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Post by Buttler on Jul 12, 2021 17:23:25 GMT
Unbelievable night... We are still celebrating!
Congratulations to Argentina on winning Copa América!
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Post by queenofthehours on Jul 12, 2021 20:02:27 GMT
Oh dear! Sadly we lost the final but let's move on, it's the World Cup next year - this is only a warm up. Gareth Southgate must surely be the best England manager in over 50 years because the team has had greater success in this tournament than ever before. The whole team did a terrific job. We beat Germany and we got to the final, that’s surely enough treats anybody. Winning would just have been greedy. We are not in a Hollywood movie, life doesn’t work that way. Just because we overcame great hurdles doesn’t mean we should expect to win the prize. The team is young and a devastating loss is great practice for them. We have not gotten this close to a prize for so long how can England learn how to win if they don’t suffer on the way? A team that regularly gets to major finals and never wins is another matter. I'll not have anyone knocking England until we've lost five finals not just one.
I thought Italy were the better team even though they seemed to be collecting yellow cards like they were Panini stickers. If we hadn't faced Italy I think we might have had a better chance at winning.
I wasn't even 100% invested in the game. I've gone off football. I'm not the footie-mad 13 year old I was in 1996, I'm more interested the Tour de France now and I don't know who any of the current players are. However, I was lured in, lured back in, with the unfeasible promise of glory. The idea of missing the game occurred to me, or I thought I might just tune in for the second half if we looked like we could win. But I didn't. I put myself through the whole thing mainly because I wanted to say I remembered where I was when football came home.
Not that I really believed we'd ever win. I just let myself hope for one night which was an interesting experiment. Maybe age helps but I’m not particularly downhearted at the loss. I didn’t feel the defeat as deeply as I did in 1996. I'm not mad that England lost, I'm just mad I had to watch it.
I managed to watch the penalties until Rashford's and then had to leave the room which I didn't think I'd have to do. I last left the room during a football match in 1997. I'd already reasoned with myself that I'm a grown-up now, I'll stick it out. But I couldn't. The tension was too much. I'm too old for all this! I'm too old for all this stress! Football is supposed to be a pleasure.
At least we didn't lose the actual game - that was a draw, it was the penalties we lost on and penalties aren't real football at all. But goodness Maguire’s penalty was good, it broke the camera! That was my match highlight. Also Pickford was pretty good if a little shouty.
25 years ago what would anyone have said if told that Gareth Southgate, he who missed the all-important penalty in 1996, would be leading the team to a European final? I know I wouldn't have been able to comprehend it. Seeing him comforting Saka reminded me of when Terry Venables comforted Gareth. I think we can have a lot to look forward to, especially from Saka now he's gone through the rite of passage that is the missed penalty. There's nothing wrong with losing now we know we can do better next time.
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Post by Timeblue on Jul 12, 2021 20:12:29 GMT
Great synopsis, it bodes well for the future...
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Post by dillwyn on Jul 12, 2021 21:30:49 GMT
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Post by Helmut83 on Jul 13, 2021 1:33:03 GMT
Unbelievable night... We are still celebrating!
I saw a few videos of the celebrations in Italy... insane! Much more intense -and dangerous- than ours! (and also NSFW)
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Post by Helmut83 on Jul 13, 2021 1:44:25 GMT
I managed to watch the penalties until Rashford's and then had to leave the room which I didn't think I'd have to do. I last left the room during a football match in 1997. I'd already reasoned with myself that I'm a grown-up now, I'll stick it out. But I couldn't. The tension was too much. I'm too old for all this! I'm too old for all this stress! Football is supposed to be a pleasure. Haha... Football is a pleasure to watch when your team is not involved. For example, I was able to watch the Euros final relaxed and enjoying it, as I didn't have a horse in that race, so in my case it was indeed a pleasure. However, if it's your team out there, battling for every ball in the fine line between full glory and a second place, it's not pleasurable at all. As Jeff would say: "it's unreal, the suffering". Pickford is very shouty and bossy, it's true; but goalkeepers have to be like that if they want to keep their defense in order and instill confidence on them. In my opinion he is an incredible keeper, top 3 in the world right now probably, despite being quite a short man for that position.
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Post by dillwyn on Jul 13, 2021 15:42:13 GMT
It rumbles on and on, a day of news headlines of racist tweets/reactions and now this www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57823364I believe 65000 100,000 people have also signed a petition to get the game re-played... what an earth? apparently they want it replayed with an unbiased ref? Please don't bring the World Cup to the UK....
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Post by Helmut83 on Jul 13, 2021 23:25:19 GMT
I believe 65000 100,000 people have also signed a petition to get the game re-played... what an earth? apparently they want it replayed with an unbiased ref It seems to me that if there's one game that should be replayed with an unbiased ref, that's the semifinal England vs Denmark.
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Post by queenofthehours on Jul 16, 2021 14:24:06 GMT
After Gareth Southgate missed his Euro 96 penalty it was good to see this advert appear. It lightened the mood and kind of drew a line under the event.
I think we need another ad featuring the current team. It would help break some of the tension that's built up over the last week. However, would it work like it did in 1996? We have social media now and everything has turned very nasty with all the racist comments. Is it possible to take a lighthearted look at anything anymore when social media is here to make everything 10x worse and make bad things last longer than they should?
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Post by Buttler on Jul 16, 2021 15:27:47 GMT
Chiellini vs Saka meme are everywhere...
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Post by vlogdance on Jul 16, 2021 21:28:03 GMT
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Post by Helmut83 on Jul 17, 2021 7:26:01 GMT
Chiellini vs Saka meme are everywhere... That play was comedy stuff. I was watching the game with my family and we all burst out laughing when that happened. Here, so you can enjoy this piece of art of fouling once again, from different angles:
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Post by Helmut83 on Jul 17, 2021 7:45:49 GMT
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Post by queenofthehours on Jul 19, 2021 12:12:06 GMT
Chiellini vs Saka meme are everywhere... That play was comedy stuff. I was watching the game with my family and we all burst out laughing when that happened. Here, so you can enjoy this piece of art of fouling once again, from different angles: I last saw this kind of thing in the primary school playground.
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Post by Timeblue on Aug 7, 2021 12:08:21 GMT
Just reading about Terry Cooper dying recently. I find it astonishing that LUFC have lost so many former stars in such a short space of time, there aren't many players left from that period of time when they were the dominant team.
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