CZE v ENG

[IsleofWightYellow]

I went out with a girl who did page 3 on a number of occasions, for over two years. It was dreadful in hindsight.

I often wonder what she thinks of Southgate’s reign as England manager. Would she favour the double pivot? What about Sancho?

Maybe she’s dead. I don’t know.

#picsoritdidnthappen

 

[werthersoriginal]

I went out with a girl who did page 3 on a number of occasions, for over two years. It was dreadful in hindsight.

I often wonder what she thinks of Southgate’s reign as England manager. Would she favour the double pivot? What about Sancho?

Maybe she’s dead. I don’t know.

Yeah that sounds really dreadful :-/

 

[RyanioBirdio]

#picsoritdidnthappen

Chris Williams knew her. Adam Chapman buzzed around her like a fly on s**t. Go and ask them.

Our relationship fell apart when I was diagnosed with a life-threatening tumour, which I was told would likely paralyse me if it didn’t put me in the ground, and she decided that it didn’t fit in with her life plans. She would never have taken Henderson or Maguire if they weren’t fit.

I’m going for a pint. Look for the crying man.

 

[werthersoriginal]

Chris Williams knew her. Adam Chapman buzzed around her like a fly on s**t. Go and ask them.

Our relationship fell apart when I was diagnosed with a life-threatening tumour, which I was told would likely paralyse me if it didn’t put me in the ground, and she decided that it didn’t fit in with her life plans. She would never have taken Henderson or Maguire if they weren’t fit.

I’m going for a pint. Look for the crying man.

Man, we don't know whether you're joking or to be sympathetic and serious.

A girl at school was in Penthouse or similar. She was the art teacher's daughter, you can imagine. Obvs I didn't know her

 

[IsleofWightYellow]

Chris Williams knew her. Adam Chapman buzzed around her like a fly on s**t. Go and ask them.

Our relationship fell apart when I was diagnosed with a life-threatening tumour, which I was told would likely paralyse me if it didn’t put me in the ground, and she decided that it didn’t fit in with her life plans. She would never have taken Henderson or Maguire if they weren’t fit.

I’m going for a pint. Look for the crying man.

Jesus! Hope you’re ok now?

 

[RyanioBirdio]

Man, we don't know whether you're joking or to be sympathetic and serious.

I am completely serious. There’s just no way she would’ve allowed either of them on the plane.

Do you reckon Henderson starts the next game?

 

[bashamwonderland]

I went out with a girl who did page 3 on a number of occasions, for over two years. It was dreadful in hindsight.

I often wonder what she thinks of Southgate’s reign as England manager. Would she favour the double pivot? What about Sancho?

Maybe she’s dead. I don’t know.

Considering you dated her for two years you should know whether or not she favours the double pivot.

 

[Paul Cannell]

I went out a couple of times with a girl who was later in Brookside. No idea what her feelings were on the double pivot. Those were innocent days.

 

[werthersoriginal]

I went out a couple of times with a girl who was later in Brookside. No idea what her feelings were on the double pivot. Those were innocent days.

You don’t mean ... no wonder you hate Karl

 

[Paul Cannell]

Different girl

 

[unification]

Considering you dated her for two years you should know whether or not she favours the double pivot.

Two big ones up front and @RyanioBirdio playing in the hole surely?

 

[RyanioBirdio]

Two big ones up front and @RyanioBirdio playing in the hole surely?

I wondered why my office chair had suddenly started spinning, and then tipped me backwards before flying through the ceiling.

Steady on.

 

[tonyw]

It's rubbish and the World Cup in 2026 will follow suit to 48 teams. That's pretty much 25% of FIFA members turning up for it. We're going to be treated to a load of crap games like Albania v El Salvador before we get into anything half decent.

It genuinely makes me sad the way that UEFA & FIFA are ****ing up summer tournaments.

From 1996 - 2014, they had it perfect. 16 teams for the Euros, 32 teams for the World Cup.

