Tournament got its deserved winners but a bit less caution and it was there for England. Southgate got so much right but he stood far too rigidly to the script and it cost them in the end. Maybe they wouldn't have even been in the final without sticking to his script, but once they got there he need the bollocks to be willing to trust your attacking players and risk losing and he let himself down on that score. Kane looked like he was really at the races for the first half an hour but their tactics took him out of the game. Football in general seems to have a problem with overthinking penalties, it used to be 95% of takers would just run up and trust themselves to score,now everybody has a special technique. Southgate and his staff will have done a huge amount of analysis on penos and I think they may have read the study I did a couple of weeks ago, one of the biggest ever done on penalty shootouts. Because what stuck out for me is that younger players with little or no experience of shootouts have a better success rate than older players. He sent up 3 young players for their last 3,put two of them on with a minute to go just to take a peno. A study like that can't take into account a particular nations hang up with shootouts and I don't care what the stats say,you don't send on two players with only a minute left and zero chance to be part of the game to be in your first 5, and you definitely don't send up a kid who's never taken a senior penalty for the most important kick in your countries history(well in the last 55 years anyway). Maybe I'm wrong and it was simply a case of picking the 5 who looked the best in training, but whatever it was it still looked like another area where they were overcoached.
Read the same study and thought the same as you when I saw the young lads. I'm sure there was more behind it than just their youth but it certainly could have influenced Southgate's decision. I honestly think a lot of the findings in the study were just coincidence (not the word I'm looking for) as opposed to evidence as to what works best.
Personally I wouldn't have trusted Sterling. I thought he looked spent at the end of the game. I think the penalties are being over analysed by the British media tbh.
That was there for winning if he had the balls to go and grab it. Italy changed their entire front 5, England brought on 2. Foden, Sancho, Grealish and Rashford are significantly better than what Italy had to call on, they are also significantly better than Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling when they have another 100 minutes in the legs. They will never get a better chance to win a major competition, at home to a decent Italian side, no more than that.
It was a very fitting end to what was a wonderful tournament from start to finish. England have a lot of young high quality players who will grow into a very good international team, probably weak in the middle and nets but otherwise it's world class quality everywhere. I think Southgate has done a great job to instill confidence and has a team that now believe they. Can compete for major honours. That being said I think he showed his limitations last night, Italy were there for the taking early on yesterday and he needed to push their advantage and break the Italian spirit but they receded into themselves and invited Italy into the game. The racist abuse on social media is cruel, Johnson and Pratel can piss off with their feigned disgust at this, they've fanned these flames over the last few weeks so can't take the other side now. I hope Sterling smashes them for this double standard.
Interesting to read the posts here about penalty studies. Has anyone got a link to it? I was and still am flabbergasted at the decision on the 5th taker. Whatever about the subs "coming up cold" to take them no issues with that. Whether you've played 120 mins or 60 seconds previously to the kicking of a ball a few yards to goal has no bearing in my eye's. A 19 year old with relatively no experience stepping up to take the countries most important penalty in their history is something I'll never wrap my head around. I can't see reading up on a study changing that either to be honest. It's clichéd but England really did score too early. His call to go with wingbacks stumped Mancini for 20 minutes or so and after that he lacked the courage to go win the game. They could have done with much better support in the stadium. Sensing a silent anxious crowd most of the game didn't help I'm sure and they deserved better than that.
While I haven't seen any of that abuse, I did think at the time, that it was unfortunate that the players who missed were of colour because I had no doubt it would bring out the scum on social media.
Priti Patel out denouncing racism days after saying fans have the right to boo their own players taking the knee. She has no shame. She happily fanned the flames for this playing up to their right wing voters. Power above everything.
England's last 2 performance in tournaments has given Southgate at least another World Cup and Euros as manager. He got lucky in both with the runs they had and with this Euros practically being a home tournament but he's not an elite manager. Players like Kane, Henderson and Maguire are in their prime years and will suffer with him being the English manager over next few tournaments. Give them a top manager now and they could something special especially with the young players they have. I said it at the time that Belgium will waste their best years with Martinez as manager and I think the same here.
Some other member of parliament denouncing the racist tweets and used the full racist word in her tweet, the lack of awareness is unreal.
