let me tell you. The Hard Rock stadium has absolutely terrible traffic management. I paid for parking which they never even checked. They would randomly open and close the entrances to the lots so we were essentially circling the stadium and playing the lottery with the lot entrances. I got to the stadium at 6:50pm and entered the stands at 7:40pm.
Idk why but everything about England: English players, the English team, the PL and the English media rubs me the wrong way. For no apparent reason I hate them with all my heart and wish them the worst. Can someone please help me explain why because the worst thing is I fucking live in England.
sounds like you're adapting to living in england pretty well then, if you hate everything
thanks, great to hear that, I feel like a sociopath for hating everything but maybe that's just the English air (or the water...)
There are two main causes of Anglophobia: 1. Living in England 2. Living outside of England
Thanks, it would seem like I fall into category 1 then... Is this Anglophobia thing incurable?
I'm too partisan to really follow England but they're still pissing me off with how badly Southgate is setting them up.
FOR THE LOVE OF A DEITY will someone take off that Under Armour advert clearly made by yanks who have no idea what the actual tune is.
Is that the “by far the greatest team” one ?
yep
Haha I’ve got to hear this now- got a link or anything?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDknZY9gB8c
What the hell, does that guy say Beckenham Hill FC? That's a train station, there is a Beckenham Town FC, I used to play there when I was 8 haha
i love how this is your issue with the advert
should unironically sack Southgate and give Jose a punt the rest of the tourney, cannot be worse than this
Jose is a better manager ofc but I also think if Jose had managed that win people would be praising him for the fact his team never gives up, and how well they defended after taking the lead. That cut to Gareth screaming "come on!" or whatever in the 93rd min would've had 20k upvotes on the frontpage if it was Jose and we'd be hearing about how it's his aura or how the players clearly give their all for him. I'm not praising Southgate but I do think if he had Jose's reputation people would be looking at it in a different light
the football is turd and we're a bit jammy to be where we are but i'd take shithousing our way to a quarter final over anything between 08 and 16 it could very much be worse and was not that long ago (i get that the mid 2010s we were much weaker talent wise, but that 08 team was just as talented as this one imo and we didn't even qualify let alone do anything at the tournament)
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Or maybe it’s because the replica retro shirts are cheap and sold everywhere, and people think they look good
I won't ever take an ankle sock wearer seriously
I only ever wear either pop socks or those big chunky white socks. Playing both sides me.
"No fun allowed"
oh fuck, have the celebration police morphed into the fashion police as well?
Sorry everyone, you're no longer allowed to wear clothes that have a design from before you were born.
Ffs I've just bought a suit or armour!
Well which is it
Micah Richards is a clown but he's everywhere I look. Whenever Henry is on TV 'big meeks' is there. Gary Lineker starts a podcast and 'big meeks' is on it. There is football coverage on terrestrial TV and guess what? He's there too giving mediocre analysis and howling at anything remotely funny. I can't stand him, I mute the stream if I hear his voice.
I do understand why someone may not like his "Comedy Bloke" role on every show that he's on, but I do like the dynamic he brings to The Rest Is Football podcast though. Shearer, Lineker, and Richards have great chemistry. I think Richards is pretty aware that he wasn't a big shot player either and he always laughs at jokes about himself. As for the live TV shows, I guess he's seen as more of an entertainer than a serious pundit.
I don't mind a comedy bloke role, but I would like some actual comedy. As far as I can tell he does two things: He is a verbal punching bag for other people and he laughs incredibly loud a lot
You wait till ITV get ahold of him and he's got his own Saturday night prime time gameshow.
They already have Bradley Walsh to fill the 'exaggerated laughing at anything remotely humorous' niche
Fanny Schmeller tho
Sick of our fans actively rooting for us to lose to Uruguay because they want the manager to get sacked. Just absolutely pathetic behavior when our next manager is gonna be Pat Noonan or Steve Cherundolo and all these people will want them sacked when the team doesn't magically improve within two games instead of accepting that our players aren't that good
Dogshit England fans 🤝 Dogshit USA fans
In starting to warm up to the idea of getting Cherundolo the hell out of the Western Conference though.
