SEE YOU! A brand spanking new modern fitba thread 2022/23

Of course. He's a nice lad. The boys like him. He's got all the right patter. He's got a nice suit and a tie. He's a lovely man.

I like Southgate. He was a fine defender and is a proud Englishman. The players obviously like him. But he's a shite manager. He's wasting the best crop of English players of the last fifty years.

MTF

 

that's so oddly specific but I can totally see it

 

To be fair to us, we had a near-identical shiter of a game against Scotland last year in the Euros. Match 2, 0-0, second best etc, and then we went on to make the final, so I'm not too downbeat. The issue I have is that we weren't creating chances, that is the big worry for me.

 

I thought the first 10-15 minutes England looked bound to score but it all came apart and they were fortunate US wasn’t able to convert.

 

Yeah, when Kane had his shot blocked I thought "here we go, turning the screw now", but then we couldn't string more than two passes together.

 

So apparently Ingerland has never beat the US and A in a World Cup. 0-2-1 record.

It's an interesting historical statistic i guess but nothing more, although there will always be some be a contingent trying to make it mean "something". I'm sure if you added together all the player's birthdays, multiplied them by the temperature at the stadium and then divided that number by some other number it would also come up with a number.

If they face each other at the next WC and England win there will be some headlines of England "beating the jinx" or some such.

 

Tbf, the teams I've always considered a "jinx" for England (outside of the big nations) have always been Portugal, Sweden (until very recently) and Romania. Obviously being European we play them more frequently and they always seem to get results against us. I don't consider the USA a hoodoo nation in the same way, and it's hard to rate them as such when we've only played them twice in competitive matches in my lifetime, but I always expect them to turn up and have a go. Which they inevitably do, similar to Scotland in that regard, I just wish the players would realise that too and pay them some respect. We were out-battled today all over the pitch, England thrive playing a high tempo and the Americans had us beat in that department today which annoyed me a lot.

 

This is exactly how I feel. Southgate seems like a genuinely good dude and like you say was an excellent footballer in his own right. As a manager I also think he deserves a ton of credit for getting England out of the doldrums we had been in since the late 90's. Plenty of managers with bigger reputations couldn't get near what he's managed to do in the last four years. The brutal facts though are that he's not the guy to get us over the line. He's far too conservative and some of his selection choices are absolutely baffling. I get why he is still in the job, we had been shit or under-achieving for a very long time, but like you say this is the best group of players we've had in fucking yonks and it might be wasted.

 

Like in boxing where it's known styles make fights, it can be somewhat like that in football too. Some sides historically play certain brands of football. (more stereotypically national teams) and perhaps that can play a part in head to head results. Some teams tend to fair better in a slow tactical matches while others will struggle as an example. Then you add to that media narratives of "Team A" has a bad record against "Team B" and perhaps some psychology can set in.

It always comes down to the quality on the pitch that day when it comes down to it. When these "struggles" cross entire generations i get more skeptical about so called jinxes. Brazil has never defeated Norway (including a loss at a World Cup) for example. Is that styles, psychology, or a statistical anomaly?

 

Is he a regular on Savile Row?

 

I'm glad someone else noticed the Norway-Brazil thing, I thought it was just me. That one was tactical. Egil Olsen was a fairly average manager but he 100% had the beating of that Brazilian side. Every day of the week. They'd actually played a couple months or so before the '98 World Cup and Norway won 4-1 or something. I watched that match live on TV and it was a masterclass.

To answer your question, I do think there is an element of a team getting the better of another team so often in succession, especially in crunch games, that it has a knock-on effect on younger generations of players. Even though they had nothing to do with the earlier games they know there's a certain type of tension there. It was that way until recently with England-Germany, Germany-Italy, Italy-Brazil etc. It can definitely build into a mental barrier.

 

Yeah, i think the mental aspect plays a part. I didn't mean to sound dismissive of it. If you take the Italy-Germany example, Germany had never defeated Italy at a major tournament.

Then in Euro 2016 where Germany is heavily favored it goes to a shootout. The supposed ruthlessly efficient side who also excel at penalties manage to only squeak by. A series of blunders the narrative would call uncharacteristic occurred. It's probably fair to say history played some part in that shootout performance. It's also fair to say that the background was irrelevant. After all every knockout game played is a 50/50.

 

Yep. Germany were extremely lucky to win that shootout and would have lost were it not for the Italians taking some truly bizarre spot kicks. Case in point:

 

That was hilariously bad, but what does taking a bad pen have to do with luck?

 

Fair point, but wasn't that one to win it? I am sure Italy had a match point, so to speak, in that shootout. I'm probably mis-remembering it but I thought that was the one to seal it. If I am right though, it is lucky for Germany that Italy picked an absolute 'tard to take that pen

 

Actually, that's a question - @whiskey , Germany's record in penalty shootouts is insanely good. They lost their very first one to Czechoslovakia in the 70's and have never lost one since. It's an absolutely mental record, surely that can't be put down to "luck"?

 

No, that was only the second penatly.

 

I don't put it only down to luck. It's literally kicking a ball into a net with a goalkeeper trying to stop it. The same spot kick when a foul is called in regular time.

From what i've read the German team started to practice penalty kicks after due to that experience. Did practicing for such a possibility improve their performance ? I would imagine so.

Do i think it's a satisfactory way of deciding matches? NO, but I also don't believe it's equivalent to random chance.

 

Sugar Ray Robinson drumming with the Sellik team! Yas

 

I was going to say that almost all of England's contemporary tournaments feature this sort of game at some point.

Algeria in 2010, Nigeria in 2002, Scotland last year, Egypt in 1990 etc etc etc

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/WillGav/status/1596126026106650625

 

What a bitter dopey Bollox.....I hope he's on the windup

 

As expected from Poland. Static mechanical play based around the overrated phenomenon of Lewandowski.

Saudi showing what footballs about today....cohesive athleticism with a strong element of drilling (football by numbers) and professionalism ( milking fouls etc.)

Years of funding and foreign influence have removed the old comical naivety (kicking the ball away, dopey fouls, panicked defending etc)

 

Poland are rubbish and boring.....the day Lewandowski adds up to dried shit on the international scene, let me know.

 

Lewandowski mobbed by 5 Saudis about 10 yards inside his OWN half.

What's the Polish gameplan? Attack from your own half?

 

Lewandowski fails to take it down, again....a frustratingly overated player.

That Saudi should be booked for the most amateurish hand ball ever.

 

Poland is shit.

 

Only one way Poland win this:- Saudis tire and Poles finally capitalize on a mistake/set pieces.

That's it. I'm saying the same about Poland as of Wales..... No business at this tournament.

Aside from that, this ref is in the tank,or just inept.

 

Apparently half the polish squad play in Italy....the slowest most pedestrian league in Europe, and it shows.