Wow. You could see that developing as it happened, they overloaded that far post.
And the Olympiastadium is cooking! 1-0 Turkey.
ETA: and what an intensive game so far compared to the England-Switzerland bore.
“Football’s coming home” was actually written for Euro 96 when the tournament was being held in England. While it was to celebrate the tournament rather than the trophy coming “home”. With the song now being used at tournaments outside England I would say it refers to either the Euro title as well as the World Cup. No idea if “Football just came home will be sung if England do win”
As a note it is only the English that say / sing “Football’s coming home”, the Scots, Welsh and N. Irish never say / sing it. A large number of them, probably the majority would have been routing for Switzerland earlier today.
I hate the ‘coming home’ thing, but it comes from a self-depreciating song about the constant disappointments in major tournaments.
Although it’s ironic it gets overused by part-time fans to mean winning the tournament. I think it can apply to any England tournament victory but the song was released ahead of Euro 96 - nearly 20 years ago!
I wish we dropped it, and luckily I’ve heard it much less frequently this tournament.
Don’t worry, England will strangle the joy from whoever we play in the next game.
I hate to break it to you, but that was 28 years ago . I know, I know, we’re all getting old…
Oh god. Now I REALLY feel old!
At the next world cup “30 years of hurt” will refer to 30 years of hearing “Football’s coming home”
I don’t remember ever seeing an England team middle their way through a tournament like this. They are either really good and make it to the semis or really bad and don’t. This feels like Italy, not England. Still, this might be exactly what they need to finally win a tournament. If they can make the semis playing badly, imagine what they might do if they play well in the last two matches.
There’s a palpable demand for an Arg-Eng finalissima, but the way Argentina played its last game it will probably be Uru-Eng if England wins the Euro
A boring game for eighty minutes. And for thirty. England won, but tougher games are ahead.
Netherlands player scores the likely winning goal flailing to the ground on mild contact as he waves his arm for a foul.
ETA did look more like OG on replay.
Saw it from three angles and I’m still not sure. Lothar Matthäus is expert on German TV and thinks the same. But it was officially announced as Gakpo’s goal, which means he’s leading the best scorer list now with four goals.
ETA: UEFA just officially declared that it was an own goal.
Christ this is a manic finish.
So much more entertaining than today’s first game and yesterday’s France-Portugal.
The 2006 WC match between Trinidad and Tobago and Sweden is one of my favorite matches I’ve watched and it ended 0-0.
Funny thing is I was thinking this is just like the 2018 world cup.
In the group stage they didn’t look impressive except against a very poor Panama side (beat Tunisa with an injury time winner and lost to Belgium) but the knockout draw really opened up for them. They were second best to Columbia but managed to go through on Penalties then beat Sweden without looking very impressive. In the Semis they played Croatia ranked 20th in the world and were therefore expected to win but Croatia proved too much for them, had England won they would have got to the final without beating anyone ranked higher than 16 in the world.
Portugal won the 2016 Euros finishing 3rd in their group, then beating Croatia in extra time, Poland in penalties, then Wales. Then beat France in the finals in extra time. If you want to be annoyingly pedantic, the only game they won the entire tournament was against Wales. And other than France none of the teams were in the top 10 (I can’t find a full ranking in 5 minutes). You can absolutely win tournaments through luck of the draw and squeaking out advancement; I wouldn’t count England out at all.
Absolutely. Italy and Germany did it numerous times. And you can win with a minimalist, defensive approach, as Greece proved in 2004 when they won the Euro with only 7 goals scored.
England are doing what teams like Germany did for decades. Finding a way to win when they didn’t always deserve to. England have had good teams in the past and have played great football sometimes but they didn’t have that winning quality.
I’m not saying I think they will win the tournament. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they put in a brilliant free flowing performance against the Dutch but still lost. But this England team have something that I’ve not seen before from an England team at major tournaments.
I’m not sure if I like it or not…
They won on penalties for a start, this is not your father’s England.