Oh, England. Same ol’ story: So much talent, yet can’t seem to finish the deal.
Oh so very England.
This is the kind of ending that can gut a team. The headlines are going to be merciless, and then the self-doubt creeps in again.
I really don’t get why Hodgson didn’t deploy Vardy for the last 20 minutes of the game. Would have been a perfect fit given that Russia wasn’t the quickest team to begin with and plenty of counter situations were likely to happen.
That was awful, Rooney was poor and sterling and lallana did nothing in the second half. Where were the subs? Kane had no service and for some reason was taking the corners.
The violence is getting to be a bit nuts…
— Alan
It did seem like this was the kind of defense that Vardy could have exploited.
Is there that much pressure in England to have Rooney in the national squad?
I think there’s always been pressure to have Rooney on the national squad, ever since he burst into the scene, in the Euro Cup IIRC.
But yeah, you would have thought Vardy would have been perfect to counter-attack… being the maestro in the hyper counter-attack team that just won the EPL.
— Alan
I don’t think the Russians were playing high enough up to exactly suit Vardy’s game.
I would have brought him on at the end but only because everyone seemed to be tiring and the Russians were nominally looking for a goal.
Even after England scored Slutski’s first response was to replace Golovin with Shirakov - Golovin had been playing in front of the defence, whereas Shirakov was pushed in behind the striker Dzyuba, but then Slutski droped Shetov back into Golovin’s spot. For the last 15 the Russians were more urgent, but they weren’t ignoring defence to bomb forward - If we’re generous, Slutski went from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-1-1-3-1.
The result is peak England though. Make all the best chances, struggle to convert any of them and throw away a solid result by switching off mentally with no time left. Most of the performance was good, but England will probably have to beat Wales now to top the group.
I first saw England at the Euro’s in 1980 and we’ve qualified for the knockout stages three times in those 36 years and all three times we’ve eventually lost on penalties. I really don’t like this tournament.
Seems that small groups of Russian and French fans started goading the English and they responded that then draw the attention of the police and all hell broke loose. No one dead yet, but two England fans are in critical condition. Shades of 1998 back to haunt us, even if we were the reactionaries rather than the actual instigators here. As English fans you are always going to be under extra pressure, and a lax police/security effort certainly did not help the situation :(
Hurray for Wales! :) We get to play a deflated England next! And who knows how the English team will respond after that cruel 1-1? History to be made here for the boyo’s?
Turkey vs Croatia time - I’m looking forward to how many different ways the commentators can pronounce the names.
I’d love to see Modric have a great tournament.
Not a bad start.
It’s a joy to watch Croatia, especially Srna, Modric, Rakitic and Perisic, but man, they really should have scored a second goal by now. Hope that doesn’t come back to haunt them.
So do English and Scottish football fans kinda/sorta support Wales and Northern Island when they’re not playing against them?
I do - I hope the Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish all do well and would like to have seen the Scottish qualify for the full house.
On the flip side, if my old Sensible Soccer “Despots XI” custom team was made real and played against England all of my Scottish friends would be rooting for Stalin, Pol Pot, et al.
You spend a few hundred years killing people and stealing their stuff and people just won’t let it go.
Simple answer is “no”. Some English fans might like some of the home nations due to current or former players of their club team playing for other National teams but generally indifferent.
Heh, yeah, I’ve got three Scottish cousins, and it’s always shocking to me how much they always root AGAINST England. So I had a good sense of that relationship.
But I wasn’t sure about Northern Ireland and Wales. I had some relatives in Wales that I visited too, in Newport. But I was too young to remember much about the culture. I just remember that’s the first place I learned the word “Fuck”. Because we went to a park with our relatives where we could see a scenic view of a bridge, and in the park were written the words “Fuck off”, which I read out loud, only to have my Dad shush me.
I know all the reasons for it, but the UK needs a single team. The UK has a smaller population than France and Germany. But they consistently split their talent into England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. No wonder they’ve only won one World Cup and zero Euros.
Of course, the UK itself could be moot in a few years. But still, you want to play on the big stage, you need to utilize all your resources.
If they did that today, Bale would be the only player to make it into the English team.
Considering Bale’s team is sitting on 3 points, and England is sitting on 1, that seems like a good trade.