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?

[GorgeousSpringtime]

Not an England-team bashing thread, but why, oh WHY do they - the men - keep falling at the final hurdle (well, virtually the final hurdle,) every time at the football (soccer) World Cup - and the Euro Cup too...?

They do so well, and get so far, and then BANG they're out. Nearly always in the top 8, or top 4, (and the top 2, in the World Cup once, and a couple of times in the Euros I think,) but never the winner. (Not since 1966 anyway!)

Is it nerves? Is it that they're so anxious to win that they keep making silly mistakes? Are they just not quite good enough? WHAT IS IT? Why do they keep getting so close, but just never manage to get the win?!

As I said, I am not bashing them, and they did well, and I am proud of them, but I just get so frustrated that they can't quite ever get the win!

!

By the semi finals you will always meet one of the three other best teams in the world. Seeding won't change that.

I agree. When Spain were one goal up against France they spent the rest of the game trying to get more goals.

They’re not as good as they think they are. It’s as simple as that really.

Yes, they did do really well, and I was a bit disappointed that their manager berated them after the beat Norway. I wonder if that made them feel a bit 'down.'

Because:
a) they aren’t hands down the best team, AND
b) they used the wrong tactics.

Even a team that isn’t technically the best on pitch can win if they have a little luck and if they absolutely give it everything they’ve got and fight for it every inch of the way. England got their first goal and then moved to cautious defensive play. I think this would be an easier loss for fans to swallow if they could see England had left everything they had on the pitch, but were still bested by a superior team.

And I’m saying this as someone who couldn’t care less about football 😆

Because they didn't put fresher players on later in the game, like Argentina did. So all the tired players got more tired playing to the end. That's my take anyway; didn't even watch it. My teenage daughter and I went to the park and had a great workout because nobody was there!

Well. The first seed was Spain and the second seed was Argentina. France were third and England fourth. One might say we are exactly where we should expect to be.

A large dollop of it is the pressure though. Relentless crap from fans and the media about avenging Maradona in 1986 when nobody in the team was even born then.

I've been saying this for years, but for my money it's because our regional teams buy in far too many foreign players.

Come the world cup all of the overseas players go and play for their home country, and England is left with half the pool to pick from.

We could have a team stuffed with top talent if we stopped investing so much in overseas players at a regional level.

Last night playing for Argentina were:

Christina Romero - Tottenham
Enzo Fernandez - Arsenal
Emiliano Martinez - Aston Villa
Alexis Max Allister - Liverpool
Lisandro Martinez - Man U

Conversely, only two of the England starting lineup play overseas at the moment - Kane and Bellingham.

I've said for years that we have a major problem with clubs not investing in enough home grown talent and taking the easy route of buying in players from other countries, which costs us dearly in international tournaments - because come the day all of that talent English clubs buy in and train then goes home and plays against England!

This is exactly what DH said.

Totally agree with everything you’ve said. Trying to work out though why Messi is so incredibly dislikeable. He makes my skin crawl - and my teen son has a similar reaction.

I agree with this. I'm not really into football but watching last night you've put into words exactly what I observed. Argentina wanted that ball and played it with everything they had. They also have Lionel Messi, even I can see he's in a league of his own, a very intelligent and superbly skilled player.
I also think the previous match played at altitude and the heat means England were very likely exhausted. I've trekked at altitude in South America and it is brutal without acclimitisation (typically 3-6 weeks).

The other team last night massively hindered our momentum with all their stupid shirt tugging and fouls.

horrible team - come on Spain

Yeah. It says something when your most dynamic players are Djed Spence (nearly got relegated with Spurs) and Anthony Gordon who finished 12th with Newcastle.

I didn’t watch the game. Not because I am unpatriotic. I would love England to win the World Cup again.
I haven’t watched any of it because it is not a normal tournament.
It is organised by FIFA and Trump.
Argentina. The president is best buddies with Trump.

Argentina are a very good team. Who have one of the most able at scoring footballers in the world. Old these days but can still score. Although he did miss a penalty in one of the previous matches.

England by all accounts dropped their aggressive play from previous matches. And went defensive. Which wasn’t how they had so far played.
The players will now have lost faith in the manager.

All of this. Bad tactics along with a ref who wasn’t on our side (literally!)

I don’t get this attitude. It’s not a failing to lose at the World Cup semi finals. Ask any Irish person about the World Cup 1990 - we got to the quarter finals and the whole country rejoiced, it was the absolute best time ti be alive. There were 50k people at the airport when the team returned.

Last night it was purely tactical. We outplayed them for 72 minutes until the subs were made. Tuchel panicked and should rightly be sacked.

Most of their team made me feel this way to be frank. They played like utter hooligans.

You can't "work out" something like that, it's not like mathematics. He's not good looking, but he doesn't make my skin crawl.

Touchel lost the game for them. He took a massive gamble and it didn’t pay off. Well done though lads xx

Could it just be that that is their standard. The other teams are better. They’re not at a top place standard, instead they are consistently sitting around 5th/6th etc. It baffles me that every time it’s made out that the team are better than they actually are, with a big part of it just being supporters, press etc getting their hopes up. But they’ve been out performed by a team that was expected to out perform them so it really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

it would be different if they kept getting to the actual final and never won against different teams, I would understand the confusion a bit more then. But they don’t, because they’re not one of the best teams.

They weren’t berated if you go back and listen to it - it was the ridiculous interviewer trying to stir things up.

Well, why do you think? They were beaten by a better team, a very aggressive team who weren't going to back down. They still got incredibly far so not sure why you're denigrating that.

This. Last night it was bad management / strategy. They went into defensive mode, took off rice and brought on defenders instead of bringing on more attaching players like Saka or madueke.

Also heard Barco was slagging Bellingham off in Spanish, maybe not knowing Bellingham speaks the language fluently hence him whacking him on the back of the head after the match.