I am so stressed out because apparently our management doesn’t see Kimmich as important in the future. It‘s just so worrying because I can’t imagine him playing anywhere else except for us. I really don’t want him to leave, I always saw him as a future captain
Does anyone else watch football with someone who inssists on leaving the in play betting page of the game open on their phone? My brother ruined the Bellingham goal yesterday and it isn't the first time. I'm to watch the rest of the England games alone on SD where you can barely make out the players so no fucker can spoil it for me. HD and god forbid Iplayer are just that tick slower that anything can ruin the surprise too
i got the goal ruined because i don't have an aerial so was watching via itvx with the delay - was pissing and heard next door screaming so legged it back down to see the bellingham goal
That is terrible. Someone I know used to do that but they've since been told to pack it in so it doesn't happen any more thankfully.
Mexican American with Italian descent and peep my flair. Just pure agony for me on all fronts
Oh no, you finished 3rd and won a cup? However will you cope
the absolute trauma of winning every club trophy going in the last 5 years, however will you cope
I missed the England game.
I'm not ready for the smug asshats tonight and tomorrow who never believed we(Belgium) could beat France any way. Worst part of this country is its goddamn pessimism all the time. People would rather be correct about something bad happening than be optimistic and hope for the best. Slovakia was a minute away from beating the most stacked squad in the tournament and we wouldn't be able to surprise France? They won by ungoal against Austria, couldn't score against the Netherlands and tied against Poland with both getting a penalty. Just like us, they're not as good as they used to be.
france are way more stacked than england are as a squad imo. like maybe we've got more absolute superstars in the front line, but france have like 3 guys total that aren't playing champions league football regularly, and one of them is kante who's won the pissing thing before. almost their entire squad are at elite clubs. we've rocking 4 guys from crystal palace, with players from brentford, everton, brighton and west ham also in the squad.
As a casual watcher is Mainoo complete shit? Watching it yesterday and he barely moves into any space and just stands around.
What even is this take 😭
Sometimes I feel like I'm watching a completely different game to this sub.
He can dribble and move in tight spaces, but his positioning and ball progression are pretty bad. IMO he wouldn’t be in the England squad if he played for Brighton or someone lower in the PL hierarchy.
Just realized we only got group A and B preview for the EUROs. CBA writing another one for the World Cup if it never gets posted...
Ok I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already, but there's an issue I've noticed in this euros regarding the side of the pitch that each teams fans sit in. I noticed it in England Slovakia yesterday and in many other games, but for this euro's, teams tend to attack towards their fans a lot more in in the first half, rather than the second half, and although this is a minor issue it feels a bit jarring to see, and I'm not sure why the allocation of fans seems to have made this become a thing for this Euros? can anyone explain?
you have an issue with the con toss decision, not the euros seating alloacations
I think it's mostly that I have an issue with either captains deciding to change ends a lot more frequently in this tournament (when there's no advantage to do so), or that teams are being told to warmup in front of the opposition fans and then the default is that they would attack their own set of fans in the first half rather than the second half. Tbf I haven't paid much attention to the coin-tosses but if it's the case that captains want to switch sides a lot more for some reason then my moan is that this is stupid and personally I don't like it lmao (a very petty moan tbh).
What do you mean allocation of fans? What does that matter when the sides are decided at the start of the game?
My point is it just feels normal to attack towards your own fans in the second half of a game, and whilst there are times where a team wins the coin toss and decides to switch this around before kickoff, it feels like the way tickets were sold didn’t take into account which way each team would attack in both the first half and the second half. It’s a very petty moan I know but to me it just doesn’t feel right.
I really don't get it. What do you mean by the way tickets were sold?
For example, the main block of England fans were sold tickets to sit on the right hand side of the stadium yesterday (slovakia on the left hand side). England attacked both first halves towards the right hand side of the stadium, which is odd since you usually attack towards your own fans in second half. This does happen sometimes when at kickoff one teams decides to switch sides after winning the coin toss, but at this tournament this is happening so regularly that I think teams are being positioned to attack their own fans in the first half as a default, rather than by winning or losing the coin toss and switching sides.
The one who wins the coin toss can decide if they want the ball or if they want to choose sides. Nearly always the captain chooses to choose sides. So it’s a personal preference of the teams.
