Match 51 THE FINAL: Italy vs England - 8pm Sunday BBC1 AND ITV1 LIVE FROM WEMBLEY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Smallen]

Jorginho should’ve had a yellow for the challenge and then a second yellow for the simulation that followed.

[qwertygod]

2 minutes ago, mark1985 said:

Let’s rename it anyway comrade

I cannot unsee this - Walker looks legit 

[Weezer]

14 minutes ago, Crazy_Ivan said:

Yeah I think the OP of that petition is creating a ton of sock puppet accounts to sign it. 

Quite possibly. They all use the same style of language.

[Wolf_pd]

25 minutes ago, georginho_juventusygr said:

I want to thank the passion from English fans. So passionate that I could hear Atomic Kitten again. 

That was your Spotify playlist...

[Weezer]

Urgh.

 

[georginho_juventusygr]

Had good English breakfast in the morning.

Although I'm not sure which one judging by the various photos in the thread over in OTF.

[outlander]

1 hour ago, PaulHartman71 said:

Definitely seen reds given for that

When? I don't remember a single case of a red card given for a shirt pull in such situation.

[PaulHartman71]

3 minutes ago, outlander said:

When? I don't remember a single case of a red card given for a shirt pull in such situation.

That was in reference to Jorginho’s tackle not the Chiellini pull. 

[outlander]

1 minute ago, PaulHartman71 said:

That was in reference to Jorginho’s tackle not the Chiellini pull. 

Sorry. That one could easily result in a red for sure. Was really dangerous and and was meant to be "hard" as it's not the way you try to control the ball surely.

[ryan045]

Jorginho was 100% a red. But I’m not sure it affects the outcome. 114th min + misses his pen.

[The Amazing Dale Watkins]

4 minutes ago, ryan045 said:

Jorginho was 100% a red. But I’m not sure it affects the outcome. 114th min + misses his pen.

Tbf him missing the pen affected the outcome in that poor Saka maybe wouldn't have had to take his

[Wolf_pd]

40 minutes ago, Weezer said:

Urgh.

 

Footballers falling down like that should gets it own name, like manflu or something.

[XuluBak]

1 hour ago, Wolf_pd said:

Footballers falling down like that should gets it own name, like manflu or something.

It should just be a yellow card. 

[XuluBak]

2 hours ago, ryan045 said:

Jorginho was 100% a red. But I’m not sure it affects the outcome. 114th min + misses his pen.

It wasn't because of Grealish flying in the way he did in the first place, combined with Jorginho going over the ball (same as Phillips). 

[ArsenalFan7]

Mancini is just so good, said it towards the start of the Euros but he’s in a league of his own compared to the other managers and that was the difference on the night. They handled the occasion greatly, the best teams produce those kind of cynical challenges in the important moments.

Chiesa as well, what a player.

Grateful for the occasion but more than anything disappointed by Southgate returning to his passive don’t lose mentality when there was plenty of opportunities to exploit, as great as it felt at the time, going up that early was probably our downfall with Southgate in charge. Cannot produce 6 shots in 120 minutes and then be angry at the Italians winning. Lot of what ifs and can’t help but think a better manager wins that for us, oh well.

[EnterUsernameHere]

1 minute ago, ArsenalFan7 said:

Mancini is just so good, said it towards the start of the Euros but he’s in a league of his own compared to the other managers and that was the difference on the night. They handled the occasion greatly, the best teams produce those kind of cynical challenges in the important moments.

Chiesa as well, what a player.

Grateful for the occasion but more than anything disappointed by Southgate returning to his passive don’t lose mentality when there was plenty of opportunities to exploit, as great as it felt at the time, going up that early was probably our downfall with Southgate in charge. Cannot produce 6 shots in 120 minutes and then be angry at the Italians winning. Lot of what ifs and can’t help but think a better manager wins that for us, oh well.

Agree with that but would add two things. Firstly, Mancini is a top class international manager just like Luis Enrique is. I'm not sure either are anything special at club level when there is more competition. Not to say he didn't do a great job - Italy were tactically the best team in the tournament.

Secondly, not sure saying returning to a passive mentality is a good description. Southgate has been like that the whole tournament, for better or worse. He sat back on almost every lead. It's just his nature, every line up was more cautious than it needed to be in my view.

I'll caveat it by saying I'm naturally inclined to criticise defensive set ups. Southgate deserves credit for his man management but his tactical set up leaves a lot to be desired.

[ArsenalFan7]

1 minute ago, EnterUsernameHere said:

Secondly, not sure saying returning to a passive mentality is a good description. Southgate has been like that the whole tournament, for better or worse. He sat back on almost every lead. It's just his nature, every line up was more cautious than it needed to be in my view.

