World Cup 2026

[Window Cleaner]

1 hour ago, Chez said:

The squad balance was really poor. 

I guess now we know why Chalobah was brought in...we needed as many centre backs as possible.

 

Chalobah was a good player when Pochettino used him correctly. 

[Saint Pete]

I can of course see why Tuchel is getting lots of stick for this and agree that much of it is deserved. But it's a mistake in my view to put what happened 100% on the manager if we want to improve in the future. 

I don't know if folks saw the stat given after the game last night that England had just 12% possession between taking the lead and Argentina's winner. That is crazy and the change in the game was immediate after we scored and before the subs started. To me, it felt like the players didn't have the belief that we could kick on and win that game after getting in front and that is at least as much mental as it is tactical. We stopped doing the basic building blocks of our game; passing to each other, keeping possession, building attacks, closing down crosses. All of it fell apart. It reminded me of a Golf or Tennis major where someone not used to winning gets near the finishing line and the basics of their normal game and technique crumble. Basically, the players choked and that is not all down to the manager. I don't think Tuchel was stood on the touchline after Gordon scored shouting "Everyone, retreat into your own box, let them have all the ball and don't close down crosses!" Those things happened because our players froze and didn't have the belief to continue playing their normal game. In the moment their belief should have soared having gone in front, it was the exact opposite and they went into their collective shell thinking of the finishing line. So disappointing as I don't believe this Argie team are great by any means but we made them look amazing in that last 35 minutes. 

That said, Tuchel's changes did nothing to help and if anything resulted in us retreating even further. And I agree with comments about his squad selection which has hampered us throughout the tournament, plus his refusal to play certain players he selected that could have helped us, eg Mainoo. 

But simply sacking Tuchel and putting in An Other without dissecting the reasons for the failings of the players described above won't result in us winning this type of game in the future. 

[gio1saints]

 

The goodwill TT got for making the Semi was smashed by the sheer pathetic manner of our defeat.
 

Most of us can accept Get beat bravely, get beat by cheats, get beat with bad luck, get beat by better team- but when the single biggest factor is your manager making high quality England players look like a bunch of hopeless amateurs that’s not on.
 

TT subs made it like he tried to win the WC semi final managing a plucky but inferior second division team trying to hold onto a lead vs a proper big club in the FA Cup. That was humiliating to watch. England are not some WR 275 shit team. We had every right to stand up to anyone and give our best. Not adopt that inferiority approach. Not Good enough. He cannot manage Eng again. 

Edited 19 hours ago by gio1saints

[saintant]

1 hour ago, Chez said:

likewise. Still extremely annoyed. Normally I'm just gutted, but Tuchel fucked us.

I'm reasonably chilled because I could see no way we'd have beaten Spain in the final. Better to be disappointed now than more so on Sunday. Having said that our tactics after taking the lead were pathetic and I think that was down to a combination of players and manager decision making.

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, Sunglasses Ron said:

Don't worry everyone, the BBC is here to make us feel better:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gy5jwjvz7o

I wanted to follow their advice and go for a walk, but then i remembered the advice they also gave on how to stay alive during this heat which was to stay in a cool place with the windows open so im fucked.

[AlexLaw76]

 

[whelk]

1 hour ago, Sunglasses Ron said:

Don't worry everyone, the BBC is here to make us feel better:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gy5jwjvz7o

Not one mention of having a wank!

[whelk]

46 minutes ago, saintant said:

I'm reasonably chilled because I could see no way we'd have beaten Spain in the final. Better to be disappointed now than more so on Sunday. Having said that our tactics after taking the lead were pathetic and I think that was down to a combination of players and manager decision making.

An odd outlook to sporting events. Do you apply that with Saints?

[Stripey McStripe Shirt]

1 minute ago, whelk said:

Not one mention of having a wank!

Cold be a typo when they say walk the dog?

[Sunglasses Ron]

34 minutes ago, whelk said:

Not one mention of having a wank!

I abstained from that activity during the world cup in the hope it would produce good karma.

That went well.

Edited 18 hours ago by Sunglasses Ron

[badgerx16]

Now this is truly a trick of fate.......

Lionel Messi meets Lamine Yamal for the first time

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c9w0j104rvgo

Edited 18 hours ago by badgerx16

[AlexLaw76]

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1EoXSVeZmE/?mibextid=wwXIfr

[Challenger]

Aaaaw, the Argies brought a Malvinas banner to the game . Bless

Actually, them being continually eaten away over this ( as I have witnessed first hand there), does help me somewhat after last night's game.