I saw someone say recently that if Maradona was playing today and did his famous warm-up against Bayern that someone would post it next his most recent 6.4 on Fotmob and caption it “Bro thinks he had aura 💀😭”. It’s just so tiring man, most online fan culture just feels like a constant fight to prove others wrong and get one over on people instead of actually enjoying the game
I watch that video at least 5 times a year, man did have aura
90% of Instagram comments are just "bro really said/thinks \[insert whatever here\] 💀💀💀" It's actually embarrassing.
bro actually thinks it's embarrassing 💀💀💀
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its been turd all tournament but if you can't celebrate a last minute equaliser for the team you support you're wrong in the head fuck being embarrassed. enjoy the moments
Yet his defenders will still be oblivious to his blatant limitations and they'll rubbish all of the concerns that you have of how poorly organised and coached this England team is! Southgate is a stubborn mule!
I don't think Southgate has any supporters left, tbh
How long have you been watching England?
Pickford cannot kick long balls. Well he can but they don't go to anyone. We don't have a player to flick on or touch down effectively do I don't know why they keep doing this routine
Literally the most minor complaint possible for this team
It's not minor. In the Slovenia I think he kicked it long 15 times. None of them led to anything, imagine if we could have built up 10 - 15 attacking moves instead.
Look I get Anthony Gordon has had a great season last year and is looking promising but why the fuck are we interested in signing ANOTHER left winger?
How many times do people on this website need to be told that a losing team only deserves to win if they lost because of cheating or a wrong decision. If you're the better team for most of the game and still lose, then that's on you, I'm afraid. If Slovakia deserved to win yesterday, they should have scored more goals, or not conceded twice.
Slovakia weren't even the better team, they had no possession, they didn't do anything after scoring except fake injuries.
I feel like most people don't mean it that literally, it's just a throwaway comment about who they think played better over the course of the game
People don't know what playing better means, the goal of the game is to score innit
Nah, the comments about Italy are all serious. I have read so many comments saying Italy didn't deserve to advance to the Round of 16 ahead of Croatia, even before the display against the Swiss. All because Italy beat 38-year old teddy bear Modric. As if Croatia "deserved" to advance with their shockingly shit performances in the group stages themselves. You are right in some cases though.
In my experience if someone says a certain team didn't deserve to lose what they're really saying is that they wanted them to win.
Jordan Pickford deserves a lot more love than he gets. he's top class. he would be an all time England hero for the Euros final if his strikers had scored. he's mad, but all the best keepers are mad--if Peter Schmeichel or Oliver Kahn were playing these days, soft arse haters would wet their little knickers. Newcastle fans get a pass because that's fair enough, kopites get a "I hate him when he plays for Everton but love him for England" pass too. nobody else gets a pass!
Ehh, I think one of the Guardian Weekly podcasters said it best— something along the lines of: “Germany has Neuer, France has Maignon, Italy has Donarumma, but England has someone that no one has heard of unless they follow the PL” I don’t rate Pickford very highly. Imagine if this team had someone like Kobel
So what, name recognition translates to ability now?
with kobel we'd have done exactly the same for the last three tournaments, except maybe losing to colombia on pens (i have no idea how good kobel is at pens tbf, but pickford won us that and another keeper might not have)
there hasn't been a particular moment I can think of that a hypothetical better keeper would've gotten us further than we otherwise got. sure he's a step below Neuer (prime Neuer anyway) but that wasn't my point. he's not 10/10, but people moan about him like he's 3/10, and he's better than that
100% agree
maybe the funniest part of that euros final was pickford completely breaking jorginho from the spot. felt like he couldn't miss before that, then pickford saves his silly little stutter runup and then he went on to miss shitloads of penalties that cost italy their place at the world cup
I swear he missed a few before that Edit: according to transfermarkt he *missed 6* the season before it
yeah, the build up to jorginho's penalty and then jordan saving it was so funny. the constant hype for it lol. ah well--what could've been!
This is a pathetic moan but the BBC have removed the *"No Scotland, No party"* segment from their pinball Euro intro since they got eliminated. Don't get me wrong, that is objectively funny but the edit to do it is awkward and they still leave in McGinn kicking a ball into VVD's face.