I'll caveat it by saying I'm naturally inclined to criticise defensive set ups. Southgate deserves credit for his man management but his tactical set up leaves a lot to be desired.

Would agree with that in fairness. I thought he had the opportunity to go with Sancho and try to exploit Emerson but it was clear from the initial lineup what the intentions were, he’d earned my trust by that point but was quite anxious beforehand at there only being two reliable scorers in the side, felt too safe. Unfortunately, it did end up feeling like I was watching Croatia again and I can’t get behind the mentality of clinging on to a lead for that long.

Final sentence aptly sums up my feelings towards him, I’m extremely grateful for the way he has united the fans and the squad but he falls just short on being the man to win trophies with the lack of in game management for me. He proven me wrong on numerous occasions but I can’t see the odds falling into our favour like this for a third time and I do think things will probably end quite sadly for Southgate at the world cup.

[deltablue]

9 hours ago, GunmaN1905 said:

Nah, I'm better than those people.

No, you're really not.

9 hours ago, GunmaN1905 said:

 but some posters are a joke and always will be.

Yep, and you're one of them. There's that classic Gunny lack of self-awareness again.

[enigmatic]

7 hours ago, ArsenalFan7 said:

Mancini is just so good, said it towards the start of the Euros but he’s in a league of his own compared to the other managers and that was the difference on the night. They handled the occasion greatly, the best teams produce those kind of cynical challenges in the important moments.

Chiesa as well, what a player.

Grateful for the occasion but more than anything disappointed by Southgate returning to his passive don’t lose mentality when there was plenty of opportunities to exploit, as great as it felt at the time, going up that early was probably our downfall with Southgate in charge. Cannot produce 6 shots in 120 minutes and then be angry at the Italians winning. Lot of what ifs and can’t help but think a better manager wins that for us, oh well.

Mancini who produced 7 shots in 120 minutes in a semi final won on pens is "in a league of his own" and Gareth who produces 6 is too passive? Fine margins...

[profii]

Wasn't really sure if there is a thread dedicated for this so I post here.

The reaction to the racism, as in people don't want to support it and they want to support the players is probably the biggest I've ever seen.

I'm sure some people think BLM is some political thing and taking the knee is pointless but the last couple of days are evidence to me that society is rejecting racism more and more so that is good to see 

[Baptista_8]

38 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

Mancini who produced 7 shots in 120 minutes in a semi final won on pens is "in a league of his own" and Gareth who produces 6 is too passive? Fine margins...

Did Italy not produce 6 on target and 9 off target? While we produced 1 on target and 4 off?

And they had 62% possession, on top of that.

[samuelawachie]

9 minutes ago, profii said:

Wasn't really sure if there is a thread dedicated for this so I post here.

The reaction to the racism, as in people don't want to support it and they want to support the players is probably the biggest I've ever seen.

I'm sure some people think BLM is some political thing and taking the knee is pointless but the last couple of days are evidence to me that society is rejecting racism more and more so that is good to see 

What was more encouraging and somewhat surprising to see was the calling-out of the people who only "support" the kick-it-out movement for appearances or for their own ends only. Seeing people like Mings calling-out Patel and people pointing out that the Prime Minister also has made contradictory statements on the matter.

This would not have happened 12 years ago. So something is really changing. Slowly, but yes.

[ArsenalFan7]

1 hour ago, enigmatic said:

Mancini who produced 7 shots in 120 minutes in a semi final won on pens is "in a league of his own" and Gareth who produces 6 is too passive? Fine margins...

Italy were clinical against Spain in a performance that was average compared with the rest of their tournament (bar Austria), 7 shots with 4 on target is pretty much what we’ve been doing all tournament and it was one of their ‘bad’ performances. They’ve been consistently playing good attacking football alongside a solid defensive structure, so I feel you can forgive them for riding the storm to a final against a good Spain side.

Aside from Denmark and Ukraine, England have relied on a safe approach with clinical finishing to win games. To me it felt as though we eroded any home advantage with our low risk approach in the final. You’re going to naturally go into a shell after an early goal but it’s clearly the case that we became flat, lacked any counter threat and conviction to press. 

Southgate was outclassed on the day, he had a poor game and I don’t have any huge issue with it nor him given the position we’ve ended in. Mancini is simply a better manager whose side deserved the victory on the day. 

