England vs Croatia

[Mark_Ross]

Chin up everybody!

Look we are an average side & almost made it to the final. But if we are honest I think Croatia (much as I loathe the fascist country) were the the better football side.

And so on to 2022... there's always another day in football... see ya

[SmiffyPie]

Did well to get to a semi but phuck me we should have rolled Croatia over.

[LaughingMagpie]

They did and he didn't perform.

Shows how little we had on the bench doesn't it. I don't rate Rashford that highly but a change clearly needed to happen

[crazyfists]

Well said. England had a great tournament but were beaten by the better team tonight. England had no player like Perisic.
There were zero expectations for this young England side but they given a lot of hope for the future and established some world cup level players - Maguire, Stones, Trippier, Kane, maybe Pickford too

Good post, I'm really proud of how far we've come in two years and you learn more from a defeat than a victory so this will stand them in good stead. We just didn't come out for the second half but like I say we'll learn and well done lads, hope all the knockers remember we were the most inexperienced at the tournament and didn't expect to get as far as we did. Maybe it'll come home one day ha ha.

[LaughingMagpie]

Who the fcuk cares if we weren't good enough . I always want my country and Notts to win even if we aren't good enough , I hate nobs like you. I bet you're Big fatties mate.

Pardon? I'm sat here with my England shirt on desperately wanting to win. No need to be offensive.

[i961pie]

We found ourselves in the semi final on merit. This young side performed brilliantly and gave the country something to shout about at last. Let's congratulate them instead of looking for scapegoats or excuses.

[crazyfists]

Ref was diabolical. Lovren was lucky to see out the first half in my opinion, how he didn't get booked I do not know. Also, that linesman was awful, gave an offside for a ball coming off the goalkeeper, failed to spot a throw and a corner, this is a world cup semi final, if these refs can't get it right, there is no hope for anyone

The lino was terrible, he missed the throw in and corner.

[Bohinen]

We played well for 20 mins then decided to try and defend it out, never works. Can't we launch the ball into the box anymore? 5 mins left and we were passing it up and down the field???? We wimped out when we should have gone in search of the 2nd goal, IMO.

Yes, all that, but also, when we had chances, we missed them. You can't afford to waste chances from 5 yards out like Kane did today and Sterling has all the tournament. Kane leads the line well and I wouldn't question his place, but we need a second forward to play with him. Neither Rashford or Vardy are that man, more of a fox in the box type is required (the new Michael Owen).

[jackal2]

At times against Colombia and tonight when we were under pressure we reverted to the 'old' England, giving possession away too easily, and you can't afford to do that with Modric and Rakitic about. HOWEVER, this is a young team and there has been plenty of evidence of a much more intelligent side taking shape, so the job now is to keep building on it and iron out the wrinkles. There will be other opportunities for many of these players.

As for Croatia, I really hope they win the World Cup now, not just for "anyone but the French" reasons, but because they've shown incredible levels of desire and fitness to come through three extra times, not to mention a fair amount of ability. On paper, they should be too knackered, but it was the Croat players chasing our centre halves down in the final minute of extra time!

[the_anticlough]

Did well to get to a semi but phuck me we should have rolled Croatia over.

Why? It was obvious that Croatia were class when they ripped Argentina apart. Modric, Rakitic and Perisic are world class players - stars for Real, Barca and Inter. We couldn't match that. Semis is a great achievement, disappointed to go out at that stage but it's light years better than 4 years ago or going out to Iceland