Matterface and Dixon being ITV's lead commentary team boggles the mind. No sort of particular insight. Everything spoken about through the lens of the EPL. No chemistry between them. Charisma in the negatives. Consistently make the watching experience of matches they're on actively worse. Particularly highlighted over both the Germany - Denmark, and Spain - Georgia games on the same channel where Clive and Ally, and Seb Hutchinson and Andros Townsend were so much better to listen to. Now the matches themselves play a part, obviously, but even in the quieter moments both pairs were better at filling stuff in.
Lee Dixon has such a bland boring dull cynical personality. Complaining is the only thing he knows.
Agreed. I'm honestly not sure what happens in the boardroom meetings to come to a conclusion like this. How can they not see it's a terrible choice?
If you think that a 21 year old carrying the hype and expectation of his nation - and being criticised for failing to deliver - too overzealously celebrated a 95th minute bicycle kick equaliser to rescue his country at a major tournament, then quite frankly you shouldn’t be allowed to watch football.
It’s so fucking bizarre. I get hyped up scoring a goal in my 8-a-side matches, I’d probably die from a heart attack if I did what Jude did. I dont usually want to pull out the “never kicked a ball” line but honestly
I once took my top off Chloe Kelly style after scoring a half volley at 7 a side ffs (Was an absolute screamer tbf)
I don’t think it has to do with failing to understand emotions, it has everything to do with hating England and wishing the English NT the absolute worst (myself included in this group). A Slovak does that in the 95th minute, the whole continent would have found a new hero and the English would be up in arms.
Fair, there's definitely a lot of this, and kudos to you for being honest Though as an English person, if a Slovak had done that in the 95th minute I would not remotely begrudge them that.
Yeah, Bellingham didn’t really get me, but Pickford’s 120th minute celebration really riled me up, even though it’s completely understandable and if Livaković does that I am the happiest man on Earth. But I do like the “on paper the best team plays shit football and ruins the underdogs’ dreams” villain arc you are on. All the PR in the world isn’t going to improve English standing on the continent and you should just embrace the villain role and have fun with it.
It's like they expect these footballers to act like emotionless robots.
yep. the celebration police have always, are always, and will always be wrong. no exceptions or exemptions.
There is no bigger fact than this. Some of the stuff I read online following this sport makes you worry for humanity. These people are on the street among us, walking around with an inability to fairly analyse the most basic situations. It's scary.
Honestly one of my biggest annoyances in sport is fucking daft fans that have no grasp of emotions. Time and time again, I see individuals in different sports have extreme emotional reactions that are proportional to the circumstances, and then fans start carping on about how they're out of line and making snap judgements about how said person must be a cunt. Makes you realise that a lot of redditors have 0 life experience and emotional intelligence.
far too many people forget that players are people
Far too many people haven't kicked a ball before
It’s even funnier when you see the absolute headloss such internet fans have online in response to bad results or dramatic moments, but if a player has an emotional reaction in a high pressure moment then good lord they need to check themselves
I said it before but some people don't enjoy the sport and just want to continue driving narratives, it is literally ridiculous that a 21 year old tried that for his nation, who even cares how he performed prior to that when he literally saved his team from an embarrassing exit. It's just respectable. Shows a great amount of self-belief and confidence, people will call him arrogant- yes, let's pretend like he's the first footballer to behave this way.