 

 

[Saint Pete]

27 minutes ago, Challenger said:

Aaaaw, the Argies brought a Malvinas banner to the game . Bless

Actually, them being continually eaten away over this ( as I have witnessed first hand there), does help me somewhat after last night's game.

 

 

Can you imagine the uproar if the England team paraded a political banner on the pitch openly baiting the opposition like that? There would be international outrage, calls for expulsion, suspensions, etc no doubt! As it's Argentina, sure it will be quietly swept under the FIFA carpet though so that the Messi love in can continue in earnest for the Final. 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

I wanted to follow their advice and go for a walk, but then i remembered the advice they also gave on how to stay alive during this heat which was to stay in a cool place with the windows open so im fucked.

I put a fridge on my head, and this stroll is going really well.

Would not shed a tear to see Tuchel punted.

[Wurzel]

3 hours ago, Chez said:

I still think international sides should have a manager (and every other position/job come to that) from that nation. International football is meant to be about what you as a nation has to offer. 

Agreed.

And to date no team has ever won the WC under a foreign manager. 

[SambaMaverick]

Pep is available...

[AlexLaw76]

18 minutes ago, Wurzel said:

Agreed.

And to date no team has ever won the WC under a foreign manager. 

I’d start with players representing the country where they were born.

[badgerx16]

14 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

I’d start with players representing the country where they were born.

Haaland to replace Kane ?

[qwertyell]

23 hours ago, CB Fry said:

Argentina have reached the same level of averageness as we have. 

I think our advantage might be our manager who is pretty good at winning tournaments.

Don't do the lottery this week. 

[Sunglasses Ron]

3 hours ago, Saint Pete said:

I can of course see why Tuchel is getting lots of stick for this and agree that much of it is deserved. But it's a mistake in my view to put what happened 100% on the manager if we want to improve in the future. 

I don't know if folks saw the stat given after the game last night that England had just 12% possession between taking the lead and Argentina's winner. That is crazy and the change in the game was immediate after we scored and before the subs started. To me, it felt like the players didn't have the belief that we could kick on and win that game after getting in front and that is at least as much mental as it is tactical. We stopped doing the basic building blocks of our game; passing to each other, keeping possession, building attacks, closing down crosses. All of it fell apart. It reminded me of a Golf or Tennis major where someone not used to winning gets near the finishing line and the basics of their normal game and technique crumble. Basically, the players choked and that is not all down to the manager. I don't think Tuchel was stood on the touchline after Gordon scored shouting "Everyone, retreat into your own box, let them have all the ball and don't close down crosses!" Those things happened because our players froze and didn't have the belief to continue playing their normal game. In the moment their belief should have soared having gone in front, it was the exact opposite and they went into their collective shell thinking of the finishing line. So disappointing as I don't believe this Argie team are great by any means but we made them look amazing in that last 35 minutes. 

That said, Tuchel's changes did nothing to help and if anything resulted in us retreating even further. And I agree with comments about his squad selection which has hampered us throughout the tournament, plus his refusal to play certain players he selected that could have helped us, eg Mainoo. 

But simply sacking Tuchel and putting in An Other without dissecting the reasons for the failings of the players described above won't result in us winning this type of game in the future. 

I actually agree with a lot of this.

Both goals were piss poor ones to concede, lots of basic errors regardless of our tactics.

[aintforever]

5 hours ago, Saint Pete said:

I can of course see why Tuchel is getting lots of stick for this and agree that much of it is deserved. But it's a mistake in my view to put what happened 100% on the manager if we want to improve in the future. 

I don't know if folks saw the stat given after the game last night that England had just 12% possession between taking the lead and Argentina's winner. That is crazy and the change in the game was immediate after we scored and before the subs started. To me, it felt like the players didn't have the belief that we could kick on and win that game after getting in front and that is at least as much mental as it is tactical. We stopped doing the basic building blocks of our game; passing to each other, keeping possession, building attacks, closing down crosses. All of it fell apart. It reminded me of a Golf or Tennis major where someone not used to winning gets near the finishing line and the basics of their normal game and technique crumble. Basically, the players choked and that is not all down to the manager. I don't think Tuchel was stood on the touchline after Gordon scored shouting "Everyone, retreat into your own box, let them have all the ball and don't close down crosses!" Those things happened because our players froze and didn't have the belief to continue playing their normal game. In the moment their belief should have soared having gone in front, it was the exact opposite and they went into their collective shell thinking of the finishing line. So disappointing as I don't believe this Argie team are great by any means but we made them look amazing in that last 35 minutes. 

