Sophistication.... Sophistication.....I know all about sophistication ...
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So true. We were like men possessed defending against England that night. We can seldom replicate that motivation against other, which raises many questions for me.
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True but I'm not having players representing my country and picking and choosing when they give their all. If we'd shown the same focus and drive in the other games, we wouldn't have had to skulk home in shame yet again.
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There's no shame in going out in the group stages, especially for a country with a population of 5 million odd. Massive credit to the smaller countries that can compete with France, Germany, Spain and Italy - the group that usually wins the Euros and WCs.
It's a tad embarrassing not qualifying at all *cough*.
He didn't show much leadership during the tournament and wasn't up the the job. Amazed he was given the full 120 mins last night. I know taking him off may have been a psychological blow to the rest of the team, so maybe for that reason he shouldn't have been made captain
I don't think we'll see many of the defence past the next European championship. Kane's 28 in a couple of weeks, so Qatar could be his last World Cup. Sterling's 27 this year, so possibly the same. After Qatar will be the time to start bringing young players into the squad, with a view to having a cohesive 'base' team for the next Euros, and a steady eye on the 2026 World Cup. I'd also note that there are a lot of players from the 2018 World Cup squad that weren't in this squad.
How long do we think Southgate will be manager for? I doubt he feels he's done all he can yet.
Talking of 2026, it's down to be hosted by Mexico, Canada and the USA. It will be interesting to see how they schedule the matches, bearing in mind travel distances and maybe even timezones.
After the last crappy 18 months or so the Euro's brought a lot of pleasure, fun and hope to millions good game.
Scotland should aspire to be like these countries and be a real and regular competitor on the European/World stage rather than an occasional unexpected qualifier.
Is being part of the UK (with easy access to the Premier League) an advantage? I don’t know.
Look back to the 60s and 70s, Scotland produced plenty of top players who plied their trade in England and formed the backbone of some strong Scottish national sides. Nowadays Scotland doesn’t seem to produce good players in sufficient. numbers anymore. OK, its a relatively small country but that was the case in the old days too.
The constant importing of players and the breakdown of much grass roots football at schools has been a double whammy blow to the Scottish game since the early 80s.
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I wouldn’t judge him on winning the league as Celtic were a complete shambles and the other teams badly weakened after Covid financial hit.
No doubting what Rangers did in progressing in Europe though which is a better marker for improvement.
Celtic will be another shambles this year with what’s gone on so I don’t see Stevie G having much to beat.
Might have been fun watching the Brendan Rodgers Celtic team against Stevie G team but their paths didn’t cross for long.
Jonathan Pie's take on the game.
https://youtu.be/EI5nw1kYwdo
Last edited by number2; 13th July 2021 at 16:04.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
In other news. Today England played Italy in the Rugby U20 6 Nations.
A great game that saw England triumph, winning the Game, the Championship and doing the Grand Slam. with Italy putting on a good show. In fact Italy came back to within 5 points during the 2nd half. Very exciting.
Man of the match was the ref - a Scottish Lass called Holly. She did an excellent job.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Last edited by Passenger; 14th July 2021 at 12:30.
I really cannot see how this is racist in any way whatsoever - unless somehow you are implying that the thugs who stormed the stadium, pissed in the streets, laughed at a distressed German child and generally ransacked Central London deserve some kind of niceties? If being against these people and their behaviour is racist then I guess I must be. Obviously I wasn't being racist against all English as I myself am English. So I'm not sure where you are going with this one.
As an aside I watched the England vs Pakistan T20 tonight (cracking game) and it was wonderful to see fans having a great time, unsegregated, no problems. That's what I'd love to see at England football games (you do get close to it at some premier league clubs so it isn't all football fans by a long stretch). International rugby as well has enjoyable banter between fans
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I'm a white English person btw. I really think you have the wrong end of the stick here. Obviously I wasn't referring to all English people (again I am one). Some of these people let our country down with their violence and then their vile racism on social media. Of course this is a minority of people. I don't think I said anything to the contrary
If I have an apology it is that I shouldn't have put the Brexit hashtag in the G&D as no politics allowed. The rest of it I think you've put 2 and 2 together and come up with a huge number.
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Last edited by ryanb741; 17th July 2021 at 00:19.
Unfortunately this is what happens. Just like people criticise Muslims for not cleaning their house from extremists, football fans are blamed for the actions of a few.
A few that is a large enough number to make all the wrong headlines the morning after a game.
The strange thing is that in other sports it is a much, much more marginal affair.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Not that strange is it. Look at its origins, who played it, who follow it and some of the politics/religious overtones that surround it. For some it’s not just a game it’s something that defines who they are and what they believe.
If you were generous you might claim it as “passion”, if you were less generous you might define it as tribal or worse.
The upsides is nothing that occurred last week is unique to English Football and it seems to be getting better compared to the 1960’s, 1970’s, etc, but to suggest that the toxic relationship between clubs like Everton/Liverpool, Man City/Utd, Chelsea/Palace, Celtic/Rangers, Madrid/Barca, the Milan’s/Juve, etc, etc will ever be resolved is just nuts. To much history and to much bigotry..
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In a slight defence of Ryan I think that the idea that it is only a small minority of society, and particularly football fans, that is racist is quite wide of the mark. It might be a minority but it’s a minority of millions. Even the media seems to be quoting a figure of 1,900 odd racist social media posts after the final directed at the players but, as I think I said before, I was watching them pile up with my daughter after the game and Saka had at least 30k in the first half an hour alone, maybe the people counting were only looking for certain words and not emojis.
The whole booing of the taking the knee seemed to start at Millwall and the justification given was that it was a protest by politically aware fans against the political aims of the BLM movement. A few years ago, less than five, I was “entertained” at the Den, the opposition had a couple of black players that were subjected to monkey noises and other racist abuse by a clear majority of fans in the stadium. Afterwards I asked the person who took me what he thought of it and how he thought his own teams black players would feel and his response was “they’re ok, they’re still f***ing monkeys but they’re our f***ing monkeys.” The idea that the fans of that particular club are political intellectuals is a joke, they are racist thugs pure and simple.
I think that the actual number of people in society that are openly racist may be a significant minority, but when you add in those that go along with it, laugh about it, share the racist memes or don’t see it as a problem and act on it you probably then reach a majority.