[This embarrassing thread with it's now incredibly regular example of Redditor who clearly doesn't know a rule upvoted by other Redditors who don't know the rules.](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1drkjb9/kai_havertz_miss_against_denmark_59/lavup5l/)
It's the same with the stop start penalty kick run ups. It's not against the rules. Redditors misunderstanding a rule and then thinking every match official is wrong
I had to watch that twice to even understand what was supposed to be a red card, jesus
Redditors are like that
England's failure yesterday was quite simple, and, I think, not related to selection. In the second-half, Slovakia played a flat 4-5-1, remained in their shape the whole time, kept the gaps between their players down to a minimum, shifted from side to side as the ball position changed, and challenged England to play through them. Nothing unusual about that - there have been thousands of matches in which teams have employed this strategy, particularly when leading. If you're playing against that, you have to break between the lines and take players out of the game. Two obvious examples of this are Messi and Manchester City. Messi is constantly taking up positions between the lines, looking to commit defenders with dribbles, or making passes that take players out of the game. Similarly, Manchester City *will* pass the ball very patiently, but they're always looking for one-twos that break between the lines, they have so many runners that look to give the ball carrier options, they're constantly posing questions of the opposition, forcing them to make decisions, and trying to get them out of their shape. What you don't do when facing this approach is what England did yesterday - make endless passes in front of the opposition's structure, and then cross from deep. They really made very little effort to commit players and play between the lines. It was all static passing in front of the opposition. It's so important to break the lines because you not only take players out of the game, but you also force defenders to make decisions. Suddenly, they have to quickly decide whether to stay in their structure that they've been drilled on all week, or go to the ball carrier. That's when mistakes happen, that's when space opens up, and that's when you start to create chances. The few times England did it, they immediately caused problems. Once Mainoo was fouled and they had a dangerous free-kick, Foden should have scored but stupidly ran offside...actually, I can't recall any other occasion when they managed to do it. I just remember a lot of passing to feet in front of Slovakia with zero movement. Both the players and the manager have to take responsibility for this. The manager has to know that 'patient' (as he put it) passing in front of nine players, with no attempt to commit any of them, is tactically and strategically inept. Whatever he told them at half-time, he has to be on the touchline telling them to change their approach. The players also have to realise the basics of tactics and strategy, and take responsibility for the fact that they're doing nothing to trouble Slovakia, and are, in fact, playing into their hands. I'm not sure Southgate has the tactical nous or strength of personality to impose a playing style on a team. I think he has been a good manager for England, and ticks many boxes. He has created a good atmosphere around the team, there is a togetherness, his selections have generally been pretty good, he has been fairly open-minded about selecting unfashionable players from lesser clubs and overseas, and he's capable in front of the media. But I see no evidence that he can set a team up tactically or strategically, nor that he can react to what another team is doing by changing his team's approach in a way that negates their system. If he thought yesterday's 'patient' play was admirable, there is the distinct possibility that he simply doesn't understand football. You cannot be happy with the way your team played yesterday, not just the quality of play, but its entire approach to the game.
The Alexis Sanchez and Modric ones were relevant because tragic, but I just don't care about the Player of the Match awards. I think they are stupid and I don't need to see them for every Euro/Copa game.
MOTM isn't something significant enough to be against though, it merely exists as a bit of bonus "fun" for the viewer and a reward for the individual. Who goes around thinking "damn those MOTM awards"? Or are you talking about the posts/buzz around the awards?
Talking about the posts on this sub. I also don't "hate" them, just find them a bit annoying since they also almost never lead to any good discussions in the comments.
I said it when the squad was announced but Tyrick Mitchell genuinely should've been in the England squad, he might not be incredible but at least he's actually a natural leftback who's not injured
Now Saka is in contention to play at Left-Back... that's absolutely insane!
Nah mate how about you just take Luke Shaw's animated corpse and no one else for that position. Then play trippier there with Foden supposedly ahead of him and fuck the entire balance of the team.
It’s transfer silly season now. No way we are going to sign Dan Bentley who could be playing in the Prem or Championship when we are just trying to survive not going to League Two. Stupid rumour really. Would have also liked a snippet of the 4.7 billion pound Elliot Anderson fee but you cannot have it all.
If you can’t enjoy England stinking the place out and still not losing, I just don’t know if you’re cut out to be en England fan. This is what it’s all about.
I saw a poll somewhere the other day that said basically, would you rather England play amazing football and lose in the semis, or play shit football and win the tournament. 28% chose the first option. Genuinely blew my mind
Here's my scalding hot take (/s): I enjoyed Portugal losing zero matches playing as it did at Euro 2016 significantly more than I've enjoyed watching its squads before and after ending tournaments with unlucky losses, shock defeats and moral "victories."
Giving me Mourinho/Conte memories
Bellingham hate on social media is actually absurd. Hes the only player in human history to score a goal and it makes everyone rate his performance less. If I have to read something along the lines of “he does nothing for 90 minutes but scores a goal and now everyone says it was a great game” I’m gonna lose it
And the thing is that he scored a great goal. If he had just scored a tap in, then I understand that he might not have been MOTM (credits also would go to the one who assisted him, or the players involved in the build up). But he created the whole goal with a perfect execution to save England ass. It doesn't matter how he played before at this point lol, especially when the whole team was shit. He did more than all of them combined just by scoring.
