England ‘due a bad one’ after riding our luck under Southgate | OneFootball

England beating Costa Rica has fooled nobody; after years of over-achievement, they might be due a fall.

England can win the World Cup? Really?

1. You have just lost the most successful manager the country has had in your lifetime. Tuchel hasn’t really had much time with the squad at all and is completely unproven in international football.

2. You’re suggesting Southgate played players out of position? Can you name who? Foden has played half his career at City as a left winger and he’s the only one I can kinda see that you could refer to.

3. Fair enough, the players are good. They’re always good.

4. Yep you have some world class players, like other countries.

5, The team picks itself doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. It’s just what we know Tuchel will go for. We know England will play those centre backs because there aren’t any other notable ones to pick. Saka plays because every other RW isn’t good enough and so on.

France – World Cup winning manager. Got to the final last time where he knocked out England. There is no Mbappe curse in the World Cup. He’s one of the best World Cup players of all time. He’s got to the final both times and has produced. They are definitely better than England.

Spain – It doesn’t matter if Rodri is injured. We see how that went at the Euros for England. Yamal half fit is still world class.

Portugal – They’re about England’s level. They’ve a better midfield and arguably a better defence. This is Premier League bias from you.

Argentina – What? They’ve won the last two Copa Americas and World Cup. They’re quite obviously better than England.

Germany – Is Havertz and Neuer meant to be bad players? I don’t think they’re particularly better than England but it’s even enough.

I think English people look at their team in a completely different way to what people outside of England would.

Imagine a South American, European or anyone looking at that team. They would dismiss people like Pickford, Konsa, Guehi, O Reilly, Anderson immediately. These players are obviously good to use who watch the Premier League every week but on a global scale they’re absolute nobody’s. People in Brazil won’t have any interest in overhyping Maguire because he’s played well for 4 months. They’re stressed out because players like Paqueta and Bruno Guimaires are playing for ‘small’ teams in Europe. Dion

Reasons to be fearful for this World Cup

I was trying to put my finger on why the hype for this tournament is so low. Everyone seems a bit muted. When you look at it on paper it makes little sense. We have a team that has made the final two of the last three major tournaments, we have the most in-form striker in Europe. We have battle-tested players and a team that looks more balanced than previous years. So why so glum?

I think it’s because, deep down, we all know we are due a bad one. We rode our luck in both Euros, we don’t have a huge amount of depth in defence, and we still haven’t had a real statement win since maybe Germany in Euro 2020. Can we win it? Yeah, at a push. Will we? Most likely not. But I remember when Southgate left, thinking that we’d miss his era, because we had some great nights. I hope I’m wrong, and I hope we can actually get a famous victory or two before falling on our sword.

Either way, it’s the World Cup. Let’s enjoy it. Keith. Worthing

On the World Cup bandwagon

Badwolf, I changed my mind. This exact line-up and exact subs at the exact same times and we absolutely f***ing walk it.

Oh, and the new laws, being implemented hamfistedly, obviously, look like they’ll improve the spectacle no end too. RHT/TS x

(Dead cert Tony Gord has been endlessly practicing that exact pen & preceding ostentatious breathing exercise in a Barca shirt in his back yard for the last two weeks).

Anthony Gordon and the drama

Just a quick question, does anyone else get annoyed with Anthony Gordon’s theatrics when looking for a foul, I for one am glad to see him leave the Premier league..,on that note, is there any other player, that just seems to get away with such? Another I can think of is Bernardo Silva’s dirty play. I digress the play acting needs to be punished, such as holding one’s face when clearly contact wasn’t even made. It’s just petty, but so is my rant I guess, as nothing will change in regards to players ‘play acting’.

(Truly hope for an enjoyable World Cup). Leonidas

An England simulation

The 10 year old recently did an England run through a World Cup from the latest updates on a well known console game.

We had Kane on for 10 minutes in every game as a starter by tried shifting players around the front end. When Kane came off Bellingham suddenly started romping around. The kid shifted Gordon in as striker and stared Madueke instead of Saka. Saka was brought into the final match and scored a late brace after Gordon got a brace.

