[Football] So why has this team managed to do what no other England team has done in 55 years?

[Gazwag]

Luck.

You need it to win a tournament, we had it last night with the "penalty" in both the giving of it and the execution of it and we have had by far the easiest route to the final and having the home team advantage in all but 1 game.

 

[Stat Brother]

I think the biggest factor is mentality.

How many times have we seen our top players go into tournaments and die on their arses. They freeze, they buckle under the pressure and look a shadow of the players we see tearing it up week-in week-out for their clubs, both domestically and in Europe. It accounts for our misplaced optimism whenever these tournaments come round - they ALWAYS let us down.

This squad is different. Southgate has somehow created a relaxed environment, where (from the outside looking in) there is harmony, and calm. The players are trusted to go out and express themselves. They look calm and relaxed, they look confident. I dunno how Southgate has managed to instil that, but just look at the performances he is getting from each and every one of them as a result.

Mentality, I tells ya.

We're not the French or Dutch, harmoniousness comes easy to us when we're winning - at anything.

 

[Pint of Ale and a Burger]

I read an interesting interview with Matthew Syed who is part of a team of advisors that Southgate brought in to help with the psychology and leadership side of things in the England camp.
The team has been assembled from areas outside of football.mainly science, psychology,military etc and I have a recollection of the outcry when they were assembled along the lines of "they don't know about football,they are not football people".
Syed made some interesting points as he always does which is in previous years a manager would surround himself with "football people" under the thinking that the more football people we have the better we will be.
It sounds sensible but actually It doesn't work,the best football people will all have the same knowledge,same ideas and won't bring anything new or creative to the camp.
Southgate is the football man,he only needs a couple of others like him around and he has kept his mind open about hearing views from people outside football they are from fields of expertise that can add something new to the football team set up.
I think this team of experts have made a huge difference to the team psychologically and also Gareth's leadership ability.
I think Gareth's willingness to listen to people from outside football and the input these people have put in has been the big difference in our success this time around wheras before successive managers have failed.

 

[Originunknown]

It's all part of the masterplan. We are ahead of our target set by Greg Dyke in 2013.

"New Football Association chairman Greg Dyke says England should aim to reach the semi-finals of Euro 2020 and win the World Cup in 2022"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/23963416

Dyke was instrumental in the reforms at the FA and should rightly be credited.

They kept Gareth in the setup throughout the development of this generation of players.

 

[Swansman]

Because English football decided to join the modern football world.

English players were often seen as top class in the past. Then they played international competition and were found out technically and tactically. Sure, they could run, tackle and shoot hard and they knew how to play 4-4-2 but that was pretty much it. This generation is a lot better schooled, if the play against something that isnt 4-4-2 they are not going to go cry in a corner, and technically they are up in the top. Someone like David Beckham may have been part of your "golden generation" but compared to someone like Luis Figo he just looked like a pretty sad player. Or someone like Michael Owen... watch the game against Brazil in 2002. Heskey and Owen vs Rivaldo and Ronaldo. Why did anyone think England would win?

Today the English players are as good as anyone and football (especially European) is a lot more streamlined, which also helps.

Look at the 2006 squad. They were street footballers from south east London. Beckham, Lampard, Cole, Terry, Carrick, Defoe, Ferdinand, King, Richardson and Young were all from there or had strong connections to it and they were playing against street footballers from countries where you could play 365 days a year. Today its different, they all come from great academies that are similar to academies anywhere else. It took a while to get there. Previous England teams were overrated,, other nations simply produced better footballers. This one isnt.

 

[Farehamseagull]

It's a big topic probably too deep to go into in a thread on here but I firmly believe it's due to a huge improvement in the coaching and attitude to football in this country, starting at grass roots and from a very young age, over the last 10/15 years. The players who are coming through now and are already in the squad have a much better football education and mentality than the generations before.

Having played to a reasonably high level in the late 90's/early 2000's and then gone into coaching over more recent years, I can safely say I would much, much rather be a young footballer now than back then. The current and future generations all have much better opportunities available to them than we did then.

