To ask why the England team (the men) keep falling at the final hurdle, (well virtually at the final hurdle,) at the football World Cup ... and The Euros too?

not as much hunger as argentina.

argentina attacked over and over. England barely attacked at all

Indeed. If you read it more than once it's even bigger bollocks. What was your favourite bit? The conflation with 'England' and 'the British' was quite good. Although I must admit I do like the idea of all the up-and-coming footballers tuned into Radio 4.

Self-loathing.

The British left hate Britain. Above all, they hate England and Englishness. I remember reading an interview with the ‘comedian’ Alexi Sayle (very left-wing) in which he said “this country needs to lose a war.” That was years ago, yet I have never forgotten it. It reveals what really goes on in the minds of the British left. Just listen to people like Will Self or Stewart Lee for five minutes. They hate England so much they can hardly get the words out.

Unfortunately, the left have a massive influence. They run academia, the BBC, the arts and the publishing industry. Radio 4 can’t even mention Jane Austen without linking her to colonialism. People absorb, or internalise, that hatred, and our footballers are no exception. When they come up against mediocre sides like Mexico, it’s not a problem. But when it is 1-1 in a semi-final against Argentina, the urge to go that extra mile just isn’t there. My grandparents never said anything patriotic, because they didn’t need to. They’d grown up in a country that had such a deep-rooted sense of history and culture and identity and pride that there was no need to wave flags. All that has gone. To be honest, the drip drip effect of leftist thinking has even worked on me. Frankly, I don’t give a sh*t that England lost either.

Because the Argentinian player was laughing, celebrating in his face.

It was almost looking like a re run of all other England managers who get the team so far and then just blow it with sitting back and parking the bus. Or they lose on penalties.

There are 100’s of videos of him being a really kind person, naturally friendly and loved.
It looks like he’s had a moment of frustration as the other player took the mike out of him.
You can do 100 good things and one bad, doesn’t make him a bad person.

Why would you do that to yourself?

Watching the awful decisions live was bad enough but watching them again the next day? You absolute masochist

I agree !

It's the way tournaments work. You play the harder teams in the later stages and they are more likely to beat you. Even if it is somewhat stating the obvious.

Evey now and then a highly ranked team screws up or puts in an anomalous performance than means they meet another highly ranked team in the early stages, but mostly it works out the way you would expect it to.

This time the finalists are who you would expect them to be, as are the semi finalists. The quarter finalists 2 were outside the top 8, but all in the top twenty. The round of 16 only 4 were outside the top 20. Etc.

There are always a few surprises, but if we didn't have those there would be no need to change the table.

Exactly. Only one team can win the World Cup but that hardly means that all the others have failed. A semi-final place is a great achievement.

I have a veiw in that they are paid extremely well at a very young age. They get into trouble with this level of responsibility around the millions they earn.

This means they arent as hungrey as players from other countries. We treat football as religion (along with the NHS!) and there were grown men crying into their beer last night

The players just dont want it as much as other countries do.

It is basically the plot of Dear England playing out in front of our eyes!

If you haven’t seen the play then sorry for the spoilers. The plot is about how disfunctional the England team were, how they didn’t work together, even to the point of not practising penalties ( and we all know how that has played out for England in the past) , etc etc etc.

In the play, which yes , is fiction based loosely on fact, Gareth Southgate manages to pull them together into a team, they still don’t win, but they feel better about it. 🙁Maybe if Southgate was still manager then things might have worked out differently, but he wasn’t and they didn’t. But as others have said, getting to the last four is a huge achievement, a damn sight better than a lot of teams who on paper were more favoured.

I hope they can be gracious in defeat and play the third place game with dignity, though personally I think it is a mean thing to make the losing teams do and it would be better to let them go home and re group.

ps if you get the chance to see Dear England on stage then do, it is a terrific play, far better than it sounds!

I’m Welsh so can be objective- to be blunt they just weren’t good enough to beat Argentina.
You can have the best strategy/overcome nerves and all the rest of it all you want but at the end of the day sometimes the other team are just stronger.
When Wales get in the World Cup we are just super proud of them for getting there and aren’t expecting them to win the whole tournament so just happy to see them there however far they get.
Maybe England fans should try that - England have done really well in this WC so be proud of them for reaching the semis. They lost out to a stronger team, they still played well and deserve respect and praise for that.

What I want to know is why is Jude Bellingham so rude? I saw him slap the back of an Argentinian player’s neck at the end of the match. Not into football here but I saw the end.

Because it was the wrong move at that time .

Well said.

I would like to see "Three Lions" consigned to the bin, but New Order should definitely have another crack at a song or update their original.
And get rid of Beckham as 'ambassador', money grabbing/attention loving hanger-on. Why not have a Lioness there as an ambassador? Surely they would have more relevance in terms of age and success.

I'm watching it again now from 56 mins in we start to dimmish as we come under relentless arge attack...and the game becomes smaller and smaller

They're not 'falling', they're losing to genuinely BETTER teams!

We do not currently have the best International squad in the footballing World and hence we are beaten by those who do.

Spain, Argentina and France are better teams.

Don't be surprised if we lose on Saturday, too.

They aren’t very good, but for some reason the English can’t accept that. They don’t play well as a team, if they could bottle half the spirit of a team like Cape Verde they might be in with a better chance.

I’ll hand it to them though, they seem to find a new way to lose every time!

This is the gutting part.

I agree and I wish they'd stop playing that song on the radio everytime England had a match I'm sure it's jinxed! (joking in case someone decides to have a go)

Exactly this. When France lost to Spain there was disappointment from French fans and the media - but they were largely frustrated and not hostile like the English fans and media.

Even Tuchel - he was hailed a genius putting Dan Burn on at the end of the Mexico and Norway matches - Burn was our 'secret weapon' according to the media - yet Tuchel the same last night and now (of course) he's an idiot. I do wonder if he hadn't made the defensive changes and Argentina had still won (highly likely) would the fans and the media be saying 'Where the heck was Dan Burn?' Probably ...

Pray tell which world-beaters Argentina played on their way to the final. They barely got past Egypt with some cheating and help from referees, yet none if their fans rip into them for an easy draw.

Playing Mexico in a he Azteka is definitely not an easy draw!!!

England haven't underperformed. There are simply better teams. There can only be a one winner and while FIFA rankings are not always a great indicator, the fact that England has never been ranked number one indicated that they've not been the best team in the world. They are currently ranked number 4 and they've made it to top 4.

The way the draw lands mean England tend to always get fairly easy teams to initially compete against. Then when they get further they fail because they just aren’t as good as they think they are and the other teams are better.

FTFY.