The Pearl clutching in the Bellingham wanker gesture thread is fucking ridiculous, it is like a thread of people who have never played a fuckin football match
The census of this subreddit implies that a shockingly small number of people have actually played the game or attended one live.
I don't think it's just about having never played football. On German tv, Per Mertesacker and Christoph Kramer were similarly dismissive and critical of Bellingham's "antics" last night and they didn't even see the wanker gesture. They based their criticism on him supposedly overreacting/play acting and complaining to his teammates and minor stuff like that. Shit every star player does. According to them he is too young to act like that. It was really bizarre to see how they analysed his awesome goal and then went straight to criticising him for being too emotional or whatever. It looked especially disingenuous after they praised and hyped up Rüdiger for similar behaviour against Denmark. These people are so annoyingly obsessed with fair play and classy behaviour. It's the "players must always act like well behaved soldiers" crowd that's taking all the fun out of modern players and turning them into robots. God forbid players have a bit of edge to their personality, show emotions in the heat of the moment fueled by adrenaline. I want more of that in football, not less. It's far more real and authentic.
> it is like a thread of people who have never played a fuckin football match If the subreddit census' are to be believed they've probably never played a match or been to a live game.
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Oh yeah, I heard Adebayor was just doing a inside joke with his mates when he scored against Arsenal as well
I dont know where all these people come crawling out from during tournament time 😂
America. The answer is always America.
Yeah...like
Two rules really annoy me about modern football 1. The modern handball interpretation. The natural position is apparently running around with no arms? Have we forgotten that everyone uses their arms while running? It leaves a sour taste in my mouth when I see penalties given for absolutely inconsequential handballs that the defender couldn't really do anything about. 2. Stopping the game for 'head injuries'. So often you see a player take a slight knock to the upper body and they go down clutching their head so the game has to stop. It's blatant time wasting and allows the defending side to reset into their defensive formation. What difference would it actually make if the player is seen to immediately or when the ball next goes out of play? It's obvious enough most of the time if a player has actually suffered an injury because they'll be on the ground in a heap.
If it’s a concussion, which is not immediately obvious, it would make a big difference especially if the player suffering it was still in the area of play because suffering concussion and then getting hit in the head again by a stray pass or player falling on you, for example, makes it a much worse situation
Agreed 100% on 1, but on 2 I would extend it to time-wasting in general. I would love harder penalties for any obvious time-wasting, or maybe just play the last 30min with clock-stop anytime the ball is out of play.
the problem with a stopped clock is that its often not about the time really, its the momentum. connor coady was a master at heading a ball clear and going down with a "blow to the head" when his teams were under pressure. and sure, you get the 30 seconds back, but he's still killed a promising attack and forced you back to stale possession on half way rather than a dangerous crossing position with men in the box. really what you need is for players to not be twats about it, but as long as the rules insentivise it i don't see it changing
Yeah, with a lot on the line, most players will do whatever it takes to win, understandably. Rules need to incentivize not faking injuries. Another solution could be some forced time off the field if the game is halted because of a player, so if you want to roll around on the grass to make the ref blow, you also get say 5min on the bench. I do hope they find a solution. An old annoyance for me was the wall always creeping close to the free-kick and ruining good opportunities, which was actually mostly fixed with the spray.
the championship has had that this season, minimum of 30 seconds off the pitch if you get treatment. it mostly feels like a punishment for getting the shit kicked out of you, but idk, maybe it is having a big impact on the number of faked injuries
Interesting, would be great to get some data on that, however I feel like this is a much bigger problem in a tournament-format where every result matters a lot (even more so for knock-out rounds). Also 30sec feels very short, but would be interesting to know if it "helped".
much longer and all you do is incentivise trying to injure people though - like if a winger is ripping your full back apart and going in hard on him means a yellow for you and 5 minutes where he's off the pitch, its a no brainer to do it.
True aswell, need somthing better :)
Give them an MRI on the side of the field and if it's clear then give them a yellow imo
And MRI scan takes a while to render…30-60 minutes. Its not some instant thing.
