Euro 2020(1)

[FLiam]

5 minutes ago, metalman said:

I don’t get the backlash against Southgate. Three goals conceded during the whole tournament and not losing a game in normal time seems like a pretty big success to me. Some of those angry people should chill out a bit.

Compared to WC 2018 where England were not that good and were genuinely lucky to get as far as they did it is a massive step forward.

It’s just that this England squad has the potential to be so much more. He’s approaching games like we are always the underdog even though we have so much strength in the attacking areas. You can’t “not lose” your way to winning an international tournament. 

He simply needs to change his approach, play to our strengths. Be on the front foot, get Harry Kane in the penalty box bullying defenders. Get Grealish pulling the strings in the number 10 position. Have Sterling/Sancho/Saka/Rashford making runs from the wide areas into the area. This is my main criticism, England can be a team that blows other sides away. This sit back defend, nick a goal and defend more is more suited to the lesser nations. This generation of attacking talent will be wasted under this current mindset.

[probablyoliver]

16 hours ago, Lineker said:

@Ollie

 

Fucking missed it because extra time, and England didn't have the decency to win. Livid.

Still, I've managed to stay spoiler free, I'll update you on the results of the recoupling later on. Hopefully Rachel didn't get dumped, she's bloody lovely and Brad's a fucking moron for having his head turnt so quick.

[Jimmy]

27 minutes ago, FLiam said:

It’s just that this England squad has the potential to be so much more. He’s approaching games like we are always the underdog even though we have so much strength in the attacking areas. You can’t “not lose” your way to winning an international tournament. 

He simply needs to change his approach, play to our strengths. Be on the front foot, get Harry Kane in the penalty box bullying defenders. Get Grealish pulling the strings in the number 10 position. Have Sterling/Sancho/Saka/Rashford making runs from the wide areas into the area. This is my main criticism, England can be a team that blows other sides away. This sit back defend, nick a goal and defend more is more suited to the lesser nations. This generation of attacking talent will be wasted under this current mindset.

Might've agreed with you before the tournament, but not now. The team has evolved for the better since 2018, we didn't concede any goals from open play, I back Southgate to continue helping us evolve. We're a really solid team who shown a lot, now we have a solid base, I'm sure he'll try and push the team onto be more attacking. 

It's a process, right? You can't just turn up and be an attacking team - but right now we're a very decent team who could kick on and get even better. 

Also, to add onto that, we were the underdogs, we haven't achieved anything on the international stage for years and years - and now under Southgate, at this moment, we're transitioning from constant underdogs and underachievers into a team that reached and a semi final and then a final (and only lost on pens). It's all part of the process of how he's changing us.

[DavidMarrio]

Southgate deserves a level of praise but he can be criticised and rightfully so as well. 

He can be praised for having a solid defensive system which was difficult to break down and England did win a lot of games via a defensive first approach. He got the team to a final that's a big achievement. 

He can be criticised for being too defensive and probably one dimensional. His subs are very much like for like and safety first it's never really to try and change things up. I do think England cocked up with the subs they made during the final against Italy. I do think as well the penalty taker selection was odd. I don't get why you would put Saka as the fifth penalty taker 

I mean if he is given time hopefully he can build upon this and hopefully be more attacking. I'm by far an England fan but I will watch them in tournaments and hopefully the games are more exciting. Especially when you have a really good young squad that can develop. 

[The Lusophone]

1 hour ago, Colly said:

There's only really Greece and arguably Portugal (and that was less playing defensively and more being shite for a big chunk of the tournament) who've achieved it though. Playing defensively yes, but it's percentage football by definition and it won't work every time, and it needs to to win a knockout competition. There's a balance to be had, and Southgate hasn't found it yet.

It really isn't only Greece and Portugal. France in particular are set up to be strong defensively first and foremost, with Deschamps relying on his offensive players to do "something" more than with any grand tactical ideas. Spain set up similarly, though they recognise their comparative lack of quality compared to other teams, and try to do some interesting things in midfield.

International football just isn't systems-based any more, compared to the great Spanish and German teams of the recent past. It's much more situational, and more defensive.

[METALMAN]

Yeah, that France team had a lot of good attacking players but so much of their success was down to Kante and Matuidi keeping things solid at the back and taking at their time.

 

[Szumi]

That's the thing though. France in 2018 was conservative in their set up, but they had a guy like Pogba to still dictate the tempo in midfield when they needed it. Most of all though, they had a guy in Mbappe who was always capable of creating havoc when he got on the ball, no matter where he received it on the field. Griezmann was that guy for France as well. 