If the metrics are right on the game, Kane is a sort of problem. He appears to sit on the England attack as much as he helps. We also found that Oreilly was pretty good and we had Spence sprint forward into overlaps. Kane did get early goals from Madueke excellent crosses and dribbles on the tounchline, but the team came alive when Kane came off at half time. Their maths can’t be far off surely?

Saka was a dynamic striker so was Gordon when they were rotated in. Bellingham really opened up the game when Kane came off. Very disturbing sort of simulation for Tuchel. Dan McG LFC

Big love for the World Cup group stages

I’m on record as a big Dave Tickner fan, and the Haiti-Scotland entry in his World Cup Group Stage article is a classic. But speaking as a World Cup obsessive since 1966, all group-stage games have World Cup group-stage energy.

In fact, for me the best thing about the tournament is the group stage, where you can get silly results, unusual heroes, and a full dose of the smaller nations, and you have to keep all the permutations in your mind so you can recite them to your wife when she asks what’s going on (although f**k the 48-team format).

And he can’t remember the 1998 Mexico-South Korea game? The one with the Cuauhtemiña? The one where Ha Seok-ju scored and was red-carded three minutes later on the “no-tackle-from-behind” rule that had just been instituted? The one with a superb game-winning brace from Luis “El Matador” Hernández? Shame on him. (Unless he was too young, in which case shame on him for not watching the videos.) Peter G, Pennsylvania, USA (come on Mexico, Canada, Panama, Haiti, Curaçao, Iran, Scotland, and England!)

Some World Cup charm

It’s 8:31pm here, Mombasa, Kenya. I’m at pub staggering distance from my house and footy talk is on. It’s the eve of a fkn world cup! I am slightly tipsy after a long day at work at a tea packing factory with a few lads from work after a long day packing tea that will end up in the shelves of some of your readers. Yes we pack the final product for LIDL, Morrison’s, ASDA, Lipton’s, name it it’s all finished here now…live with it.

As the guys here talk and anticipate and predict, I find myself thinking…has there been a WC that I have felt so little about than this? Then immediately my adult cynicism, pessimism and virtue signalling is replaced with a memory from 2002…my fav WC forever.

I’m in a boarding school in Meru, Kenya. And my favorite teacher, my English teacher, Mr. Raymond Adero, is both an excellent tutor and an absolutely rabid footy fan who keeps interrupting the class to remind us of what is happening in the football world out there. He absolutely loves Brazil and Samba and in his articulate enthusiasm takes the time to infect us (just the boys, the girls are just wondering wtf is going on) with his excitement of what is coming.

Well, I was just some kid, amongst kids, abit indifferent about football at the time, but watching his face, his genuine expressions his energy levels and unimpeded joy as he tells us about the WC and the players and the stories and the histories…well, it got to me. Big time! And long story shortened, he picked out a few of the chaps who looked like they cared and every chance that he could, he got us permission from the matron, got us in the dining hall where the TV was put on whatever game KBC had on for the WC 2002, schooled us about what was happening on the pitch, who was who, and what club they played, and why this was important and why it mattered and just charmed us into this sport…

I owe him because if not for him I would just be some anybody going into this but as much of a bitter, disenfranchised adult that I have become I have to respect what he did. The time he took, the effort he had to take, the event he went to share his interest with us and even better still during P.E. he would come track suit and all to show us how it all happened. Including laying up a cross for me to head for a goal…he had a bit of a belly but somehow had retained his ability to run and kick it up with the kiddos.

For me. For that man. I just have to let this sport, football, ride over whatever this endless farce that has been conjured around this world cup because our there somewhere is a kid, like I was, who can be inspired to feel what I felt and to start the journey that that man made me start…

It’s hard right now (trust me, you do not have to explain to me how bad and hard it is) but dammit, try. Fkn try. Not for you. For this beautiful sport to inspire someone else to see and live this sport because even as these lads I’m drinking with here moan and virtue signal about this particular WC, the memory of how this sport was introduced to me trumps all that (no pun intended)

And yes, he cried at the full time whistle of the Brazil v Germany game, when he of course …again went out of his way (against the rules, snuck us into the dining hall) made it possible for us to watch Ronaldo 9 with his stupid haircut and that awesome timeless smile with his gorgeous teeth hit 2 past that monster in GK Oliver Kahn…I cried too. He had told us about 1998 Ronaldo, the French cheekiness, and his injuries and all that…I only realized I was crying too when the boys started giggling at me.