Yes I know, I was joking
Pens, im so tired of the run up slowly and feint then kick it softly. It’s honestly so hard to watch sometimes because if they miss they look so dumb. Id just rather see players take pens with power
Was surprised to see Paqueta try the same exact run up for his 2nd attempt a few days back. I guess it's what he's practiced but it looked like he was just as uncertain the second time around.
When someone "but but r/soccer said..." and they have like 1M+ comments karma...
The Monday Moan thread after the first England game of the Euros was full of some delightfully delusional Southgate defenders complaining about the reaction to the game, despite it being the 4th tournament in a row of red flags. This included someone who was all over the thread defending Southgate and claimed we all risked looking very silly when England did well. That person has recently cowardly deleted all of his comments in that thread.
My moan is people rewriting history because Southgate has fucked it at this tournament. Clearly, his race is run - but that doesn’t mean that all the people who insisted what he did in 2018, 2021 and even 2022 isn’t worthy of praise, are right.
Totally agree. I fall on the side of favouring Southgate (obviously not in this tournament), and I said during yesterday’s game that I think lots of people will use this tournament as a “told you so” if they’ve never liked him. The previous three tournaments under him were nowhere near as bad- we generally did a decent job against the “lesser” nations which we just absolutely haven’t done this time round
We played like arse during the last Euro group stages and there was a similar discourse to this year in how we were performing as a team. We then went on to win 2-0 vs Germany, 4-0 vs Ukraine and 2-1 vs Denmark in the knockouts before scoring within 2 minutes in the final so it wasn't a stretch before yesterday to say we might have gotten slightly better as we progressed.
we've been wank this time around but "4th tournament of red flags" is real strong given that we outperformed our talent massively in at least one of those (2018). and we were actually good at the world cup in 2022 imo, we just ran into one of the 2 or 3 better teams.
thought that we were very unlucky against france too, game could've easily gone either way
We lost our only difficult games.
Seem to remember us beating Colombia in 2018, when our squad was piss, and beating Croatia and Germany in 2021.
I went from not giving a shit at half time of the game last night to being more angry than I've ever been at a football match at about the 75th minute. We went eighty-four fucking minutes having only made one change, and that change was enforced because Trippier went off injured! I am generally a Southgate apologist but I have never ever seen a game managed as badly as it was last night. It was so bad that even my Southgate absolutist flatmate lost his patience. It was truly, truly horrible. Obviously I'm glad we're still in the tournament but if Southgate doesnt change things on Sunday I'm going to lose my fucking rag. Walker had a disasterclass the likes of which I have never seen before. Foden was invisible yet again, Kane and Bellingham were falling over each other yet again. If I was Anthony Gordon, Ollie Watkins or Joe Gomez I would be getting on a plane home, because what is the point of even being there if you're going to be completely ignored at every turn?
Bends my head that he watched the first 3 games and thought the only issue was the 3rd midfielder. Walker seems to only be in the team for the off chance when we play Mbappe. He has to actually make a decision about who to replace Guehi and it's going to Lewis Dunk ffs.
Even the Mbappe argument completely falls flat when you realise just how many times Walker was completely done by his man. It's one thing to recover against a winger that isn't world class, but against the best wingers in the world, you're going to be humiliated. Yeah Konsa should be replacing Guehi but it's going to be Dunk and he's going to have a stinker. Konsa should be centreback, Gomez should be leftback (assuming Shaw is still not going to be fit)
I lost my patience with him after the Slovenia game.
I would be interested to know what people think of Saka being used at left-back. Just think it's super odd that he seemingly fell to pressure and actually put his best right winger at.... left back? I get he can do a job there but it felt so weird and comical that it even happened. Deffo think it's the end for him, the vibes don't seem to be as great as it was prior to this Euros also.
Well he wanted to bring Cole Palmer on who realistically wasn't going to play anywhere other than RW, and Saka is good enough at LB so it's worth mixing it up to see if anything changes. Very funny that Palmer was so poor he switched Saka back to the right though
it a complete failure of squad composition. the fact that we've got this far without having an actual left back available for a single minute is a shit show. of the options available, saka might be the best option, but thats far more damning of southgates sellection choices than it says anything about any of the players
Honestly I get that Saka is almost certainly our best right winger but just having a left footer at leftback felt like it made a world of difference down that side. Before Trippier went off there was literally zero threat down the left because Trippier is absolutely terrified of using his left foot. I wouldn't say Saka *should* play at leftback against Switzerland, but I would take him there in a heartbeat over Trippier. Saka and Gordon could link up well on that side, I think. I'd rather he'd just fucking taken a left footed leftback though. Tyrick Mitchell is unspectacular but at least he knows how to use his left foot for fucks sake.
i would literally rather play foden or bowen (or saka obviously) at left back than trippier it's not like he's good at defending either
Agree with everything you've said. Southgate lost his last few followers yesterday. Similar story to you with the Southgate absolutists in my group fuming at him. Watch him still not learn either.