When I look at England play, I don't think they have that. Yes, they have a BUNCH of really good attacking players. But they have just the 1 world class forward line player in Kane, and it's really hard for him to be that Mbappe or Ronaldo kind of player. He can drop deep and play a killer ball to start a counter, but he too often didn't have the player forward enough to spring free. They definitely don't have a midfield maestro either.

[gunnar hendershow]

In this current era the defensive midfielder is the most important position on the pitch. Against the fluid, creative attacking nearly every top team seems committed to trying it's an absolute necessity to have the closest thing you can to N'Golo Kante ruining everyone's day. Couple that with quick transitions orchestrated by smart play on the wings and you're going to be sitting with an ability to win almost every match you're in.

There are criticisms for Southgate shifting into a defensive shell too early but I'm not convinced with that starting XI he wasn't planning to sit back and try to catch Italy on the counter even without the Luke Shaw goal. Italy weren't getting broken down by creative dribbling and footwork, the way to score against them was on the counter. Chiellini and Bonucci stopped EVERY dribble that came at them all tournament. And you look at the crosses England had outside of the goal and those were all their best chances. So I think he made the relatively smart decision tactically. Focusing on a creative attack would've just left them frustrated and exposed them more at the back.

Where he does deserve criticism is in handling the subs for the penalty kicks. Obviously taking a guy like Henderson out for a penalty taker is smart but it doesn't have to be someone who is taking one of your first 5 shots. I fully expected to see Sterling and Grealish in that first 5. Just unfortunate mismanagement in a huge stage like that.

[Colly]

For me the difference between the first and second halfs (particularly the first 30 minutes) was that he seemed to have gone far less defensive than the Germany game. The two midfielders still held (bar a couple of wobbly runs from Rice) but because of that the fullbacks were allowed to get forward and actually take on their opposite numbers rather than pass back to the keeper when pressed. The goal is the perfect example, not only was it created and scored by fullbacks but Kyle Walker made the overlapping run from centre half to give Trippier the space. That vanished at half time and we were utterly lifeless, Kane and Sterling feeding off utter scraps. Defensive solidity is fine, but if there's no out ball you concede eventually. I've watched enough Benitez and Bruce to know that.

[Gazz]

Offence wins games. Defence wins championships.

[Bobfoc]

Pets win prizes.

[Lineker]

 

[METALMAN]

[The Lusophone]

Mings calling out the government for their shit: 

 

[Bobfoc]

This batch of England players is really challenging the whole "footballers are thickos" narrative.

[METALMAN]

Yeah, remember when people were all like "OH WHY CAN'T FOOTBALLERS BE GENTLEMEN LIKE THE RUGBY PLAYERS?"

And then it turned out the England rugby team was packed full of homophobes and anti-vaxxers. (But rugby players go to the same schools as the Laurence Fox types so it was never much of a surprise to me.)

[Lineker]

Lando Norris had his watch stolen.

[GoN_]

9 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Might've agreed with you before the tournament, but not now. The team has evolved for the better since 2018, we didn't concede any goals from open play, I back Southgate to continue helping us evolve. We're a really solid team who shown a lot, now we have a solid base, I'm sure he'll try and push the team onto be more attacking. 

It's a process, right? You can't just turn up and be an attacking team - but right now we're a very decent team who could kick on and get even better. 

Also, to add onto that, we were the underdogs, we haven't achieved anything on the international stage for years and years - and now under Southgate, at this moment, we're transitioning from constant underdogs and underachievers into a team that reached and a semi final and then a final (and only lost on pens). It's all part of the process of how he's changing us.

I might get knocked for this but... England played a very weak Croatia side ( we played them in the last nations league and you could see they were nowhere nearly the same team from the last world cup), a half-decent Czech team and one of the worst teams in the tournament in Scotland. You then had a very good match against a German side that had one very good tactical win over Portugal but that had a coach many in the team hated with a tactic that didn't really fit the team except for a couple of players, a Ukraine side that was third in one of the weakest groups with 3 pts and -1 goal, and finally a Denmark side that were the clear overachivers in this.

In a way you had a pretty similar tournament to Portugal 5 years ago, in terms of the level of opponents (and you did better tbh). I don't think you can take that much out of this to a world cup in about 14 months, because the only real big team you got, you took a lead in the second minute and then did not get another shot on target for the next two hours.

Going back to the Portugal comparison, I see a lot of similarities there. We had some good tournaments in the last 2 decades, but had never won a single thing before 2016. Fernando Santos got us to win the Euros and the Nations League. You would think that his defensive minded tactics were what we actually needed and a way to success. Now you look at the results in both World Cup 2018 and these Euros, and we won 1-0 against Morocco, and 3-0 against Hungary, drew Spain, Iran and France, and lost against Uruguay (which got us out of WC18), Germany (we got crushed even if the result doesn't reflect that entirely) and Belgium (got us out of Euro2020). With the level of talent we have, does it really make sense to play two defensive midfielders most matches like we just did? Is a team that thinks about defense first have it in them to go after a result if needed?I feel like this is an easy answer if you look at both teams, really. 