 

[raymondo]

I agree with the praise for GS, but also... many of the other teams are poor. Germany just a shadow, Spain?*, Portugal weak, Belgium??, France overrated, Italy...hmmm let's see. I know I know... you can only beat what's in front of you, but for me it's been a poor tournament that we may win...ohhh perhaps I'm on the wrong thread . Sorry guys, not feeling well today, plus my wife's Ukrainian and I'm 1/8th Italian...a bit messed up in the head!

 

[Stat Brother]

I agree with the praise for GS, but also... many of the other teams are poor. Germany just a shadow, Spain?*, Portugal weak, Belgium??, France overrated, Italy...hmmm let's see. I know I know... you can only beat what's in front of you, but for me it's been a poor tournament that we may win...ohhh perhaps I'm on the wrong thread . Sorry guys, not feeling well today, plus my wife's Ukrainian and I'm 1/8th Italian...a bit messed up in the head!

That would be all well and good if England had an outstanding record against 'poor' sides, in tournament football.

Engerland have ALWAYS been the poor side, of which you speak.

 

[Spiros]

I think the biggest factor is mentality.

How many times have we seen our top players go into tournaments and die on their arses. They freeze, they buckle under the pressure and look a shadow of the players we see tearing it up week-in week-out for their clubs, both domestically and in Europe. It accounts for our misplaced optimism whenever these tournaments come round - they ALWAYS let us down.

This squad is different. Southgate has somehow created a relaxed environment, where (from the outside looking in) there is harmony, and calm. The players are trusted to go out and express themselves. They look calm and relaxed, they look confident. I dunno how Southgate has managed to instil that, but just look at the performances he is getting from each and every one of them as a result.

Mentality, I tells ya.

Absolutely - how many times in the past have we seen other countries with teams of 'championship-level' players out-perform our 11 highly-rated PL stars at these tournaments - Wales, Iceland, etc? Their players always seemed to play better for their country than for their club and our players were the reverse.

Southgate - who I've never really had much good to say about ahead of this tournament - is now managing to get these sort of performances out of England players now. Best example is Sterling - turning in performances in this tournament so far that probably have Pep pulling out what's left of his hair. But also the attitude re the likes of Grealish. Didn't even wince when he was the subbed-off sub last night - can you imagine what would have happened if Dean Smith had done that to him at Villa?

 

[Bry Nylon]

A refreshing absence of WAGs has helped. Great that the players have a home life - but too often at big tournaments this has become blurred with their professional lives.

Don't miss the likes of Rebekah Vardy and Collen Rooney being on the England scene.

 

[B-right-on]

Everybody is included, even the ones who don’t get on the bench. This is Ben Whites photo. See if you can spot him.
View attachment 138386

Slabheads big head, lol

 

[Chopera]

The only England squad that had a similar depth to this squad was 1990, and they were unlucky to lose the semi final to Germany. They were also quite dull in the group stages, but improved when they convinced Bobby Robson to switch to 3-5-2.

All the other England squads have had weak areas. 2002 was strong, but still had Danny Mills at right back. Subsequent squads had weak goalkeepers. Just having one weak area is enough to upset the balance of a team. The problem is compounded when managers try to squeeze too many superstars into other areas of the team.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Luck.

All winners need an element of luck, good or bad. Muller would've scored his goal 9 times out of 10, to equalise.
We've had enough bad luck in the past with Lambert's 'non goal' and 'hand of god' etc.

 

[B-right-on]

This. Poor German side and a soft draw through to the final. England squad is bang average but has managed to somehow swerve the likes of Belgium who would have put them to the sword earlydoors.

Still, total respect to the England squad for putting smiles on faces. Christ knows we've needed it this past 18 months. Enjoy the final

To a degree you are right, but previous England teams would have been put to the sword by these 'lesser' teams (Iceland, Croatia etc..)

This team has a togetherness and spirit I've never seen in my 40+ years of disappointment following England. There was a bit of luck in the Denmark game but we totally dominated the second half and ET.

