I didn't watch the match (midnight in Hong Kong...) but did England just retreat to defense after they took an early lead or were they consistent on being aggressive?

I am less confident about this than I was about Sweden, Croatia have been impressive so far. I expect it'll either go to penalties or Croatia will sneak through with a 2-1 win. I hope I'm wrong though!

Whatever happens the team have another game definitely (the 3rd place playoff) and can come home with their heads held high. : )

 

Yeah, saw this coming - from the moment we got that early goal and kept missing quite good chances in the first half I just felt the final slipping away. Ultimately we were punished for not taking those chances by a strong Croatian side who were able to exploit our weaknesses. Had Kane passed to Sterling in the 29th minute we'd probably be in a World Cup final now! Easy to blame Sterling but Kane was definitely at fault there and some of Lingard's crosses were poor.

 

Still the team have done something that no England team have for 28 years, and actually have so much to be proud of - hopefully they give Belgium a good game this time on Saturday...

 

Oh and I hope that Croatia can take France down, I think France would have completely ripped us apart had we made the final anyway!

 

 

Also: #CurseofITV.

Edited July 12, 20187 yr by Doctor Blind

Rugby worldcup soon!

 

That's a big thing ... right??

The last time there was a Rugby World Cup on here. They were 53 posts and half of them were from me!

 

Luka Modric after the match:

 

English journalists, pundits from television, they underestimated Croatia tonight and that was a huge mistake. All these words from them we take, we were reading and we were saying 'ok, today we will see who will be tired'"

I disagree, I think all the coverage I saw suggested that Croatia would be tougher opponents than Sweden - correctly.

 

Yes, the British print media overhyped it - but they always do. Nobody takes any notice (nor buys papers anymore, except the over 50s. :lol: )

To be fair, I'd feel the same if I were him! Yes, we didn't exactly write them off per sé but it definitely felt like some media establishments were indicating we'd already "earned the right" to the final, which itself was understandable given the euphoria surrounding our World Cup run.

 

That said, of all the chants in the bar I was in last night, "you can stick your Luka Modric up your ass" was my personal highlight.

It was pretty deflating to go out the way we did, especially after how well we performed against Sweden, but a month ago, if you'd have told me England would be reaching a World Cup semi final for the first time in almost 30 years, i'd have laughed you out of the pub.

 

And on the plus side, we have a fairly young squad of players to take into Euro 2020 (albeit players who will need to deal with heightened expectations having achieved what they've achieved this World Cup), it's something to build on.