Vertigo

Sorry, I should have made myself clearer. What I meant was the worst English player.

Mojo

Ah, ok. Well, he wouldnt be top of my list but I can see why someone may say that. He was disappointing.

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Unknown Soldier

And the teams that you mentioned easily could've scraped through against England, its just the way things fell. No need to pick on Lineker for faking a foul, its like me going on about how Klinsmann used to fake fouls for Germany.

It just shows that Italy were much better at keeping the ball and passing it around, we knew that before the match even started. If they were actually a good team, they would've scored a couple of goals instead of waiting till penalty kicks.

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Mojo

Well, I think Italy are a good team. I just don't think they are anything special. I dont think they are a team that we should be fearing and to be fair to Roy, he started two up front and the lads played more than their share of attacking football and didnt show any fear in trying to beat them.

If International football was played over a 38 game season then I think Italy would show themselves to be stronger than England but it isnt, is it? Given the nature of International football you have to be strong enough to qualify, which we were, strong enough to advance from your group, which we did as winners, and strong enough to be the better team on the night in the knockouts. I don't think that we fell far short of this at all and for all their possession, Italy were not clinical enough to suggest to me that this time around, they have a far superior team to us.

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Goofle

I don't think anyone should have a problem with how Hodgson set the team up or how they played, because they did the best with the little variety in talents they have. English players are typically very one dimensional in terms of their attacking ability, and very few (all not able to play at the tournament for one reason or another) understand the art of possession, and play in a manor that allows your team to keep the ball for longer periods.

My problem is that this has been the case for a very long time, in fact, I can't remember a time when it was not a problem. Yet we still ended up going into our latest tournament with the worst England squad I have ever seen. I understand the five or six best central midfielders were not able to go (Lampard, Carrick, Barry, Wilshere and Scholes), but surely at this point in time English footballing culture should have matured a little, allowing us to produce more tactically and technically astute players that don't panic on the ball and also know where to position themselves in attack and defence, rather than sticking to the positions that they show on a graphic before the game, as if there is no room for flexibility on a football pitch.

I am not an England fan as I have stated, I don't really care how they do, but from a technical football perspective, and as an observer, I find them painful to watch at times, because I am watching players playing out of position (Gerrard) and quite frankly some god awful players compared to the top teams in the World.

The only way to change it is to focus less on the results gained (which are far from impressive anyway) and look at performance instead. Comments like "It could have gone either way" or "We were a penalty shootout away from the semis" seem to be ignoring the glaringly obvious lack in class that had been so evident throughout the match.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

Football is results based. The fact is for all their possession Italy couldn't score.
If England were totally useless like you're implying then why couldn't a team that outclassed them so much score? They were set up to play defensively and they kept a clean sheet over 120 minutes.
We know England can't keep possession for shit, we know most of the midfield is useless, Our so called best forward player has scored one goal at a tournament since 2004. But on the other hand we have hard working players who are difficult to break down and Hodgson played to that strength and got them to a quarter final. I say good for him.

Maybe your mind is too warped from watching so many Manchester Utd & Spain games where the whole team is loaded with stars all over the pitch but for the rest of the 99.9999999% of football fans who support teams who might not win every week the reason you watch it is because you want to see your team play to it's strengths and hopefully do well. That's what England did and I have no complaints.

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Goofle

I never said anyone should have complaints. You are completely ignoring my point. England are shockingly bad for a Nation with such esteem and love for football. The fact that there has been no change in style of football, or any schemes implemented to make sure coaches raise kids from an early age to at least appreciate tactics and technical ability just shocks me.

You feel what you want, it doesn't really matter because elite International football is of a very low quality compared to elite club football, and I watch a hell of a lot more club football.

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Unknown Soldier

Spain do it again after Portugal completely ran out of steam by extra time, Ronaldo mis-fired throughout the whole match and Portugal paid the price again for not having a world class forward. Now that fact is amazing, considering that Spain never even played with a centre forward yet again.

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Zaqarbal

Didn't you want an exciting game? Here you are, an exciting extra time, at last.

But I wonder: why did Spain not play like that the whole match??? Players seemed to be much less tired during the extra time. Difficult to understand.

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jackhammer

I am actually getting bored of watching Spain play. In possession they are fantastic but apart from in extra time they try to pass it into the net and are starting to look like the other bores of world football - Italy.

May my tongue turn black for saying it but I really hope Germany go through and beat Spain as they are a fantastic team and can mix and match many ways of playing.

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