Euro 2024

[McNamara That Ghost...]

4-1 FT.

Pretty good from Spain.

[Mac76]

Georgia would have thrashed England playing like that

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

Had a tenner on that stupid lisping bastard to have 1 shot on target in 90 minutes

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[Letters]

Had a tenner on that stupid lisping bastard to have 1 shot on target in 90 minutes

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[Letters]

Georgia would have thrashed England playing like that

They looked pretty handy going forward, tbh. Gave Spain a few scares.

[Letters]

But it's this obsession of making sure we get everything correct (which isn't even really working anyway) that's sapping away the very reason we actually spend so much time, money and effort of watching it; the enjoyment. Now whether we should be deriving enjoyment from football anymore is one thing, but watching a computer or Atwell in his tactics truck for minutes at a time is something else entirely.

Nick Hornby notes in Fever Pitch that football is an unusual type of entertainment, it's unlike the theatre or a gig where you're pretty much guaranteed to have a good time. You can leave a football match frustrated and distraught. So you're not guaranteed to be entertained, but you don't want to go out of your way to make the fans feel cheated and that's what's happening right now. In football a goal is a "moment", in the vast majority of games you're only going to get a few of them ( https://www.windrawwin.com/statistics/full-time-scores/ ). If those moments are ruined then it ruins the whole experience.
By the letter of the law yes, the Denmark goal was offside. But not by the spirit of it. Offside is intended to stop people goalhanging and poaching goals, a top striker will play right on the shoulder of the last defender and they often cross quickly. We are now discovering that they are often very fractionally off. But no real advantage is being gained. The cost of getting these things "right" is ruining the moment of goals being scored. I have a feeling Germany would have won on Saturday anyway, but Denmark going 1-0 up would have made for an intriguing game. But instead it stays 0-0 and then that's exacerbated by the ridiculous penalty a minute later. A snickometer in football? Really?

VAR is supposed to deal with "clear and obvious" errors. No issue with the England goal being disallowed yesterday, it was immediately obvious he was probably off and that was quickly verified. But if you're having to draw lines and zoom in to see if any pixel is offside then holy shit just let it go. It's getting so you can't celebrate goals - and waiting to do so till a check is complete ruins the experience too, a goal celebration is an immediate response to the moment of the ball going in. When it comes to handball that whole rule is not fit for purpose. Defenders shouldn't have to be playing with their arms behind their back because the ball blasted at their arm is a penalty now. I don't know if you remember the one in the last World Cup where a player was falling, put his arm out to break his fall - which isn't even a conscious thing, it's just instinct - the ball brushed his hand and it was a penalty. It's bollox. These are not difficult things to fix, pretty much all fans are united on this, when are the powers that be going to start listening?

[HCZ_Reborn]

Online discussions about who would be doing a better job than Southgate, guy who is similar age to me stated that only two coaches in his lifetime would have done a better job with these players (Robson and Venables)

I conversely think there are only two coaches who wouldn’t have done a better job and those are Graham Taylor and Glenn Hoddle. I think even with the hapless McClaren we’d be playing better football

[Letters]

Online discussions about who would be doing a better job than Southgate, guy who is similar age to me stated that only two coaches in his lifetime would have done a better job with these players (Robson and Venables)

I conversely think there are only two coaches who wouldn’t have done a better job and those are Graham Taylor and Glenn Hoddle. I think even with the hapless McClaren we’d be playing better football

You think all the other coaches would have done better than a World Cup Final, a Euros Final, a World Cup Quarter Final (lost to eventual finalists) and (so far) a Euro Quarter Final?

England aren't exactly impressing me right now but Southgate's record isn't exactly bad.

[HCZ_Reborn]

You think all the other coaches would have done better than a World Cup Final, a Euros Final, a World Cup Quarter Final (lost to eventual finalists) and (so far) a Euro Quarter Final?

England aren't exactly impressing me right now but Southgate's record isn't exactly bad.

Talking specifically about how we are playing in this tournament with this bunch of players

So I’m saying all but two of the coaches would have us playing better than we are now

[Mac76]

You think all the other coaches would have done better than a World Cup Final, a Euros Final, a World Cup Quarter Final (lost to eventual finalists) and (so far) a Euro Quarter Final?

England aren't exactly impressing me right now but Southgate's record isn't exactly bad.

England have pubbed their way through a lot of those tournaments, this one is a classic example, we top a very easy group and then draw a very limited team in the last 16 and while Switzerland are ok, it's another relatively easy tie which again I think we'll just about scrape through

If we'd not had the luck of the draw we'd have a much worse record