The lack of attempts has been my main frustration throughout the tournament, given the attacking talent we have and the teams we have played, producing 8, 9, 5, 5, 10, 20 and 6 attempts across all the games is pretty dire. Granted we have a great, reliable defence and so I get the approach to an extent but he seems so hellbent on the safe approach that it becomes a detriment to the team at times.

[enigmatic]

31 minutes ago, Baptista_8 said:

Did Italy not produce 6 on target and 9 off target? While we produced 1 on target and 4 off?

And they had 62% possession, on top of that.

Italy vs Spain and England vs Italy. Spot the difference....

Italy weren't actually defending a lead for very long either.

Either sitting back and giving up a lot of mostly non-threatening shots is perfectly sensible against a packed midfield (my view) in which case surely it's fine for Gareth to do the same, or Mancini isn't a good manager, he's a very lucky boy

[ArsenalFan7]

I make it 127 attempts for Italy vs. 63 for England across the whole tournament, which is a pretty staggering difference between two finalists and I’d argue we have the better attacking players.

Edited July 13, 2021 by ArsenalFan7

[Bunkerossian]

On a Croatian news portal, there is an article retelling a story in the Daily Mail (I know) that Southgate actually picked the penalty takers based on scores from months' worth of penalty kick training. Saka apparently scored every time. From what I hear of Southgate, it seems this is plausible.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Bunkerossian

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Bunkerossian said:

On a Croatian news portal, there is an article retelling a story in the Daily Mail (I know) that Southgate actually picked the penalty takers based on scores from months' worth of penalty kick training. Saka apparently scored every time. From what I hear of Southgate, it seems this is plausible.

Telegraph reporting something else.

 

 

[GunmaN1905]

6 minutes ago, ArsenalFan7 said:

and I’d argue we have the better attacking players.

It's not even arguable, England has a way better attack, especially if we include the benches.

Chiesa and Sterling were on similar level, by far the best attacking players of their teams.

Kane had some nice build-up moments, but goal against Ukraine was the only relevant striker moment he had. Germany was a tap-in when they went all-out attack.
But then we have to wonder why is Kane sitting 40m away from the goal? He surely didn't decide to do so by himself.

If Southgate decided to use Kane as a deep forward, which is ridiculous in the formation he used, why didn't he use Rashford at all then?

Anyhow, Insigne has shown that he's a one-trick pony, did nothing useful in th end except for that goal against Belgium. Immobile is not good. Berardi and Belotti are two hardworking players, decent subs, nothing more. Bernardeschi is useles.

This is honestly  the weakest attack of any team that has won a big tournament for as long as I can remember.

[EnterUsernameHere]

Just now, GunmaN1905 said:

It's not even arguable, England has a way better attack, especially if we include the benches.

Chiesa and Sterling were on similar level, by far the best attacking players of their teams.

Kane had some nice build-up moments, but goal against Ukraine was the only relevant striker moment he had. Germany was a tap-in when they went all-out attack.
But then we have to wonder why is Kane sitting 40m away from the goal? He surely didn't decide to do so by himself.

If Southgate decided to use Kane as a deep forward, which is ridiculous in the formation he used, why didn't he use Rashford at all then?

Anyhow, Insigne has shown that he's a one-trick pony, did nothing useful in th end except for that goal against Belgium. Immobile is not good. Berardi and Belotti are two hardworking players, decent subs, nothing more. Bernardeschi is useles.

This is honestly  the weakest attack of any team that has won a big tournament for as long as I can remember.

I'm not sure Portugal were any better?

[Rob1981]

2 minutes ago, GunmaN1905 said:

This is honestly  the weakest attack of any team that has won a big tournament for as long as I can remember.

Are we not counting the Spain team that literally played without any strikers?

[Coulthard's Jaw]

10 minutes ago, Crazy_Ivan said:

It's probably just a journalist making stuff up, but if he's getting briefed this info from a couple of players thats a bit of a ****** thing to do.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Coulthard's Jaw

[enigmatic]

23 minutes ago, ArsenalFan7 said:

I make it 127 attempts for Italy vs. 63 for England across the whole tournament, which is a pretty staggering difference between two finalists and I’d argue we have the better attacking players.

And yet when it came to games and moments that were tight as opposed to bombarding weak teams it took a long time to score against in the group stages he did exactly the same as Gareth. I mean, he sat on 1-1 with a possession advantage against an a nervy England, anybody that thinks he (or most managers) wouldn't have relied on their strong defence more than attack if they'd scored in the second minute of a final against a good side is crackers

And who gives a **** about the group stages? I mean, yes Italy were vibrant there unlike their other tournament wins, but surely we're not going back to "it's no accomplishment because we had a bad game against Scotland"? 