That said, Tuchel's changes did nothing to help and if anything resulted in us retreating even further. And I agree with comments about his squad selection which has hampered us throughout the tournament, plus his refusal to play certain players he selected that could have helped us, eg Mainoo. 

But simply sacking Tuchel and putting in An Other without dissecting the reasons for the failings of the players described above won't result in us winning this type of game in the future. 

Agree with all this. Tuchel has to take his share of the blame but in my opinion the main reason we lost was because the players just bottled it.

[whelk]

The nerve of this cunt

[Wade Garrett]

6 hours ago, Saint Pete said:

I can of course see why Tuchel is getting lots of stick for this and agree that much of it is deserved. But it's a mistake in my view to put what happened 100% on the manager if we want to improve in the future. 

I don't know if folks saw the stat given after the game last night that England had just 12% possession between taking the lead and Argentina's winner. That is crazy and the change in the game was immediate after we scored and before the subs started. To me, it felt like the players didn't have the belief that we could kick on and win that game after getting in front and that is at least as much mental as it is tactical. We stopped doing the basic building blocks of our game; passing to each other, keeping possession, building attacks, closing down crosses. All of it fell apart. It reminded me of a Golf or Tennis major where someone not used to winning gets near the finishing line and the basics of their normal game and technique crumble. Basically, the players choked and that is not all down to the manager. I don't think Tuchel was stood on the touchline after Gordon scored shouting "Everyone, retreat into your own box, let them have all the ball and don't close down crosses!" Those things happened because our players froze and didn't have the belief to continue playing their normal game. In the moment their belief should have soared having gone in front, it was the exact opposite and they went into their collective shell thinking of the finishing line. So disappointing as I don't believe this Argie team are great by any means but we made them look amazing in that last 35 minutes. 

That said, Tuchel's changes did nothing to help and if anything resulted in us retreating even further. And I agree with comments about his squad selection which has hampered us throughout the tournament, plus his refusal to play certain players he selected that could have helped us, eg Mainoo. 

But simply sacking Tuchel and putting in An Other without dissecting the reasons for the failings of the players described above won't result in us winning this type of game in the future. 

I disagree.  Defending from the 18 yard line and leaving nobody up front for an out ball was completely on Tuchel.  100% on him.  He even made subs to encourage it.

I hope the FA sack him.

[Saint NL]

 

#DNA

[Saint Pete]

4 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

I disagree.  Defending from the 18 yard line and leaving nobody up front for an out ball was completely on Tuchel.  100% on him.  He even made subs to encourage it.

I hope the FA sack him.

I wasn't defending him, he could and should have done more to stop what happened, but the players shat the bed as well once getting in front, no mistake about that. We have failed in games like this over multiple World Cups and Euros and it ain't just down to the managers although I know our fans love to think our players are great really and it's all down to poor coaching/tactics. 

[Badger]

30 minutes ago, whelk said:

The nerve of this cunt

Not making a defence of his tactics or substitutions last night but there is some truth in this, as unpalatable as it seems. 
 

The England team have been ‘also rans’ for decades. 

[aintforever]

24 minutes ago, whelk said:

The nerve of this cunt

He’s got a point though, we always fuck it up. You go back to 1990 and Stuart Pearce wellying his penalty straight at the keeper, then there’s Beckham losing his shit and getting sent off, Rooney stamping on someone’s bollocks, there’s countless penalty fuck ups which is due to lack of technical ability/mindset. We have not even reached a World Cup final in my life-time and in our entire history won nothing without home advantage. Tuchel should take some blame for his subs but the England players just shat the bed and stopped playing as soon as they took the lead.

[Badger]

22 hours ago, CB Fry said:

Venables won two entire games at Euro 96, one was against Scotland.

And then did not make one single substitution in 120 minutes vs Germany and allowed a situation where Ince and others bottled penalty taking so Southgate was forced to. Plenty of game management issues there as well. Great summer but Terry fucked up too.

 

I am gutted that the whole fucking point of Tuchel, the whole point was he had the nous to win tournaments. Absolutely pathetic from him today.