Dammit I don’t wanna cry as I write this…

You fkn guys here in this mailbox, try. Try! Find the beauty in this mess. Because you might be changing someone’s outlook on this beautiful sport and this life forever. Try dammit. Paddy G, MUFC, Mombasa, Kenya (for some reason for the last few days I have been sporadically thinking about Emiliano Sala, I don’t know why tho…it’s weird, may he R.I.P.) good luck guessing my age!

Morals forgotten by 90 seconds of editing

I tried to post this as a comment in BTL underneath the article by Michael Lee about “How ITV have broken down my World Cup cynicism with vistas and Cars nostalgia”. Here’s hoping the censorship doesn’t extend to the mailbox.

The TLDR version of the article is that Michael wasn’t looking forward to the World Cup at all, but 90 seconds of clever editing by ITV has won him over. I hope that someone more skilful than I is able to put together a version of said opening footage where the football clips are replaced with, off the top of my head:

ICE agents taking young children away from their parents.

Trump laying into Zelenskyy in the White House for having the balls to stand up to Putin and not “making a deal”.

Infantino handing over the Peace Prize to Trump, cutting away to a bunch of drones flying off to their next mission.

Various people, including the Somali referee, being turned away in the airport and put back on a plane to go home.

People having to dump bottles of water in bins outside stadiums, as they’re then charged $20 for the privilege of having one inside the stadium.

Maybe a nice aerial shot of the Strait of Hormuz.

Excited? The next six weeks can’t go by fast enough for me, I won’t be watching a single second of it. No virtue signalling from me here to anyone reading this – if you’re excited for the World Cup to start then more power to you, genuinely hope you enjoy it. I just can’t stomach the absolute shitshow that it’s become before a ball has even been looked at, let alone kicked. And before anyone decides to counter with the amount of immoral businesses that run lots of other events or are literally sewn into every aspect of everyday life, remind me of another World Cup like this one where not “everyone” is welcome – just one. I’ll wait.

Roll on the new PL season. Jeff Gowen, West Brom Villan (Never thought I’d see worse than Blatter, how wrong I was.)

Bored with the World Cup already

When are the fixtures out for 26/27? Steve, Leeds since 1970

On that Everton fine

35m fine? I’m not in the least bit surprised.

Everton, aren’t we? Aidan, EFC, Collaroy

…Hmmmm, so Everton are furious about being ordered to pay Burnley £40 million over their PSR breaches.

Fair enough.

But if Burnley can successfully argue that Everton’s rule-breaking contributed to their relegation, then English football has just opened a legal Pandora’s box.

Because Everton are not the only club to have breached financial rules.

Manchester City’s 115 charges have been hanging over the game for years. They have spent hundreds of millions on lawyers to delay and ultimately win the last cheating case.. this one continues on that vein….

During that period, clubs have been relegated, clubs have missed out on Europe, clubs have missed out on Champions League qualification and clubs have missed out on titles.

If Burnley can demonstrate financial loss arising from a competitor breaking the rules, why wouldn’t every affected club begin sharpening their lawyers’ pencils?

Should runners-up who missed out on Premier League titles be entitled to compensation?

Should clubs who finished fifth instead of fourth and lost Champions League revenue have a claim?

Should relegated clubs argue that they were competing in a distorted environment?

The argument suddenly becomes difficult to contain.

Everton’s statement describes the ruling as setting a “dangerous and unworkable precedent”. On the surface, that looks like standard corporate outrage. The uncomfortable reality is they may have a point.

Football has spent years introducing increasingly complex financial regulations. What it has never properly addressed is the question of consequential damage.

Once a breach is proven, what is the value of the opportunities other clubs lost as a result?

Burnley believe theirs was worth £40 million.

If that principle now stands, the potential liabilities elsewhere in the game become eye-watering.

The Premier League may soon discover that points deductions are the least expensive consequence of breaking financial rules.