Russia World Cup 2018

  • Thread starter Thread starter zzeezzy
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Lets just put into context, due to England's recent record, people even doubted whether we could before this World Cup even get out of the group. That's how low peoples expectations were for this side and the optimism going into the tournament. Then we face Colombia in last 16, with England's record of not winning a knockout game for 12 years and not winning a penalty shootout for 22 years was a monumental achievement. Then reaching our first semi-final in 28 years I believe beating a Swedish team who England had a terrible record against. Only winning 2 competitive matches in 7 against Sweden before yesterday.

So yes I understand that on paper it has been a favourable run (but no team is in knockout rounds because they don't deserve it), lets just remember the context of how low England have been for the last decade or two. these types of teams are the ones you have to beat to make it further in the competition and England simply haven't done so before now.

It has been a great World Cup for England for these reasons and the fans are now back behind the team. A year ago in qualifying fans were taunting the team and throwing paper airplanes on the pitch..... Southgate has restored that somehow when it didn't even seem salvageable.
 
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Yeah Southgate made a huge a difference in how your team is perceived.

For as long as I remember everybody always hates England's team because your match going fans are insufferable wankers and your media always acts as if rest of the world somehow owes you the cup. But this is the first England lineup that actually slowly wins the hearts of neutral fans, and a lot that is thanks to Southgate who is a likeable character and says all the right things.

He needs to ditch that ridiculous waistcoat, though. The only time when it's appropriate to wear a waistcoat is if you're a waiter.
 
Theatre of Dreams83 said:
Tbh I got admit I had absolutely no faith in Southgate but he’s shut me up!
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I wasn't keen on Southgate either but I has never really followed England U21's and I knew he had not done very well at Middlesborough.

If anything I think this just goes to show that good managers at international level aren't necessarily tactical masters or making of good club managers, however with the short time they have can aspire a team and create a great environment for players to thrive in.

thinking back to when England was on the mission of hiring 'foreign proven manager' like Capello/Sven etc they didn't become bad overnight. It was just that they couldn't control media and therefore it was toxic environment that players who were already under pressure couldn't perform.

Having said all this I still think this semi-final is massive and we really do need to take advantage of this while we can. Croatia are no mugs obviously, but it's as good opportunity as we'll ever get.
 
Tyton said:
He needs to ditch that ridiculous waistcoat, though. The only time when it's appropriate to wear a waistcoat is if you're a waiter.
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He's lead to a huge increase in the number of waistcoats in England apparently, so more than just waiters will be wearing them here. I was sceptical of him but Southgate has been really good especially at looking outside football a bit for new ideas which has helped our set pieces.

In a way I feel that Croatia are like England teams of the last couple world cups if you named the players in the team people would be quite scared of them but when you show them footage of them playing you become bit less scared as they never quite seem to gel as a team.
 
Jordan Henderson injury doubt for England vs Croatia. Holy moly, he is absolutely huge for this England team.
 
Squad has a clean bill of health for Wednesday. Everybody trained including Henderson and Vardy.
 
You know **** just got real when gramps is closely following the team news.
 
Just read that England are unbeaten in the last 30 games that Henderson has played in dating back to just after the 2014 World Cup. Impressive run of results shows how important he is even if some of the 30 games will have been teams like San Marino and Malta
 
Tyton said:
You know **** just got real when gramps is closely following the team news.
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Which is bad-because normally when I watch a semi final bad things happen lol.
 
Maggie was still a PM last time you watched a semi-final with England in it!
 
The Russian fans might actually be supporting England this match since the Croatian players did the Ukranian thing.

E: I expect a boring match today, unless Belgium scores first and soon, just like against Brazil. Doubt any of the teams would like to give a lot of space in their back
 
ninjaskill said:
Just read that England are unbeaten in the last 30 games that Henderson has played in dating back to just after the 2014 World Cup. Impressive run of results shows how important he is even if some of the 30 games will have been teams like San Marino and Malta
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These types of records are just begging to be broken, please save them for after this semi-final as it seems more like a curse :P
 
Spot on tactics from Martinez again, he has that midfield locked down.
 
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