We didn't lose by scoring  fewer goals than Italy, we lost because we missed one more penalty.

Edited July 13, 2021 by enigmatic

[Marius_R]

8 minutes ago, Rob1981 said:

Are we not counting the Spain team that literally played without any strikers?

When you have Xavi, Iniesta, Fabregas, David Silva, Mata, Cazorla and Jesus Navas in the squad, you don't need strikers. 

[GunmaN1905]

12 minutes ago, EnterUsernameHere said:

I'm not sure Portugal were any better?

Cristiano?

Nani was still good and Quaresma was way more useful than for example Insigne, not to mention any other Italian winger.

10 minutes ago, Rob1981 said:

Are we not counting the Spain team that literally played without any strikers?

That one is hard to evaluate, I'll give you that.

[The_jagster]

Quaresma  Never change

[Baptista_8]

2 hours ago, Marius_R said:

When you have Xavi, Iniesta, Fabregas, David Silva, Mata, Cazorla and Jesus Navas in the squad, you don't need strikers. 

Casually dropping Jesus Navas in

[enigmatic]

Quaresma and Navas? Bring back JLingz...

[Marius_R]

30 minutes ago, Baptista_8 said:

Casually dropping Jesus Navas in

Was a decent player coming off the bench for Spain tbf. After all, he is a World Cup and European Championship winner. 

Edited July 13, 2021 by Marius_R

[Barry Cartman]

1 hour ago, Baptista_8 said:

Casually dropping Jesus Navas in

He's actually been an amazing right back for the past few years in La Liga 

[Baptista_8]

Just now, Barry Cartman said:

He's actually been an amazing right back for the past few years in La Liga 

Tbf I was very impressed with him in the Europa final the other year. He's not in the same league as the others mentioned though, and as a winger was fairly one dimensional IMO.

[Barry Cartman]

6 minutes ago, Baptista_8 said:

Tbf I was very impressed with him in the Europa final the other year. He's not in the same league as the others mentioned though, and as a winger was fairly one dimensional IMO.

Don't get me wrong he was **** for City, but he was always a useful player for Spain 

[VamPook]

[akkm]

3 hours ago, enigmatic said:

We didn't lose by scoring  fewer goals than Italy, we lost because we missed one more penalty.

obv thats interesting choice of words framing it as having 'lost' as opposed to WIN it. essentially a subconscious recognition of england's approach and even broader insight into england approach/mentality and also as to why pens are a historical issue. 

Had you framed it as didn't win it would be more useful to have a bigger picture approach to being more of winning team/tournament team...southgate's cautious approach essentially was reactive throughout the tournament. instead of an attempt to win with a more proactive controlling possession to 'go and win it' with a higher percentage game as opposed to conceding possession/territory/ground to the opposition england should be trying to WIN by scoring more goals given such a fast start...you could argue by not front foot attempting to score more goals than italy they didn't WIN it therefore were left with situation where it went to penalties and lost it. obv very simplistic corollary is england didn't WIN it by not scoring more goals

By having that reactive approach a team can have a subconscious negative mindset putting them on a backfoot approach which can feed into players subconscious mindset for pens where fear of losing/missing is more of a determining factor than trying to WIN it...all having being infused into their mentality had they been playing throughout the game/tournament to go out and win with a more positive/controlled approach (as oppposed to having possession by default of lesser teams sitting back).

without realising it england traditional approach can be affected by that. as much as british bulldog spirit is a thing in football the domestic game week in week out year in year out isn't that which engenders a dogged approach like say more traditional italian teams to sit in and defend to grind it out

just interesting on your choice of words where you chose 'didn't lose' as opposed to 'didnt win' there

[enigmatic]

51 minutes ago, akkm said:

obv thats interesting choice of words framing it as having 'lost' as opposed to WIN it. essentially a subconscious recognition of england's approach and even broader insight into england approach/mentality and also as to why pens are a historical issue. 

Had you framed it as didn't win it would be more useful to have a bigger picture approach to being more of winning team/tournament team...southgate's cautious approach essentially was reactive throughout the tournament. instead of an attempt to win with a more proactive controlling possession to 'go and win it' with a more percentage game as opposed to to conceding possession/territory/ground to the opposition england should be trying to WIN by scoring more goals given such a fast start...you could argue by not front foot attempting to score more goals than italy they didn't WIN it therefore were left with situation where it went to penalties and lost it. obv very simplistic corollary is england didn't WIN it by not scoring more goals

I mean, I'm not framing it as WIN it because we didn't win, and saying "we didn't not win it" is just terrible grammar. There's not much insight you can get into my psyche from that, never mind England players'.