We have arguably a better team now than 5 years ago, but we barely evolved. I'm afraid the same might happen to England if Southgate stays for long.

8 hours ago, MadJack said:

It really isn't only Greece and Portugal. France in particular are set up to be strong defensively first and foremost, with Deschamps relying on his offensive players to do "something" more than with any grand tactical ideas. Spain set up similarly, though they recognise their comparative lack of quality compared to other teams, and try to do some interesting things in midfield.

International football just isn't systems-based any more, compared to the great Spanish and German teams of the recent past. It's much more situational, and more defensive.

France has much more "firepower" than England though... and even that was clearly not enough this time.

And I feel like that your last sentence is entirely contradicted by the winners of this tournament. Italy while somewhat tactically flexible, are clearly a system based team. They have incredible tactical cohesion, with a clear game plan. The way they build from the back, or can keep possession by leaving very little space between who has the ball and the possible pass receivers is the result of much work from Mancini and, from many accounts, the whole Italian FA system that cultivates that same mentality/tactical approach in the youth national teams. And the thing is, on paper Italy while a good team did not have the same quality as France, England, Portugal or even Belgium had. But they were clearly the best team here from the first match.

[Jimmy]

6 hours ago, GoN_ said:

I might get knocked for this but... England played a very weak Croatia side ( we played them in the last nations league and you could see they were nowhere nearly the same team from the last world cup), a half-decent Czech team and one of the worst teams in the tournament in Scotland. You then had a very good match against a German side that had one very good tactical win over Portugal but that had a coach many in the team hated with a tactic that didn't really fit the team except for a couple of players, a Ukraine side that was third in one of the weakest groups with 3 pts and -1 goal, and finally a Denmark side that were the clear overachivers in this.

In a way you had a pretty similar tournament to Portugal 5 years ago, in terms of the level of opponents (and you did better tbh). I don't think you can take that much out of this to a world cup in about 14 months, because the only real big team you got, you took a lead in the second minute and then did not get another shot on target for the next two hours.

Going back to the Portugal comparison, I see a lot of similarities there. We had some good tournaments in the last 2 decades, but had never won a single thing before 2016. Fernando Santos got us to win the Euros and the Nations League. You would think that his defensive minded tactics were what we actually needed and a way to success. Now you look at the results in both World Cup 2018 and these Euros, and we won 1-0 against Morocco, and 3-0 against Hungary, drew Spain, Iran and France, and lost against Uruguay (which got us out of WC18), Germany (we got crushed even if the result doesn't reflect that entirely) and Belgium (got us out of Euro2020). With the level of talent we have, does it really make sense to play two defensive midfielders most matches like we just did? Is a team that thinks about defense first have it in them to go after a result if needed?I feel like this is an easy answer if you look at both teams, really. 

We have arguably a better team now than 5 years ago, but we barely evolved. I'm afraid the same might happen to England if Southgate stays for long.

France has much more "firepower" than England though... and even that was clearly not enough this time.

And I feel like that your last sentence is entirely contradicted by the winners of this tournament. Italy while somewhat tactically flexible, are clearly a system based team. They have incredible tactical cohesion, with a clear game plan. The way they build from the back, or can keep possession by leaving very little space between who has the ball and the possible pass receivers is the result of much work from Mancini and, from many accounts, the whole Italian FA system that cultivates that same mentality/tactical approach in the youth national teams. And the thing is, on paper Italy while a good team did not have the same quality as France, England, Portugal or even Belgium had. But they were clearly the best team here from the first match.

I see what you're saying, but in that tournament, Portugal also didn't win a group game or a game in normal time until the semi finals.

For a country like us, who have often had a mental block about knockout matches, this tournament has been huge in terms of winning matches, controlling matches and handling the occasion, regardless of opposition. I'm not saying we're world beaters, I'm saying Southgate is changing our mentality. He's also actively united the whole England squad, whereas past squad couldn't put their club rivalries aside.

I think there's so much in what he's doing, in setting a good foundation for this squad of players, he absolutely deserves to see it through to the next tournament. If he doesn't see beyond that, then he's left us in a much, much better place than we started. 

[Baddar]

England definitely look like more of a team now, rather than a handful of world class individuals thrown together.

The way Southgate deals with the media is far better than I've seen any England manager handle them too.