Agree with you about Venables, always gets the media praise from the media chums, but overrated beyond achievement as far as England are concerned. Wasn’t aware of the lack of substitutions. 

Believe me I wasn’t making a case out for him by mentioning 1996. In truth we were distinctly average playing at home, the Netherlands game aside.

But the point I was making is that for the SF we did have a go ( Gascoigne a few inches from connecting stands out) rather than last nights effort. 

[Badger]

5 hours ago, Challenger said:

Aaaaw, the Argies brought a Malvinas banner to the game . Bless

Actually, them being continually eaten away over this ( as I have witnessed first hand there), does help me somewhat after last night's game.

 

 

Perhaps they’ll take it to the final, and the Spanish can wave one about Gibraltar 🇬🇮 back at them. 
 

[Polaroid Saint]

English Football DNA...

...long post. Apologies, anyway:

I read that Soccernomics book a while back and they made a very (very) compelling case for England being about the ninth or tenth best team in the world.

Rankings fluctuate based on performances but the basic 'DNA' or a footballing nation only changes with systematic support and gradual improvement. There's lots of reasons why a footballing nation such as ours with all our history and relatively large population doesn't do as well as we should. Not least Cricket, Rugby and the education system.

So, on that note. I blame the class system. (As I do for fucking everything because I'm a pinko commie anarchist or something).

Anyway, I asked the AI fella who lives my phone, if this was still the case and he said:

The short answer is: less so than when Soccernomics was first published.

The original argument was never really "England are bad." It was that England consistently overestimated itself. Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski argued that, once you accounted for factors like population, footballing culture, wealth and historical performance, England looked more like the 8th to 10th strongest football nation, rather than a perennial favourite. That was a useful antidote to decades of "this is our year."

A lot has changed since then.
The biggest difference is England's youth development. After the failures of the 2000s, the FA invested heavily in:
St George's Park.
Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) academies.
Better coaching qualifications.
More technically focused youth football.

The result has been a conveyor belt that simply didn't exist twenty years ago:
Bellingham
Saka
Foden
Palmer
Rice
Mainoo
Gordon
and many others.

England have also become much more consistent at youth level, winning age-group World Cups and European Championships, which Soccernomics predicted should eventually feed through to the senior side.

The senior results back that up:
World Cup semi-final (2018)
Euro finalists (2021)
Euro finalists (2024)
Deep run again at the 2026 World Cup under Tuchel, with England widely regarded as one of the four strongest sides in the tournament. 

The rating systems agree. England now sit around 4th in both FIFA and Elo, rather than hovering around 8th to 10th. 

That said, I think one part of the Soccernomics argument still holds.

England's structural disadvantages haven't vanished:
Football still competes with rugby and cricket in a way it doesn't in Spain or Argentina.

Access to informal street football remains lower than in many countries.

The Premier League is so wealthy that young English players can find first-team opportunities harder to come by.

The English football culture and media still create extraordinary pressure around the national team.
So I think the revised conclusion today would be:

Around 2010: England were probably overrated by fans and media, and objectively about the 8th to 10th best football nation.
Around 2026: England are genuinely among the top four to six football nations. They're not automatically the best, but they're no longer flattering to deceive.

One thing Soccernomics got absolutely right is that footballing nations change slowly. France didn't become France because of one manager. Spain's golden era was the product of twenty years of coaching reform. Germany's post-2000 renaissance came from restructuring academies after Euro 2000. England's improvement looks very similar: a long-term change in the production line rather than a lucky generation.
In fact, if Soccernomics were being rewritten today, I suspect England would be one of its success stories: an example of how a country's "football DNA" really can change, but only through patient, systemic investment rather than finding a single genius manager or a handful of exceptional players.

 

[Challenger]

18 minutes ago, Badger said:

Perhaps they’ll take it to the final, and the Spanish can wave one about Gibraltar 🇬🇮 back at them. 
 

With England ( thanks to their gutless manager ) waving a white flag last night, we'll then have a complete set.

[Tommy Mulgrew]

“What we've lack for years is that controlling central midfield player, a player that can dictate the tempo, do the simple things well, keep the ball moving etc. Michael Carrick was the nearest thing we've had to that in recent years and IMO should have been the first name on Englands team sheet in those days.  We dont seem to like those sort of players when we have them they get labelled as boring, sideways & backwards type players because they're not spectacular, exciting players who score goals and create chance after chance.“

JWP innit?