Same applies in reverse. Italy didn't win it by scoring more goals or having more shots across the tournament or by the semantics of winning/losing, they won it by missing one fewer penalty. Two games in a row actually, including the occasion they had considerably less possession and shots than their opponent.

They deservedly got the applause for their stylish wins in the group stages, but they won the tournament by avoiding defeat and playing the percentages against strong teams, not by extra goals scored in early games or missing more shots from distance.

It's pointless to pretend that there is something uniquely wrong with England's approach because it was the one the tournament winners used their last game. Which is a completely normal route to winning a tournament, and one which very nearly worked out for England instead of Italy. 

Edited July 13, 2021 by enigmatic

[GunmaN1905]

7 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

I mean, I'm not framing it as WIN it because we didn't win, and saying "we didn't not win it" is just terrible grammar. There's not much insight you can get into my psyche from that, never mind England players'.

Same applies in reverse. Italy didn't win it by scoring more goals or having more shots across the tournament or by the semantics of winning/losing, they won it by missing one fewer penalty. Two games in a row actually, including the occasion they had considerably less possession and shots than their opponent.

They deservedly got the applause for their stylish wins in the group stages, but they won the tournament by avoiding defeat and playing the percentages against strong teams, not by extra goals scored in early games or missing more shots from distance.

It's pointless to pretend that there is something uniquely wrong with England's approach because it was the one the tournament winners used their last game. Which is a completely normal route to winning a tournament, and one which very nearly worked out for England instead of Italy. 

Cmon man, that's embarrassing.

[akkm]

30 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

I mean, I'm not framing it as WIN it because we didn't win, and saying "we didn't not win it" is just terrible grammar. There's not much insight you can get into my psyche from that, never mind England players'.

Same applies in reverse. Italy didn't win it by scoring more goals or having more shots across the tournament or by the semantics of winning/losing, they won it by missing one fewer penalty. Two games in a row actually, including the occasion they had considerably less possession and shots than their opponent.

They deservedly got the applause for their stylish wins in the group stages, but they won the tournament by avoiding defeat and playing the percentages against strong teams, not by extra goals scored in early games or missing more shots from distance.

It's pointless to pretend that there is something uniquely wrong with England's approach because it was the one the tournament winners used their last game. Which is a completely normal route to winning a tournament, and one which very nearly worked out for England instead of Italy. 

Yeah just proved the point there lol

[BigV]

1 hour ago, akkm said:

obv thats interesting choice of words framing it as having 'lost' as opposed to WIN it. essentially a subconscious recognition of england's approach and even broader insight into england approach/mentality and also as to why pens are a historical issue. 

Had you framed it as didn't win it would be more useful to have a bigger picture approach to being more of winning team/tournament team...southgate's cautious approach essentially was reactive throughout the tournament. instead of an attempt to win with a more proactive controlling possession to 'go and win it' with a higher percentage game as opposed to conceding possession/territory/ground to the opposition england should be trying to WIN by scoring more goals given such a fast start...you could argue by not front foot attempting to score more goals than italy they didn't WIN it therefore were left with situation where it went to penalties and lost it. obv very simplistic corollary is england didn't WIN it by not scoring more goals

By having that reactive approach a team can have a subconscious negative mindset putting them on a backfoot approach which can feed into players subconscious mindset for pens where fear of losing/missing is more of a determining factor than trying to WIN it...all having being infused into their mentality had they been playing throughout the game/tournament to go out and win with a more positive/controlled approach (as oppposed to having possession by default of lesser teams sitting back).

without realising it england traditional approach can be affected by that. as much as british bulldog spirit is a thing in football the domestic game week in week out year in year out isn't that which engenders a dogged approach like say more traditional italian teams to sit in and defend to grind it out

just interesting on your choice of words where you chose 'didn't lose' as opposed to 'didnt win' there

[akkm]

3 minutes ago, BigV said:

Except it is huh

[skybluedave]

Sigmund Freud over here

[enigmatic]

29 minutes ago, GunmaN1905 said:

Cmon man, that's embarrassing.

No, what's embarrassing is your insistence that two managers who took their teams from total failure to tournament finals are both too cowardly to succeed...

(Interesting choice of manager for the graphic by the way. Not the man I'd be picking to make the "sitting on a lead never works" argument )

 

 

9 minutes ago, akkm said:

Yeah just proved the point there lol

lol, you mean you went to all that effort to link bad grammar, pop psychology and a bunch of England players that have never met me and it was just a troll? And I thought I had too much time on my hands  

 

Edited July 13, 2021 by enigmatic