As stated with no real 'stars' (Gazza, Becks, Rooney) the team play much better. And as Stat previously stated, GS is not shoehorning every big name into a mis matched squad.

Plus the vision of Greg Dyke at the FA, setting up the whole football framework in the UK to develop players

 

[vagabond]

I agree with the praise for GS, but also... many of the other teams are poor. Germany just a shadow, Spain?[emoji1745]*[emoji3603], Portugal weak, Belgium??, France overrated, Italy...hmmm let's see. I know I know... you can only beat what's in front of you, but for me it's been a poor tournament that we may win...ohhh perhaps I'm on the wrong thread [emoji51][emoji848]. Sorry guys, not feeling well today, plus my wife's Ukrainian and I'm 1/8th Italian...a bit messed up in the head!

We’ve been knocked out by Iceland under a previous manager. Never forget or take for granted how difficult it is to beat some of these teams. And Germany were not poor at all, that’s a joke, another day they easily score against us and it’s a different game.

 

[Icy Gull]

I’m going for “law of averages”

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I read an interesting interview with Matthew Syed who is part of a team of advisors that Southgate brought in to help with the psychology and leadership side of things in the England camp.
The team has been assembled from areas outside of football.mainly science, psychology,military etc and I have a recollection of the outcry when they were assembled along the lines of "they don't know about football,they are not football people".
Syed made some interesting points as he always does which is in previous years a manager would surround himself with "football people" under the thinking that the more football people we have the better we will be.
It sounds sensible but actually It doesn't work,the best football people will all have the same knowledge,same ideas and won't bring anything new or creative to the camp.
Southgate is the football man,he only needs a couple of others like him around and he has kept his mind open about hearing views from people outside football they are from fields of expertise that can add something new to the football team set up.
I think this team of experts have made a huge difference to the team psychologically and also Gareth's leadership ability.
I think Gareth's willingness to listen to people from outside football and the input these people have put in has been the big difference in our success this time around wheras before successive managers have failed.

They all talk a good game when they're winning. If Kane hadn't scored the rebound from his fluffed penalty and the subsequent penalty shoot-out had gone the way they usually do, then there would have been a completely different narrative this morning. Thin margins

 

[Hugo Rune]

You need it to win a tournament, we had it last night with the "penalty" in both the giving of it and the execution of it and we have had by far the easiest route to the final and having the home team advantage in all but 1 game.

This.

99% luck but I’d add home advantage which often influences decisions (Russian linesman etc).

4 semi-finals in my lifetime. 2 lost on penalties, 1 lost on inexperience and the other won on a very dodgy penalty in our favour. So lucky. Kane cracked with producing perhaps the worst penalty of his career but then got another dose of luck as Kasper presented him the ball on a plate to score with.

You simply need luck to win these tournaments, show me the major trophy winning side that hasn’t had fortune at some point? We normally receive a massive dose of bad luck, be it a German free-kick deflecting over Shilton, a dodgy sending off, a goal 1m over the line not seen, a Ronaldinho fluke kick over Seaman etc etc etc.

The only pieces of bad luck we got in the Denmark match was the awarding of their goal scoring free-kick for something very petty, the Maguire yellow and Kane not getting a penalty.
Nothing compared to being given an own goal by the opposition and a dodgy penalty by the ref.

We could and will play Italy off the park on Sunday but they’ll be looking to get our players sent off or dive for penalties because they know how these thing are won.

 

[nwgull]

Tournament management is a big thing, I think. England didn't really get out of 2nd gear in the group stages, and they knew they didn't have to. Beating Germany in a knockout game is never going to be easy and needed a bit more effort, but we were comfortable in the next round against the Ukraine and took advantage of being able to sub off 5 outfield players after 60 minutes. Last night the Danes were knackered after about 70 minutes and cramping up and needing to use all their subs. None of the England players looked tired and we were still making breaks out of our own half in the second period of extra time.

 

[keaton]

I think having a shared goal and purpose has played a big part. And in this group's case it was the anarchic overthrow of capitalism and setting up a new Marxist state as the Mail and Pritti Patel will tell you