Greece v England - Thu 14th Nov '24 | UEFA Nations League

[TinFoilHat]

Was at the game last night and enjoyed it thought we played well.
Gets like Groundhog Day when it comes to getting in many of these grounds abroad.
On the plus side it was only £10 for the tear gas option.

Glad you're safe.

Seems the Greek Police wanted to kick off.

 

[supercity88]

I love your posts, I really do. I quite often look back at your post about Euro 96 during lockdown. A post that had me giggling loudly at 3 in the morning to the point that I had to go in the garden so as not to wake any of my family up.

This though, as I seem to point out to a different poster almost every international break, is incredibly self-centred.

International football was a thing when every single one of us started to take an interest. It's nothing new. What is new is that City consistently challenge for the top honours every single season. When the league was made up of mostly English players, we might have the odd one or two reporting for international duty. I recall being really excited to watch David White play for England in a friendly in Spain and proud to be a City supporter.

Now that the league is made up of most football playing nations, and City have almost a full squad disappearing every month, it's become a problem for some.

We pay good money to watch Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Erling Haaland and Ederson. But these players want to represent their countries whether we like it or not. Imagine what our squad would look like if we tried to put a clause in their contracts upon signing that stated they weren't to play international football because our fans don't like it?

I myself have questioned the wisdom of Vincent Kompany and Kevin De Bruyne reporting for Belgium on a good few occasions when not fully fit to play their best for City, but I trust that they know their own bodies and capabilities and just accept that international football isn't going away. Believe me, it's far less stressful than getting worked up about things every time the Nations League rolls around.

Good post and definitely true. I remember even more recently when SWP was in the squad, the pride I had seeing a City player in the England side and just wanting them to perform really well because they represented City. We moan about the fatigue or injuries that come from internationals, but they can come in training or indeed playing for City in league cup games.

Times change. The league cup is now a competition the vast majority want to see us sack off and play the kids in. It wasn't long ago we'd have killed to win that and if someone had said "you'll get relegated but win the league cup" we'd have snapped their hands off.

We can't bemoan players wanting to go and play for their national side and in fact, it can sometimes be a good way of them having that mental break from club football which is undoubtedly incredibly intense when at City.

 

[super_city_si]

Thought the result papered over a lot of cracks. Pickford made a couple of important saves, one excellent one in particular. saved a certain equalizer Greece were on the front foot for large periods of the game.
However, we didn't panic like under southgate or resort to Pickford hoofing it back to them for the last 75 minutes. We continued to try and play our way out of trouble. We took our chances when they came and had a good few players missing. I like a lot of what I saw and saw them as stepping stones. I expect better still but it was an improvement on the last 6 years stylistically.