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How do you miss 3 in a shootout?

That was bottling it, pure and simple.

They are all young.

England should be proud but i fear for them tomorrow.

yuppie wrote:They are all young.

England should be proud but i fear for them tomorrow.

Southgate may take some flak but I doubt the players will.

Its the final of a major tournament.

England would do well to stop blaming and start celebrating.

Great achievement and the country needs to get behind a team that is young and going places.

Hard to imagine they will be hyped so relentlessly and then be flogged by the press. They'll take a so-near approach. Maybe play up some things that went against them.

Rashford will get some because of other considerations.

Yep i think Rashford will feel the full brunt of this.

Southgate will be criticised for introducing players cold to the shootout, but if England had won, that would have been genius. When you lose, anything else would have worked.

Hard not to argue that the best team on the night and in the tournament won in the end. England never really looked like scoring after they caught Italy napping at the start.

A good run and a good tournament, but we did have a nice draw, Germany aside, and needed some luck to get to the final. Would we have got past Portugal, France, Belgium, Spain?

It is a young squad who should be nearly all together for the next 4 years, so reason to be hopeful for the future.

Tactically out managed by a manager who is at least a professional.

As always humans are the components in such ideas that might go wrong.

What ever you try if it goes wrong you will get blamed, and if it succeeds you are a hero.

This English team has been a breath of fresh air, but the press always needs a villian...... And then they wonder why England is no good at penalties....

England were the best team in every game they played,except in the final and lost to a better team.

It happens.

England were favourites to win. They got outplayed by the 6th favourites. We beat one team (Germany) who were 4th favs. And failed to beat 20th favs scotland.

We've done nothing exceptional. This team is brilliant....but Southgate isnt

After feeling really excited about the way England started the game, as the first half went on I was getting more and more agitated. England were sitting back again and handing Italy a route back into the game. I consoled myself that they've done this in every game so far, then come out firing in the second half, so when Italy pushed us straight onto the back foot again, it only took about 5 second half minutes to understand that this was going to be like watching every England side for the last 20 years and from that point on I was just waiting for Italy to put me out of my misery.

Apart from the opening few minutes there were no England attacks down the right. If you're going to play with wing backs then they both have go forward or else you are just playing with 2 right backs, so I said to Mrs DF that Trippier would have to come off at half time and either replace him with a wing back who will go forward, or switch to 4 at the back and bolster the midfield. We did neither.... we did what SP and I have been bashing on about for months... we did nothing, changed nothing and hoped that Italy would do something daft or go to sleep, or concede a pen or something.

I said to Mrs DF that England won't make a change until Italy equalise, we are just going to try and hang onto what we have. So predictably once the lead had gone, we made the change and Trippier came off, followed by Rice (who'd had his best game in an England shirt that I'd seen) being replaced by Henderson who contributed far less than the bloke he'd replaced.

We did with the wing backs what we did with them in the closing stages of the SF.... we just sat with 5 men at the back and let the midfield get completely over-run, then kept giving the ball away immediately, never quite clearing our lines until we either thumped a hopeful ball forward to...... well.... nobody, or kicked it straight out

Mount disappeared for the whole of the second half; Sterling and Kane, and eventually Sako couldn't get a toe on the ball. The situation was crying out for Grealish, but he didn't come on until the last few minutes when it was too late

Once we were in extra time, I saw Rashford getting ready but not coming on.... I said to Mrs DF (who was getting thoroughly cheesed off with me by then) that unbelievably he was going to come on just to take a penalty.... no game time, not warmed up, completely stone cold... there you go son, score your pen, what could possibly go wrong

and he did it to Sancho too

I have no idea who took the pens or who scored or missed, because I haven't watched a penalty shoot out involving England since I walked out half way through one in 2006, but I'd decided part way through the second half that I was going to delete the recording of the match (which I was making to keep for posterity should England win) even if England won (pens or otherwise), because quite frankly that was the worst game of football that I've seen in a very long time and I had no desire to ever watch it again

It was like anti-football for 95 to 100 minutes of the 120. By about 50 mins I was watching in a state or torpor, reduced to hoping that Italy would kill us off without the need for extra time or, god forbid, penalties

For days now, all I've heard is the strength of the England bench... how dispiriting it must be for teams to know that England can call on those reserves at will during the match. We don't make a change for 70 minutes, even though the game has been going badly for about 50 mins of that 70, we replace like for like as though that will change a game in which we are being over-run, and to add insult to injury we don't make 2 substitutions until 30 seconds from the end of the game. For a large part of the second half we looked tired, endlessly, fruitlessly chasing shadows. We looked like Denmark looked in the SF..... if holding players back worked against Denmark, it's bound to work here...... except we were the tiring team and we didn't freshen up. I think the Italians had made 4 changes by the time we made our first.

And yet..... for the first 20 mins we were in complete control, the Italian's were run ragged, they were flustered, they were arguing amongst themselves. It looked like being an epic match, the sort of match that would live long in the memory. I'm already trying to blot it out of my mind..... it was a depressingly familiar big match performance from England

For ages all anyone was talking about was how cool SG remained when England took the early lead...... I actually now think that he hadn't realised that we'd scored and only found out when someone pointed it out at half time

Forget the result... even if England had somehow contrived to win, it would have been a terrible, entirely forgettable game of football

sussexpob wrote:England were favourites to win. They got outplayed by the 6th favourites. We beat one team (Germany) who were 4th favs. And failed to beat 20th favs scotland.

We've done nothing exceptional. This team is brilliant....but Southgate isnt

Italy may have been sixth favourites coming into the tournament on betting odds, but after the group stage anyone who thought they were still sixth needed their heads examining. Italy are on a run of 30-something games unbeaten. Betting odds are not that reliable a predictor, anyway - the odds on England are almost invariably shorter than logic dictates, because of the number of mugs who'll bet on England anyway.

I agree we've done nothing exceptional, but you can only beat what is put in front of you. We were outplayed by Italy tonight to be sure, but it wasn't a thrashing. We could have won with a bit more luck or better penalty techniques.

Not a chance of Southgate being moved on now, until he wants to go, however poor his tactical nous. He'll be a national hero.

Good summary, DFM.

Even I, who know far less about football tactics than some of the posters here, was completely baffled by the substitutions. Why hold out until the 70th minute when we were being run ragged? Given those final two subs, it almost looks as though Southgate was playing for penalties. England were better in extra time than they were in the 2nd half, why not get the subs on earlier and go for the kill?