England v Belgium, 28th June, 7pm(GMT)

[St. Juste]

You haven't heard of FIFA rankings based upon the head count of the nation in question? Nah. I've seen you talk about such things on here, as a stick to beat England with.

Anyway, see the link below.

https://www.rankingper.com/

If it's any consolation Scotland are above England. But that doesn't alter the fact you haven't qualified for any major international tournaments for two decades.

I really don't think I have, and the link isn't even working for me.

I'm not the one bringing up Scotland into these threads. We are a fairly average small European nation whose best days are definitely behind us. Are we terrible? No. Are we great? Also no.

However, England are a large, rich western European nations who are performed much wosre than all of their peer group. I'm astonished they don't realise this, or instead choose to lord it over their far smaller neighbours. It's like bragging about having the best house in Middlesbrough.

Whilst you were focusing on merely being better than the tiny nations nearby you managed to win 6 knockout games in the past 52 years. Their fans don't seem to mind at all, or deny this record is bad. Quite incredible.

 

[JimJams]

We don't lord it over you though. In fact you're not even in the back of anyones mind until you jump in to tell us how shit we are and that you'll be supporting the opposition.

 

[St. Juste]

We don't lord it over you though. In fact you're not even in the back of anyones mind until you jump in to tell us how shit we are and that you'll be supporting the opposition.

When has this happened? Let's see specific posts.

I think my contributions so far was to congratulate England on one of their finest ever results in a World Cup when they beat Panama.

I don't think I have once said I'll be supporting the opposition.

 

[JimJams]

But you will be yeah?

 

[Pagnell]

I'm not the one bringing up Scotland into these threads. We are a fairly average small European nation whose best days are definitely behind us. Are we terrible? No. Are we great? Also no.

Sorry to tell you this, but you really are terrible.

 

[St. Juste]

But you will be yeah?

I haven't even watched any of their games so far.

Sorry to tell you this, but you really are terrible.

Yeah, thanks. We finished on equal points with second place in WC Qualifying and England needed a last minute equaliser to draw with us.

But I guess we are worse than Andorra, right?

If Scotland are terrible, how would you describe Englands record in international football in the last 52 years?

 

[Pagnell]

Glorious. *




*in comparison to Scotland.

 

[SALTIRE]

So does United.

Just think, you could have easily chosen the other side.

Na mate, I think I mentioned it before; around '87 I went to a friend's house and he came to the door holding a Man Utd scarf over his head; maybe it was the Fergie influence as he wasn't long there, but they became his second team (after Dundee where we both used to go to watch together - on terraces!). I've always been someone who likes to be contrary though (you may have noticed!), so I thought who could I follow that would be an adversary to Utd; and Liverpool were always on the telly, and Dalglish, Nicol, Hansen and co were there at the time, and once I found out more about them, and Shankly etc; then I was hooked.

 

[Kopper]

Not bitter, just keeping you lot on the level, to stop you from jumping the gun as per always when it comes to your national side.

The nation goes overboard for the nation team. We should show passion, but temper it with realism. We have never been on par with Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany and now we're behind the likes of Belgium, Croatia among others. Hell even Iceland and the USA have beaten us in recent memory.

I would rather sort out how the national side plays the game, before ever getting exciting about England's prospects.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

We haven't lost a competitive international match against the USA since 1950.

 

[Stevencc]

The nation goes overboard for the nation team. We should show passion, but temper it with realism. We have never been on par with Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany and now we're behind the likes of Belgium, Croatia among others. Hell even Iceland and the USA have beaten us in recent memory.

I would rather sort out how the national side plays the game, before ever getting exciting about England's prospects.

Get on with it, then.

 

[Steve_Wafc]

Disappointing to end it all on 2 defeats, but it doesn’t sour the tournament for me, it’s been great.
Croatia, we completely ripped them apart in the first half and should have at least doubled the lead. Then in the second half, they came more into it, but I felt we were comfortable still. Eventually they equalised (which I still feel was a high boot, although it doesn’t help when Walker is low on the ground) and it completely rattled us. Then for the rest of the 90, we looked mentally exhausted and resorted to sitting too deep. I also think this was down to Trippier’s injury too though, as he couldn’t get forward and give us an out ball. We recovered in the first half of extra time though and could have taken the lead. But then we switched off for a second and Stones’ only mistake of the tournament happened to be a crucial moment and there was no coming back after that.
Today was quite a dull affair for the first half. It looked like we’d made one too many changes again and like the other fixture we had no rhythm in our play. Gave away a real sloppy goal too, classic Danny Rose. Second half after making the changes, we looked much better though and were arguably the best side. Loftus Cheek was more involved and so was Trippier, who was again outstanding. We had to take the chances though, as Belgium looked threatening on the counter every time, and they eventually punished us. Pickford made a tremendous save to deny what would have been goal of the tournament also, what a move.
I said it after the Sweden win though and I’ll say it again, Kane looks injured. I think he was injured in the Colombia game and hasn’t fully recovered. He again lacked sharpness and looked a bit flat footed. A shadow of the player who looked so good in the group stages and against Colombia.
3rd place would have been nice, but it’s not a very memorable accolade, so I don’t think we’ll lose too much sleep over it. Great tournament overall though. We’ve shown we can compete, we have young talent in our ranks, we’ve played some excellent football, we’re inventive and we’ve got a manager who keeps it simple and puts the players in a system where they can flourish. Far from the finished article of course, but the future looks a lot brighter than it did a few months ago.