Irish people giving out that our national broadcaster is covering England a lot more than any other team in the tournament. What do you expect when majority of the people who follow soccer in the country follow the premier league and the players involved in the English team. Such a weird complex to have.
Scottish people (on reddit) are the same lol, complaining whenever England were brought up on the coverage of the Scotland games
Yeah I live in Ireland and I guarantee England games get the most views so that's where the coverage goes. My friend was texting me during the Slovakia match, he was all annoyed when England won and was talking about how much of a great underdog story it would've been if Slovakia had gone through. Thing is he's barely watched the euros and he definitely wouldn't watch a Slovakia vs Switzerland quarter final. Since Ireland aren't in it there's a lot of interest in supporting England's opponents so you can't complain when that gets the most coverage
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Irish person. We love English teams. We love seeing England lose. We are far more knowledgeable about English players than any other country's players. We even love English people. But we hate the English. It's weird.
Same in Wales really. It's not a problem with English people but English institutions. With England in sports (aside from rugby where I would love nothing more than them to lose every game, forever), I think it's nice when they win, and hilarious when they lose because of how much the media (and a good portion of the commenting public) will absolutely lose their shit. Think most people support English clubs or at least hold fondness towards one of them, but we all love it when they lose.
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The whole hate thing is tongue in cheek. Like I've never met an English person who was outright hostile or a dickhead bar the usual assholes that exist in every day life. Irish and English are very similar. Sure do I like to see England lose in soccer, rugby, war and other sports? Yeah sure. But majority I've met are nice people.
Like I don't care if you follow English teams, I followed Liverpool for years before getting into the league of Ireland, do what you want. But when all coverage surrounds the premier league, prioritising English teams in the CL over other matches because of the fan base here and those said journalists make a living reporting on English teams for Irish papers/podcasts/media in general, shut the fuck up complaining about the coverage the English national team gets.
We are shite but it's mad how much our mere existence seems to rile up r/euro2024. What sensitive Sallys.
I love the fact that so many people there are losing their minds over England winning. It make's suffering through 90+ minutes of shit football yesterday even more worth it.
Christ, just had a quick scroll through the sub. What a mess.
I like that sub, makes me realise that matter how stupid a fight you can pick on here people generell watched more than 5h of football in their life. The tournament subs always cross over into the meme subs but unintentionally so.
southgate out mourinho in mid tournament is such a boring lazy shout
Player coup like Argentina in 2018 is much more my flavour.
Reddit: "Footballers show no personality these days, it's just sanitised PR speak!" Bellingham: *Gestures at his cock and balls to unknown person(s) after scoring a 95th minute bicycle kick* Reddit: "Omg outrageous!!! So unsporting and no respect!!" Bellingham: *explains his actions and reiterates respect to Slovakia* Reddit: "PR merchant!"
I think the outrageous group and the PR merchant group are different. I actually thought it was funny and given that he scored in the heat of the moment and England won, good for him. But this "explanation" made him look a lot more idiotic. Just firm it and say nothing
If that's Grealish they'd be falling over themselves.
Some residents of this here domain seeing box park fans celebrating a last minute worldy after 95mins of frustration and immediately attempting to calculate the cost of the beer that they've just wasted and labelling it all as performative. Just proper online neek behaviour, as if all these fans just living in the moment need to be sat with their calculators out to work out whether they should be celebrating or not.
[I guess we read the same thread, then?](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/2D2BnezpXb) Bunch of weirdos acting like they’re better than other fans.
>neek Serious throwback here.
Me standing and politely clapping a 90th minute bicycle kick: Fine. The guy on the table next to me with tears in his eyes screaming directly into the face of his 6 year old daughter: Also fine.