Italy v England | Euro 2020 Final

[Nellies left peg]

Some kind of celebrity, a big man?

The voice of athletics and a top olympic coach

 

[Uncle Wally One Ball]

I find it so bizarre about people being so surprised about the behaviour of the fans. It's probably because the people who are most outraged are people who aren't actually football fans. I can remember at Maine Road when kids used to jump in behind you in the turnstiles, that sort of thing has always happened. Booing national anthems... Pft, when has that been a problem? It isn't Wimbledon.

I'm not sure where you can find it but watch the film 'One Night in Turin', our supporters have always been an absolute disgrace. I don't know if people are just snowflakes nowadays but what happened last week was very tame in comparison.... Think of events like Heysel where English fan behaviour used to kill people.

It's easy to forget that at one point in the 80's/90's we were banned from European competitions because of our fans.

The racism thing is obviously not on at all and thankfully that is only down to a minority on social media, that's completely different but for everything else I'm really not surprised.

We were banned from Euro competition because of scousers

 

[paulchapo]

For me, Southgate was "obliged" to have the best creative talent the country has had in many a year, because had these players not been called up, there would have been an outcry from fellow managers, pundits and pros.

The issue is Southgates style doesn't maximise this creativity and England don't get the best out of them.

Sadly, whilst Southgate is the gaffer, unless he can adopt new tactics to best utilise the talent at his disposal, England will suffer.

He has said himself and his coaches analysed tournament football and came to the conclusion defensive sides win them. Time will tell whether he's proved right or not or it proves a complete load of bollocks, like Charlie Hughes the long ball game is the way forward mantra.

 

[lust overlord]

He has said himself and his coaches analysed tournament football and came to the conclusion defensive sides win them. Time will tell whether he's proved right or not or it proves a complete load of bollocks, like Charlie Hughes the long ball game is the way forward mantra.

The defensive sides winning may well be true.
Most in the past,were still reliant on brilliant individuals doing the business when it counted,and a coach who had more strings to his bow tactically.

We left most of our brilliant individuals on the bench,or brought them on when it was far too late,and apparently left one out because of a yellow card.
And we had Gareth.
Nuff said.

 

[supercity88]

He has said himself and his coaches analysed tournament football and came to the conclusion defensive sides win them. Time will tell whether he's proved right or not or it proves a complete load of bollocks, like Charlie Hughes the long ball game is the way forward mantra.

Pragmatism wins tournaments. One style of play can be found out. I think what Southgate did well early in the tournament is manage the squad ready for the knockouts and alternate formations based on the opposition.

What he did well against Denmark is hold back the subs and then blow them away with our fitness in ET.

In the final fear finally gripped him. He waited too long to make subs in the 2nd half when experience should have told him Mancini finds answers and we could all see their goal was coming.

Unleashing Grealish, Saka and even Sancho for Trippier, Mount and another would have forced them to sit off or punish their pursuit of a goal.

Instead we waited and waited and whilst we got to penalties we showed no endeavour to win that game from the 2nd half to the final whistle. And that was a missed opportunity.

Deschamps and France suffered in 2016. They over committed and got caught out. In the 2018 WC they showed more balance and made amends. Let's hope we can do the same.

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

I'm not talking about the actual song or the fans singing it, but the journalists like Henry Winter putting it to other players. It comes across badly, as was seen by Schmeichel's reaction. Liverpool fans have created the slogan "this means more". Imagine if Pep, or one of the City players was asked before we played Liverpool, 'how are you going to stop this team, when it clearly means more to them'? The press needs to be more professional than that.

To be fair, I encourage that line of questioning in this instance but maybe to someone like Morrison................

 

[Mancity1980]

I mean, the most baffling thing for us Italians fans is just the assured, pumped up view of shouting from the rooftops that you're gonna win before the match even starts, but to us it's the same kind of "baffling" as a man who shoots his own foot. The reason is that we are very superstitious in football, so for example if you'd read through some Italian fan pages before the match all the messages were "Congrats to England for winning the Euros!" and stuff like that. We call it "gufare" in Italian (lit. "to owl", because owls are bad luck birds), which simply means to jinx the other team by assuredly announcing that they'll win. Because of that, seeing you guys jinx yourselves with the innocent carelessness of children is culturally incomprehensible to us. We are glad you keep doing it though.





I know the song was originally ironic and lighthearted but let's not kid ourselves, when your fans shout "It's coming home!" they don't use it in a self-deprecating way at all. They use it with those exact connotations that we "ignorant foreigners" perceived. So yeah Skinner & co. created it with a certain meaning in mind, but the phrase itself has been adopted by fans as a standalone which they use at face value.

No they don’t, it’s we hope it’s coming home. There are examples of fans singing songs that they are going to win something like the scousers in 2014 shouting “we’re gonna win the league” and that was funny but this isn’t that.

I would except that as we get closer (which no doubt we just did) it’s get louder and more feistier, but can you blame us after 55 years. The superstitious angle is interesting, how would you feel if we perceive it as gutless? I bet some me Italian would be annoyed with that false perception.

 

[Mancity1980]

A british athletics coach, Ron Pickering, went round knocking on doors in working class areas a generation ago to recruit kids for the sport. Linford Christie was one of his recruits. Made a huge difference. Does tennis do similar?

Tennis only knocks on posh doors. I remember Ron Pickering, what a great guy he was.

 

[Mancity1980]

I'm not talking about the actual song or the fans singing it, but the journalists like Henry Winter putting it to other players. It comes across badly, as was seen by Schmeichel's reaction. Liverpool fans have created the slogan "this means more". Imagine if Pep, or one of the City players was asked before we played Liverpool, 'how are you going to stop this team, when it clearly means more to them'? The press needs to be more professional than that.

I know you are and you are correct. It seems to me that European countries interpret it as the “arrogant English” and that means you and me pal and that is annoying.

 

[Kippax77]

Pragmatism wins tournaments. One style of play can be found out. I think what Southgate did well early in the tournament is manage the squad ready for the knockouts and alternate formations based on the opposition.

What he did well against Denmark is hold back the subs and then blow them away with our fitness in ET.

In the final fear finally gripped him. He waited too long to make subs in the 2nd half when experience should have told him Mancini finds answers and we could all see their goal was coming.

Unleashing Grealish, Saka and even Sancho for Trippier, Mount and another would have forced them to sit off or punish their pursuit of a goal.

Instead we waited and waited and whilst we got to penalties we showed no endeavour to win that game from the 2nd half to the final whistle. And that was a missed opportunity.

Deschamps and France suffered in 2016. They over committed and got caught out. In the 2018 WC they showed more balance and made amends. Let's hope we can do the same.

Don't know so much about blowing Denmark away.
Yes we were the better side for much of the game, but it was a joke of a penalty that saw us progress