The Scottish fans all over the socials are really amusing. Got nothing against Scotland, I wanted them to do well in this tournament, but they're treating a drab 0-0 like their 5-1 in Munich moment. The reality is that come 10 o'clock on Tuesday, they're likely to have gone out of their first international tournament in decades without even having a goal to celebrate.
On the England side, I don't really get the mass meltdown that's gone on in the last 12 hours. Yeah, it wasn't a great watch, but this is tournament football. You grow into the tournament, you don't win every game 3-0 (sorry Italy). France in 2018 got out of a terrible group (Australia, Peru, Denmark) with 7 points, including an own goal winner in the final 10 minutes against Australia and a 0-0 draw with Denmark. In 2010, the winners, one of the best international sides ever, lost their opening game to Switzerland. The more I watch international football, the more I think it's about control. With extraordinarily rare exceptions, you're simply not going to get the sophisticated passing play or coordinated pressing you get in the club game. You simply don't have time, as a coach, to instil that in the 10 days you get with the players every 4 months. The teams that always do well are the ones that can defend well, not concede, and nick wins from set pieces, or with bits of bits of inspired individual attacking play. England are pretty well set up to do just that. It worked pretty perfectly on Sunday against a side everyone had tipped to be one of the strongest in the tournament, and, if Stones scores that header, or Mount puts away that tap in, or even if Sterling gets that pen (that would probably have been given in the Prem) and we win 1-0, it's worked pretty much perfectly again last night.
Scotland played well in their cup final, and both teams basically nullified each other. England had the clearer chances, but a draw was the right result. I'm not sure what this nationwide surge in negativity does to help anything.
