England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 v 🇸🇰 Slovakia

I reckon there are probably about four or five factors that make it more or less likely for a country to be successful:

1. Size of population (likely talent pool)
2. Popularity of the sport. Is football the go to game for kids to play in the street, or do they do something else?
3. Wealth. How much money and effort can be put into developing local talent?
4. Having a strong league. Is there a history of playing high level football within a country or does any talent just disappear?
5. History of winning. Successful begats success.

charltonkeston said:

ForeverAddickted said:

charltonkeston said:

ForeverAddickted said:

Southbank said:

We have really struggled to beat 2 countries with populations of 6 million. Next we are playing a country with a population of 8 million and have to beat them. Is there anything that suggests we can improve enough to contest a big country if we ever get to play them, Germany, Spain or France? Because I have seen nothing to suggest we will.

Are you being serious lol!... thinking the overall population has an impact on the game?

We should have a bigger pool of better players to pick from. There are exceptions but the countries with large population do win more. Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Spain Argentina.

Yeah but you still only need 26-players...

I mean going by the World Population; Spain - Argentina are 33rd and 34th respectively. Sorry I cant think of a more terrible take, its genuinely laughable

What about the difference between males / females in those figures? - Age brackets?

Am actually hoping I'm being whooshed!!

No whoosh intended. To take it to another extreme would you expect San Marino to be able to pick 26 capable  players or even Scotland with about 4 million to pick from? 

Euro's has been won by countries like Denmark, Greece, Portugal and the Czechs, all of whom have populations around 10m or less, so not sure this argument carries much weight to be honest.

Stig said:

I know what this team is missing; it's England flags on cars. There are usually loads, but I haven't seen any this tournament. What's going on? Was it just a fad that's run it's course? Are people worried that they'd be misidentified as Farridge Fans? Or, is there just not the level of excitement about this team?

Didn't they used to give them away for free with The Sun? seem to remember that as a kid.

Gribbo said:

Noticed a couple of players not being too reciprocal when Southgate was going round shaking hands and hugging em on the final whistle. Toney and Foden standing out

One of the main things that has always stood out under Southgate was the 'togetherness' of his squads. Squads under previous managers have always seemed to have their own little cliques, but all of the players always seemed quite close and good mates under Southgate.

But something does seem off this time, they're playing like a side that don't want to be there and certainly don't look like they're playing for the manager.

For a side that features the PL player of the year, La Liga player of the year, Bundesliga top scorer, 2 players from Arsenal and 2 Man City defenders, to be playing this badly certainly seems to suggest something is wrong.

What I found really interesting yesterday was things looked so bleak at some points that the pundits started to turn a bit at half time, more in the direction of the manager than they have in the past, and even the commentary had a few increasing pops at Southgate for not using enough subs. Normally they're all critical of poor performances and allude to a wider issue but keep away from openly criticising Southgate but I guess they felt this was final enough that they could be clearer. Hopefully that's a good thing, he definitely has retreated into a bit of a bunker with his selections and we need the positivity back.

People will laugh but at the seconds ticked away last night my main thought was how sad it was that this was how the Southgate era would end. Good players on the pitch failing to beat a pretty poor team and the fans booing and turning on the setup. Exactly what things were like before Southgate came in and exactly what he did so much work to eradicate. Whether you like Southgate or dislike him for his defensiveness and aversion to risk he's definitely had a hugely positive impact on our overall relationship with the national team and I was sad he was going to end up getting chased out as yet another England manager who slipped on a banana peel. Switzerland is still to come but they're a decent side and we've made it to the quarters at least and have a chance of getting further still. Going out in the last 16 against Slovakia would have been a horrible note to end on.

Garrymanilow said:

What I found really interesting yesterday was things looked so bleak at some points that the pundits started to turn a bit at half time, more in the direction of the manager than they have in the past, and even the commentary had a few increasing pops at Southgate for not using enough subs. Normally they're all critical of poor performances and allude to a wider issue but keep away from openly criticising Southgate but I guess they felt this was final enough that they could be clearer. Hopefully that's a good thing, he definitely has retreated into a bit of a bunker with his selections and we need the positivity back.

People will laugh but at the seconds ticked away last night my main thought was how sad it was that this was how the Southgate era would end. Good players on the pitch failing to beat a pretty poor team and the fans booing and turning on the setup. Exactly what things were like before Southgate came in and exactly what he did so much work to eradicate. Whether you like Southgate or dislike him for his defensiveness and aversion to risk he's definitely had a hugely positive impact on our overall relationship with the national team and I was sad he was going to end up getting chased out as yet another England manager who slipped on a banana peel. Switzerland is still to come but they're a decent side and we've made it to the quarters at least and have a chance of getting further still. Going out in the last 16 against Slovakia would have been a horrible note to end on.

Yeah was my thought as well... Dixon wasn't wrong when he said that a loss yesterday, would have been as big, if not bigger than the Iceland defeat from Euro 2016.

Whether your for Southgate or against him, that would be a sad way for him to end his time as Manager - No doubt would have been what he'd have ultimately been remembered for as well.

Algarveaddick said:

Can I throw opportunities to play other sports into the ring? We are constantly in the top five or six in the world at a lot of major sports, handball and basketball being the major exceptions. We are the only country to have been world champions in cricket, football and rugby, as well as having champions in many other sports and huge success at the Olympic games. Most other countries tend to major on one or two sports.      

We’ve nailed various cycling disciplines over the last decade (and more). That’s a global sport  

Garrymanilow said:

What I found really interesting yesterday was things looked so bleak at some points that the pundits started to turn a bit at half time, more in the direction of the manager than they have in the past, and even the commentary had a few increasing pops at Southgate for not using enough subs. Normally they're all critical of poor performances and allude to a wider issue but keep away from openly criticising Southgate but I guess they felt this was final enough that they could be clearer. Hopefully that's a good thing, he definitely has retreated into a bit of a bunker with his selections and we need the positivity back.

People will laugh but at the seconds ticked away last night my main thought was how sad it was that this was how the Southgate era would end. Good players on the pitch failing to beat a pretty poor team and the fans booing and turning on the setup. Exactly what things were like before Southgate came in and exactly what he did so much work to eradicate. Whether you like Southgate or dislike him for his defensiveness and aversion to risk he's definitely had a hugely positive impact on our overall relationship with the national team and I was sad he was going to end up getting chased out as yet another England manager who slipped on a banana peel. Switzerland is still to come but they're a decent side and we've made it to the quarters at least and have a chance of getting further still. Going out in the last 16 against Slovakia would have been a horrible note to end on.

The pre-tournament expectation for this group of players was that we were one of the favourites to win it, and i think most people felt we should be reaching the semi finals as a minimum. So going out in the quarters to Switzerland would (to me anyway) also be a horrible note to end on, especially given how much our half of the draw has opened up.

Pre-tournament if you'd been offered a potential route to the final of Slovakia - Switzerland - Austria then no disrespect to those nations, everyone would've taken that and got ready for 14 July.

The chippiness of the England players is starting to irritate me. They seem genuinely surprised and disappointed that the pundits and fans aren't happy with the football England have played in this tournament.

MrOneLung said:

Toney didn't appear to celebrate when Kane scored

Neither did i!