[Football] HOW will England fail at Russia 2018?

Japan 0-0
Poland 0-0
Panama 3-0

Group finishes:

England 5pts +3
Poland 5pts +2
Japan 5pts + 2
Panama 0pts -7

Round of 16.

England 1 Burkina Faso 0 (A.E.T)

1/4 Finals.

England 0 France 4.


So painfully obvious

The days of lots of cars driving around with little England flags before every major tournament are hopefully over.

Who knows, without the ridiculous expectations they may surprise us and do well.

LlcoolJ said:

Still feel sick every time I see it.

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If he had had longer studs in he would have reached it !!!! It always looks like he is going to make it...sigh.

Ive been to every tournament since 1998 except S.Africa up to and including Brazil 2014, and other than meeting some fab people, some great piss ups, travelling the world spending bucket loads on everything including black market tickets, i finally had enough of watching dire, uninterssting football the majority of the time. Pretty much always a let down.

Best tournament bit = Eng v Brazil in Japan (Best non tournament Germany v Englad 1-5 in Munich)

I wish England and the fans luck in Russia- but as in Dragons speak- I'm out!

Eurobound said:

Ive been to every tournament since 1998 except S.Africa up to and including Brazil 2014, and other than meeting some fab people, some great piss ups, travelling the world spending bucket loads on everything including black market tickets, i finally had enough of watching dire, uninterssting football the majority of the time. Pretty much always a let down.

Best tournament bit = Eng v Brazil in Japan (Best non tournament Germany v Englad 1-5 in Munich)

I wish England and the fans luck in Russia- but as in Dragons speak- I'm out!

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I used to travel all over the place watching England, starting at the Euros in 1980 (who remembers teargas in Turin?) and had some wonderful times. No longer I'm afraid, indeed it's been a while since I went to an England game.

Favourite tournament, Italia 90, although one of my friends enjoyed Mexico in 86 so much that they stayed, got married and he became an English teacher there( he was a hod carrier in the UK!)

As for Russia, I wish the team and fans well, but fear we will struggle to get out of our group. Too one paced, too much sideways passing, give the ball away too easily, poor goalkeeper, crap central defenders, no creativity and a shockingly negative Manager.

Kane is our one decent player, no doubt he'll break a metatarsal three weeks before the tournament starts.

Oh well, we're still better than Scotland.

I don't think the players are committed or good enough and it is viewed upon like a chore by the club managers, who instill this opinion into the players.
I think that players from the Championship should be included, as it would be a shop window for them and they would make more of an effort..........................or so you would think.

MattBackHome said:

I'm planning on ramping up my wild and unfounded optimism early next year to make the most of it.

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The run up to the tournament is usually the best bit. Then it all deflates like a souffle in a cupboard.

Harry Kane completely isolated in front of a midfield that has no clue what they are doing. Harry Winks our best player because he played the ball forward into space 3 times during the group stages (we won't mention if he found a team mate or not). Commentators waxing lyrical about the speed we have on the wings and then struck dumb as we crawl through the group stage as they realise that it doesn't matter how fast they are if we don't pass the ball to them.

All this will be set to one side for one 2-0 win where we look kind of alright, not too bad, bang average (Sweden in recent memory). This will get us through the group stage in second place where the weight of exception and pressure of millions of fans back home hoping that we might actually be able to play the game we invented and singing 'You are my England..... without the due sense of irony.

We all decide to tune into the next game with the merest reserves of confidence in the abilities of over paid show ponies prancing about the field. The ponies look good for 10 minutes, they even go ahead with a Harry Kane header before the demons and doubts of their footballing fore bearers weigh heavy on their mind and the tactical genus of "hold what we have, keep possession" from another England manager is ringing in their ears. Slowly but surely one by one the players crumbles to such an extent that they can't even produce the basic skills of their trade (Iceland anyone?). Apart from Harry's Wink and Kane who look around in despair at their once proud team mates running in circles near a ball that may or may not be important in this game and dutifully put their cues back in the rack and retreat to the England half shell.

We lose on penalties (Better than Iceland and gives us something to work with going forward).

While all of us back home shake our heads in quite fury and wonder what the hell happened once more the players don their headphone, check their bank balance and fly back to be carried but the foreign talent at their respective super clubs and pretend to the world that they gave a shit about it in the first place.

Nobody knows or gives a shit if the England manager is sacked or not but we expect to qualify from the European Championships qualifying group without managing to put in a half decent performance. Commentators and pundits bemoan the fact that England do not have any particular style of play or game plan. Ironically most of us understand that qualifying for tournament after tournament without a single spark of inspiration is our style of play and has been for a very long time.

Apart from all this I am looking forward to it.

LlcoolJ said:

On a tangent, which was the last game in a major tournament when you watched England and thought "we can bloody win this!".

The tournament I mean, not just winning the game in question.... I'm struggling.

When Owen scored v Brazil in 2002 maybe?

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I thought we had a really good chance in 2004. It was quite a weak tournament (shown by the fact that Greece won it) and we had a pretty strong squad (possible weak point in goal with David James) but a decent starting xi with Neville, Campbell, Terry, Cole, Scholes, Lampard, Gerrard, Becks, Rooney and Owen. We looked convincing in the group stage (barring the last 5 minutes of the France game) and even looked good against Portugal but lost on penalties. That was Rooney's best tournament and Owen was still looking pretty sharp

we haven't even vaguely looked like challenging since

Mellotron said:

Always fascinating seeing the new and novel ways we manage to go out.

I'm pretty confident on my scenario;

We will crawl through our group, drawing 1-1 with Panama in the worst game of football you have ever seen.

In the second round we will get knocked out by Japan on penalties, finding out at the end that it is their first competitive penalty shoot out ever.

Harry Winks will be in the form of his life before the tournament, being heralded as England's new saviour, the torchbearer for the next generation. He will be sent off in the Japan game for tripping over and accidentally knocking the referee down in the process.

What's yours?

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Eerily, we have been drawn in a group with Panama, and would then face a team from Japan's group in the second round. I made these predictions before the draw.