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Quarterfinals : Poland/Portugal, Wales/Belgium, Germany/Italy, France/Iceland


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On 28/06/2016 at 6:52 PM, HowdyGareth Bale said:

Iceland has a chance against France. I actually think that England was the tougher opponent between the two teams because of France's weak back line

Dunno how you can delude yourself into thinking that when France has superior player at almost every position midfield wise and offensive wise. England doesn't even have a better backline, they have an overrated backline just like the rest of their teams because they all play in the premier league.

Shouldn't compare England with any of the great European nations such as Italy,France,Spain and Germany, they're nowhere near whether it is in players quality or in recent achievements.

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2 hours ago, PirateVergo said:

Shouldn't compare England with any of the great European nations such as Italy,France,Spain and Germany, they're nowhere near whether it is in players quality or in recent achievements.

I'm not sure England is all that bad when it comes to players' quality, but would agree that Italy, France, Spain and Germany are ahead.

My impression may be wrong, but it seems to me that England's main problem is they don't seem to consider this anything other than a bad day. I've seen Lineker, Shearer, Ferdinand, Crouch, Ian Wright etc. discuss the issues and they all seem to think that getting knocked out in round of 16 is a disgraceful result even though that's the range of England's results in a major tournament for the past 20 years. They've reached semifinals in Italy '90 and in England '96. Other than that, quarterfinals were their limit and on occasion they failed to advance from the group stage or even qualify.

They all seem to think that finding the right manager is all it takes. Meanwhile, instead of looking at how Germany changed youth academies and coaching and pretty much everything else to achieve their current success. Other countries have done the same, with varied success but England seem to consider throwing tons of money on facilities is all it takes and wonder why they keep getting knocked out "early".

Though every one of the former footballers I mentioned admitted that Iceland were the better team on the evening, they all treated it as if it was a result of some sort of once in a lifetime planetary alignment fluke thing instead of admitting that, at this moment in time Iceland are a better team.

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2 hours ago, baxusz said:

They all seem to think that finding the right manager is all it takes.

I think their reasoning goes like this: the Premier League is routinely ranked among the top three leagues and lots of English players play in the Premier League. Ergo, there are actually many great English players and all they're missing is somebody to pick the right ones and meld them into a team. It's hard to judge the extent to which this is true -- certainly the tactics and selection were a significant contributor to the loss to Iceland (e.g. swap Kane for Rashford 30 minutes before end of the game and the outcome might be completely different).

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The British footballing world and sports media are odd things. Even though they say they don't, they start believing and hoping before every tournament, feeling "quietly confident", reading into and interpreting various signs in their favour etc.

Then, when things go wrong, it's rarely looked at analytically and logically. The world is ending, it's this player's fault or that player's fault, the PL season is so much longer and harder than any other league, we don't have enough coaches, the players are mollycoddled, we need a foreign manager, foreign managers don't care, blah blah blah. Everyone's an expert all the fucking time, and pundits go from believing in Roy's Rovers and feeling optimistic to declaring martial law and invoking armageddon two hours later.

Tell me this; if the state of English football is so fucking terrible, so abysmal, how come no one said a fucking pip before England were eliminated? I know some people have voiced concerns (all Liverpool fans, for one, not that they care that much about England on average), but when you see Shearer, Wright et al. doing a 180 within 90 minutes, it's hard to take seriously.

What does seem undeniable to me is the influence the manager has. It's not the sole deciding factor, but if you think that Italy or Iceland would be playing as well (or, indeed, still be in the tournament) with Roy at the helm, or that this England team wouldn't be better under Conte or Lagerback, you're delusional. So while the youth system might need overhauling, and while there might need to be more and better educated English coaches, in the short term, picking a good manager seems like a pretty important thing.

Which is why, if I were an England fan, I would look at the list of likely candidates and despair. 

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1 hour ago, Mmerek Hamšzulíe said:

Tell me this; if the state of English football is so fucking terrible, so abysmal, how come no one said a fucking pip before England were eliminated? I know some people have voiced concerns (all Liverpool fans, for one, not that they care that much about England on average), but when you see Shearer, Wright et al. doing a 180 within 90 minutes, it's hard to take seriously.

Mainly because no one thinks England could actually get far in the tournament, let alone win it. I do get this optimistic delusion they MIGHT actually do something after they performed a bit better than usual but it usually turns out to be more due to other team playing a bit worse than usual.

And English football is not "so fucking terrible, so abysmal" but it's nowhere near where English media (at least) seem to think it is.

England have become a team that qualifies for major tournaments rather comfortably and advances from the group more often than not.

On the other hand, the expectations of the team is a semi-final at least even though the last one came exactly 20 years ago when they were playing at home.

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Vermaelen suspended and Vertonghen out for two months with torn ankle ligaments means that Belgium will likely start Denayer and Jordan Lukaku in defence. The backline has not looked that secure thus far and now having to make two enforced changes provides a big boost to Wales' hopes of advancing.

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18 hours ago, Notone said:

Well, Poland escaped as the lucky sides against Switzerland (who looked like the better team). 
Now they lost to an uninspiring Portugal. Oh gosh, Belgium against Portugal will be real snoozer.

Good job Belgium won't be playing portugal

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It's not only the English media. I grew up in the 1980s when the English team was not exactly great either (and the best one's in Europe were France and Holland, both with fails or bad luck at the world cup but deserved wins of the European championship) but because of the Premier League, tradition etc., England was always counted among the important teams. I am not rooting for them but I also think that it is somehow a pity that they are not doing a better job. It's like Brazil to some extent deserved to be slaughtered 7:1 in 2014 but is still horrible to behold a team with such a great tradition do so poorly.

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