Looks like it is all over now with that goal from Hazard.

:rolleyes:

And that's it for England. No one can deny they've done much better here than in a longtime, although the general consensus amongst people I know is that they somewhat coasted their way to the semi final :lol:

Losing the 3rd/4th place match must be the worst thing apart from losing the final. The players stayed a few extra days only to come up short again!

Well no goal then, Kane still anonymous in this game.

He's not as usual as he is according to Glenn Hoddle.

And that's it for England. No one can deny they've done much better here than in a longtime, although the general consensus amongst people I know is that they somewhat coasted their way to the semi final :lol:

That's true, I have also heard people say that they coasted to the semi final, the draw for them did open up with exits for Germany, Spain.

That's a shame as it seemed like we were gaining momentum during the second half. A few missed chances again. Well... that's it then! Shall never forget how fantastic (and tense at times!) it was to follow England this summer. Rooting for Croatia tomorrow ~

Defeating Sweden handily is hardly coasting. If we'd kept that momentum up we'd be in the final.

 

Disappointing to lose but it hardly matters, and we were really good at attacking for most of that second half. Some positives to take away from that and the team look a lot more like a team that is gelling at the end of the tournament than they did at the beginning.

That's true, I have also heard people say that they coasted to the semi final, the draw for them did open up with exits for Germany, Spain.

 

Generally speaking though, you always get upsets in the early stages, usually a big team or two goes out really early.

 

Anyway the game today was not much than a glorified friendly. It showed the limitations of the squad and players against a much better side. But I would surprised if some of the squad will be apart of things in 2020 for the Euros. Kane has been useless for a few games now, surely must be carrying an injury.

At least they coasted to the last four, can't take that away from them, the second half was a lot better than the first, missed a couple of chances, but Belgium were the better side, especially with that excellent second goal, with that run up.

 

Hope Bappe doesn't score loads of goals tomorrow, at least for England to get the Golden boot, and get something from it.

 

Its me vs. Jade tomorrow, to win the sweepstake :D :cheer:

Now we really need more players to be playing regularly in the Premier League. Overall they have surpassed my expectations of them in this World Cup, they should be proud of themselves.

Of course they surpassed expectations before they started the competition, and let us not forgot last WC they finished last in their group. But they had a relatively easy group and route to the final. Even with the big teams going home early they still had a relatively easy route. I doubt they will have that luck for a long time, which is why there was such confidence (and arrogance) that it was “coming home.” Ultimately they crumble when faced with a good opposing team.

 

 

And I heard in the commentary, Sterling hasn't scored a goal for England since 2015, what really boggles me, why was he selected :(

And I heard in the commentary, Sterling hasn't scored a goal for England since 2015, what really boggles me, why was he selected :(

It must be because he played very well for Manchester City and was one of the main reasons why they won the league.

 

 

Today and the semi final, final group match has shown that England were very lucky to get to the semi final. It's still a great achievement but really they would have been nowhere near the semi final if the draw wasn't as kind to them as it was. Even the match against Colombia could have gone Colombia's way if James Rodriguez played or if Colombia didn't bottle it in the penalty shootout when they were leading.

It reminds me a bit of Uruguay reaching the semis back in 2010 (I was really supporting them at the time) - they got a fairly easy group, got South Korea in the Round of 16 who were the worst performing team to get that far, then got Ghana in the quarters (who they would have lost to if Suarez hadn't pretended to be a goalie), then had no chance against The Netherlands or Germany.

It's a bit of a shame, but not exactly unexpected, we were outmatched. The fact Belgium got two so easily and we missed all those chances in the second half shows that, I still thought we put decent pressure on them for a while and played generally much better than we did against Croatia.

 

We certainly got a bit of luck with the draw and some big teams falling early helped us, but we're hardly the first team that's happened to (hi Portugal in Euro 2016), you don't really get this far just through coasting. Colombia and Sweden could've easily caused past incarnations of our team problems or even wiped the floor with us, the achievement of beating them and getting this far shouldn't be dampened by the fact they're not Brazil or France.

Not a chance we could have beaten France, so it wouldn't have come here anyway!

It must be because he played very well for Manchester City and was one of the main reasons why they won the league.

Today and the semi final, final group match has shown that England were very lucky to get to the semi final. It's still a great achievement but really they would have been nowhere near the semi final if the draw wasn't as kind to them as it was. Even the match against Colombia could have gone Colombia's way if James Rodriguez played or if Colombia didn't bottle it in the penalty shootout when they were leading.

 

IF IF IF!

 

It didn't though and England deserved their semi final place. if Germany had have turned up they would have won it but they didn't and didn't deserve to go beyond the groups!

 

Etc etc etc!

And still the curse of ITV strikes again.

Set to be no parade for England for when the team fly back home.