I'd have to disagree. The adrenaline rush you get when you enter a game like that takes time to dissipate. If you can avoid it, you don't want too much adrenaline when taking a penalty. It can also often take time to settle into a game, and not having the chance to do that can also be a disadvantage. Anybody who's taken penalties has had times when he felt really comfortable and times when he didn't feel as comfortable with the situation. There's probably a million things that can contribute to that. The full 120 minutes will be a tired player coming up to take one,and that can be a disadvantage. But of course players in any of those scenarios can and mostly do,score their penalties and most of the time it's impossible for us watching to know whether any of those things have impacted on a player missing or not. For two of them,all it took was the keeper guessing wrong and they look like good penalties. I definitely think Southgate tried to control too much of the shoot out though. Jack Grealish wanted one and I'd be very surprised if there wasn't at least one player who would have given up their go to Grealish,but it wasn't an option.
Rashford was stripped and ready at the beginning of the 2nd half of extra time. He was brought on with 1 minute left and thrown in at right back. I felt sorry for him and Sancho at that moment, I was sure one of them was going miss and if it was the first of them then the 2nd one became highly likely to miss too. It was terrible management, if Sterling wasn't taking one then why leave him out there? Give Rashford or Sancho 15 minutes and that increases the likelihood of them scoring. I'm sure Solksjaer done the same in the Europa League final, it's a shit idea.
I'd agree with this. Southgate for another 2 years at least is what everyone outside England should want. On paper he'll go down as a great England manager but really he is far from that.
With all bar 1 of their games at home, with fans, and by FAR the easier run to the final this whole "brave, unlucky us" bit is a bit rich. Italy have played the same formation and tactics for the last 2 years, so nothing they came out with should have shocked or surprised England. Southgate is an average manager at best, who is blessed to have the talent he has to call upon. Have to think that all the swapping between 4 and 5 at the back was a mistake and smacks of trying to not lose rather than win. He went with wingbacks and for 15-20 minutes Italy were on the back foot. Once Italy adjusted they more or less negated the wingback and midfield, with Kane and Sterling (apart from the obligatory dives) negated themselves. I suppose England thought the game was made for them once they got the early goal - sit back and hit them on the break - except they seemed to forget the second part of it, and the longer it went only one team was trying to win, while the other just are trying not to lose. I really wanted that peno Pickford saved onto the post to bounce back in off the back of his head, but I'll settle for him making 2 saves and still having to watch his team-mates contrive to mess it up. Of course the moronic element of the English "support" made itself well known, from gathering in huge numbers, to attacking police, breaking into Wembley (thought THAT one would be buttoned up), busting up cars and then the appalling stuff on line after the shootout - which unfortunately pretty much everyone knew would happen because of who missed the kicks. Cant recall which it was but one of Facebook or Twitter in their "we stopped as much as we could" blurb suggested that people (obviously directed at players targeted) use some option on the platform that blocks certain words for posts/tweets. Thats really taking the problem on head first isnt it.
They can do what they want with their medal but I thought it was fairly pathetic that all the players that removed their medal managed to do it in the two feet that they were within camera shot. Was that just a coincidence? I don't think so. Fairly managed show of look at me I don't care about coming second, this means so much to me. Thought it was transparent and staged. The guys who actually had won something in their careers were the ones who left them on and there is no way those players will be throwing that medal away, I'm sure it will be in a treasured spot in their mansion framed with their England jersey. If they do throw them in the bin after, I will stand corrected. I bloody doubt it though.
I suppose fans and media are to blame as much as players are with the way we over-analyse everything, but players do always seem aware there's a camera on them and act accordingly. I couldn't care less if they make a show of taking off their runner up medal, but I do think at least some of them did make a show. Maybe it's just exuberance and I'm being unfair to him,but I get a large bang of Beckham type behaviour from Rice, in that he always seems to be playing to the crowd or the camera. Remember Fowler said Beckham would kill himself to get to a player to celebrate to make sure he was in the photos? I find Rice a bit like that,loves a gesture to gee up the crowd too. I'm always a bit weary of players who are overfond of that.....and keepers who get up shouting every single time they're called on to do everything.