Having 32 teams makes a World Cup sufficiently epic. It has this glorious flow to it - in the first couple of weeks, you've got three games a week on the telly, which are usually fairly evenly split between David vs Goliath contests, random games that you would never otherwise watch of the Slovakia vs Ecuador type, and contests between genuinely good teams. Then you move to the final group games, which can be epic carnage. And then just when I feel I've had about my fill of World Cup randomness, you're into the knockouts and the lose-and-your-home excitement until a Champion is crowned. It's always a special month.

And then by contrast, 16 teams works perfectly for the Euros. There's just less randomness in the European championship. Most of the sides play the same way (i.e. conservative, organised football), most are at least vaguely competent, none are absolutely terrible (yes, Turkey were bad, but they weren't Panama '18, North Korea '10 or Saudi Arabia '02 level of hopeless). So you don't need to add another eight mediocre sides. Wouldn't the tournament have been better if there had been four groups like Group F rather than spreading out the quality?

And the great thing about 16 or 32 teams is the simplicity of the structure. Four team groups with the top two qualifying just works. It creates the right incentives to go for it (almost impossible to get out of that without winning a game) and the excitement ramps up beautifully from Games 1 to 2 to 3.

By contrast, third place teams qualifying distorts every incentive, makes it much better to be in a later group so that you know what you have to do and ensures that some teams playing really bang average football (Hello Switzerland!) are going to be clogging up the knockouts. And don't get me started on three team groups - what an epically stupid idea those are.

But nope - greed and thirst for power has ruined everything.
And I can't even properly enjoy the last of the World Cups under the correct format next summer because it's in the frickin' middle of winter, in the frickin' middle of the desert and has blood on its hands.....

 

[bazzer9461]

I'm sorry Bazzer but those numbers are just nonsense.

Well I don’t know what you’ve been watching but if you are confident with what you’ve seen of England and that of France, Germany and Portugal and your confident at beating one of those teams…..let’s just hope that England played like they did to draw those teams into a sense that we will be easily beaten.

 

[m]

Well I don’t know what you’ve been watching but if you are confident with what you’ve seen of England and that of France, Germany and Portugal and your confident at beating one of those teams…..let’s just hope that England played like they did to draw those teams into a sense that we will be easily beaten.

I think my point is that I'm more confident after 3 clean sheets than I would be if we'd shipped two goals in each game with the same points tally, given that our defence was the greatest concern.

To be honest though, I can't really remember now.

 

[bazzer9461]

I think my point is that I'm more confident after 3 clean sheets than I would be if we'd shipped two goals in each game with the same points tally, given that our defence was the greatest concern.

To be honest though, I can't really remember now.

Wouldn’t be just worried about our defence I would worry about who else can score goals

 

[tonyw]

So the way the draw has panned out, I think Southgate needs to reach the semi-finals in order to keep his job, and England really ought to be thinking about the final.

Having watched a bunch of the group stage, there's four teams in the tournament that I think can be genuinely scary on their day - Italy, Belgium, France & Spain - and they are all in the opposite half of the draw from England. The Dutch might be good (although they haven't played anyone yet - even less so than England), but even they're in the other quarter from us.

This is a poor Germany side - little or no drive and creativity going forwards, and a bit of a shambles at the back. They had one decent 20 minute spell against the ancient Portugal defense, which is the only reason they're still in the competition. Losing to them in the last 16 would be a failure.
And then the Quarter Final would be against Sweden or Ukraine, and you couldn't ask for an easier draw than that in a major tournament (again!).

 

[m]

The Germans will obviously watch the England games again as part of their preparation.

If what I read on here is correct they'll have been bored to death before we even need to kick a ball.

Job done.

 

[holdsteady]

The Germans will obviously watch the England games again as part of their preparation.

If what I read on here is correct they'll have been bored to death before we even need to kick a ball.

Job done.

Southgates master plan, watching our group games will put the knockout stage opponents into a deep sleep, they will the game against us and we go through by default.

 

[chuckbert]

Man, we don't know whether you're joking or to be sympathetic and serious.

A girl at school was in Penthouse or similar. She was the art teacher's daughter, you can imagine. Obvs I didn't know her

There was a rumour at Gosford Hill that the art teacher herself had been in some artistic photos in a magazine in her youth.