[suewhistle]

I'm off on holiday to Italy soon, and at least won't get teased as the simple come back is 'at least we were there'.

 

It was all deeply disappointing. Which sub was it who came on and gave the sign with his fingers 5-4-1? FFS, just no outlet, let alone, as Saint Pete and others have said, not doing the basics right. 

[Saint Fan CaM]

Our WC demise was IMO due to both TT’s tactics and the generally poor concentration and fitness levels of our players. Argies had a significant advantage in that the weather conditions were no their side and of course they got away with murder I the first half. How the hell did an England player manage to get carded first? 

I’m not sure about TT being sacked - on the one hand you could say that he deserves a second chance to build his squad the way he wants it. On the other, the guy didn’t just fuck up a bit - he made some seriously unfathomable decisions that don’t stand up to much scrutiny.

[sockeye]

1 hour ago, Saint Fan CaM said:

I’m not sure about TT being sacked - on the one hand you could say that he deserves a second chance to build his squad the way he wants it. On the other, the guy didn’t just fuck up a bit - he made some seriously unfathomable decisions that don’t stand up to much scrutiny.

Madrid 2-1 Bayern, Bayern takes the lead 1-0 through Alphonso Davies at 68', takes off Musiala and Kane and then Joselu scores twice in 3 minutes.

Tuchel has form for this kind of defensive tactic, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, but with the squad we had against the squad we were facing... it felt very much like ramming a square peg into a round hole based on what's worked for him in the past. Feels wrong to sack a manager after 1 tournament where we went out to the reigning champions in the semis... but imagine we lose in this way again in Euro 2028. 

[East Kent Saint]

Edited 2 hours ago by East Kent Saint

[East Kent Saint]

Made me smile!

[James G]

6 hours ago, Saint Fan CaM said:

Our WC demise was IMO due to both TT’s tactics and the generally poor concentration and fitness levels of our players. Argies had a significant advantage in that the weather conditions were no their side and of course they got away with murder I the first half. How the hell did an England player manage to get carded first? 

I’m not sure about TT being sacked - on the one hand you could say that he deserves a second chance to build his squad the way he wants it. On the other, the guy didn’t just fuck up a bit - he made some seriously unfathomable decisions that don’t stand up to much scrutiny.

It was 100% the players. Nothing Tuchel did would have changed the final result.

They were given a game plan, and they stopped doing it after they scored

Tuchel called them out in the previous game as well

I think experience counts so much more in cup games

[Whitey Grandad]

4 minutes ago, James G said:

It was 100% the players. Nothing Tuchel did would have changed the final result.

They were given a game plan, and they stopped doing it after they scored

Tuchel called them out in the previous game as well

I think experience counts so much more in cup games

What rubbish.

Who chose the players?

Who chose the substitutions? 

[trousers]

1 hour ago, East Kent Saint said:

Can we also have the Foresight Trophy for the entire clientele of my local pub who all predicted the outcome after we scored and dropped too deep?

 

Edited 1 hour ago by trousers

[LiberalCommunist]

His decisions reinforced their mental fragility. They share the blame. 

But in all honesty, we did well to get to the semi's. Looking back over the tournament, there was not much to suggest it was going to be a success. Ghana & Panama games were pretty insipid. We were kinda lucky to get through the Mexico game. Had they equalised and taken us to ET we would have been out. Norway looked well off it on the day, made some bad decisions, and we did benefit from some luck. 

So where does that leave me today? Tuchel should get a stay of execution. He will have learnt a lot from this competition. Some players have stepped up and bought into his philosophy. Special mention to Spence, he's really won me over. 

Our defence and midfield will be far more settled than it was in the build up to the WC. The fullback issue we entered the tournament with was frankly ridiculous, and Rice seemed to be injured/unwell throughout the whole competition. 

Mistakes have been made. But lets not chuck the baby out with the bath water. He'll be more ruthless with his picks in the future, and that will benefit us. 

This World Cup was far more enjoyable than I imagined it would be, and frankly its been a good distraction. Lets hope these under fire mad German managers turn out to be little gems in the coming months! 

[Badger]

33 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

What rubbish.

Who chose the players?

Who chose the substitutions? 

And lumbered himself with a poor squad including injury prone players, or those returning from injury. 

[AlexLaw76]

To even suggest that was nothing to do with Tuchel is ridiculous. I would expect that from a Yank who has been watching football for the very first time in their life, not an English football fan.