Best team on the night won. Good fair game and OK ref so no excuses. Lots of positives to take from this tournament and this young team, but imo what caught up with us eventually was our inability to create and score from open Play.
Oh but Sterling really scares defences with his running.....
What a wasted opportunity, the early goal was in many ways the worst thing that could have happened to us.
Rather than playing cool headed football as we had done against Sweden we reverted to survival mode hoofball and lost our thread completely.
Croatia got lucky from one long ball to equalise and we never really looked like getting our football back on track and getting our platform back.
Dreadful defensive errors from Stones and Walker for the goals but the real issue was nobody in the middle of the park urging us to get it down and play rather than hoofing it.
Still, we did way better than expected but Croatia are not a great side by any means and we blew a golden chance.
Best team on the night won. Good fair game and OK ref so no excuses. Lots of positives to take from this tournament and this young team, but imo what caught up with us eventually was our inability to create and score from open Play.
Oh but Sterling really scares defences with his running.....
It will be interesting to see how many tabloids manage to make him the scapegoat.
After all, the only team we beat in normal time in that tournament was Egypt.
I still don't understand how people communicated before the internet.
Those were the days, relying on landlines and phone boxes and word of mouth. Kids these days don’t know they’re born.......
Yes but what did you do with all your free time while you waited for your carrier pigeons to deliver their messages? Were you just...alone with your thoughts?
I've long been out of love with the England team tbh but the squad Southgate has pulled together and the way he had us playing for periods across the tournament has been massively encouraging. The team have represented us brilliantly, there's been nothing to complain about their behaviour off the pitch, no arrogance or petulance on it, great team spirit and no shortage of effort and commitment on show.
When push came to shove we just came up short in terms of quality and nounce but there's plenty of positives to be taken even for a pessimistic old sod like myself.
After all, the only team we beat in normal time in that tournament was Egypt.
Well obviously before internet so we spoke with our mates and work colleagues about the great effort and chances created at both ends and how it was a great game.
This was an awful performance when it mattered. Got to the semis via an easy route and failed to capitalise. Yeah, in four years time they will have more experience but we will never have a better chance to get to a final than this year.
Teams we were good enough to beat: Tunisia, Panama, Colombia, Sweden. But as usual the fucking media and their army of willing fuckwits have hyped it up out of all proportion.
Cheer up ! We got to the semi finals of the world cup, rather than losing to Tunisia and Belgium and not getting out of the group with a load of no hoper kids...
Not disappointed with our performance or the team. Just annoyed that we went from, 'The best thing about this tournament is that we have no expectations' to 'WE'RE GOING TO WIN IT FOR WINSTON CHURCHILL AND HAROLD GODWINSON!!!' in about five days.
It's been a great tournament. And we got much further than most of us expected.
Not good enough tonight and it looked like we were the team that had played 240 minutes in our last 2 games. Too many times we were way too slow to react.
Croatia are nothing special and that game was defo winnable. Gutted.
After all, the only team we beat in normal time in that tournament was Egypt.
Well obviously before internet so we spoke with our mates and work colleagues about the great effort and chances created at both ends and how it was a great game.
This was an awful performance when it mattered. Got to the semis via an easy route and failed to capitalise. Yeah, in four years time they will have more experience but we will never have a better chance to get to a final than this year.
It wasn't awful LMAO.
we looked good first half, very good in fact that I felt comfortable... Second half we looked okay, a bit pressured but certainly not awful.
ET we fell apart having 10 men for as long as we did unsurprisingly made us look worse than we were.
Experience was the difference between two evenly matched teams from what I saw.
England did better than anyone thought pre tournament and have nothing to reproach themselves for.
Those gnarled old Croatian pros like Modric just knew a bit too much and we missed a couple of opportunities to go 2-0 up before Croatia equalised which may have changed things.
Comments
Rather than playing cool headed football as we had done against Sweden we reverted to survival mode hoofball and lost our thread completely.
Croatia got lucky from one long ball to equalise and we never really looked like getting our football back on track and getting our platform back.
Dreadful defensive errors from Stones and Walker for the goals but the real issue was nobody in the middle of the park urging us to get it down and play rather than hoofing it.
Still, we did way better than expected but Croatia are not a great side by any means and we blew a golden chance.
7-2 makes me feel much better...
When push came to shove we just came up short in terms of quality and nounce but there's plenty of positives to be taken even for a pessimistic old sod like myself.
Considering tbat was a WC semi-final, that first half was on another level, just a shame we didn't put it to bed
This was an awful performance when it mattered.
Got to the semis via an easy route and failed to capitalise. Yeah, in four years time they will have more experience but we will never have a better chance to get to a final than this year.
Not good enough tonight and it looked like we were the team that had played 240 minutes in our last 2 games. Too many times we were way too slow to react.
Croatia are nothing special and that game was defo winnable. Gutted.
we looked good first half, very good in fact that I felt comfortable... Second half we looked okay, a bit pressured but certainly not awful.
ET we fell apart having 10 men for as long as we did unsurprisingly made us look worse than we were.
England did better than anyone thought pre tournament and have nothing to reproach themselves for.
Those gnarled old Croatian pros like Modric just knew a bit too much and we missed a couple of opportunities to go 2-0 up before Croatia equalised which may have changed things.
I hope Croatia win the whole thing now.