think it might be a little unfair to say that England couldn't handle the pressure though. at the end of the day it was a young team, that had trouble bouncing back, and Hendo was left by himself to deal with a world class croatian midfield as Lingard and Alli decided to drive forward the entire time. they were ineffective and southgate should have at least tried a player like RLC to help the midfield since Alli was way off the pace. also, the team wasn't really capable of creating chances from open play all that well. there were some weaknesses in this team. but that's nothing to be ashamed about, southgate decided to try youth and overall i'd have to say it was a successful world cup for them by a long way. now they can bring this experience to other tournaments, and we already know these players have the ability to set club allegiances aside, something the last generation said was a real problem.
I was texting a buddy about the midfield. Of course I would have liked to have seen RLC play, but the better option IMO would have been to play Dier and Henderson together with Lingard the advanced CM. Alli was poor anyways, but he was never going to compete defensively with the Croatian midfield. With all that said, England had their chances in the opening 35 minutes and were unable to get a second. That could have and should have been enough to kill the game off with a tired side.
So I obviously would love to see Giroux and Kante win, but it would be so damn cool to see Croatia win it all.
yea good call, that would have some sense as well. Alli didn't have a great WC. hell, Kane actually hasn't had a great WC, but he may still win golden boot. which is crazy. i know people are going to call me crazy for that, but Southgate kind of had him dropping deep, or Kane was doing it on his own maybe since he wasn't getting great service. but statistically, a guy who took like the 3rd most shots in europe last year has very few shots over the course of the tournament.
The positives outweighed the negatives for me. In Maguire and Stones we have the makings of a surprisingly effective CB partnership in front of a really quite decent goalkeeper in Pickford. Trippier came along nicely and I though Lingard was a threat. Alli and Kane didn't quite hit the level we know they can hit but the biggest win was the fact they actually worked together as a team. Much more so than the so called golden generation which probably had more pure talent but never put it together. The exception really felt like Sterling. A threat due to his pace but was never able to pull off a quality final ball. Just felt like he was playing a different game than the rest. Nope, the fact we have a relatively young and humble core of players (not Dele obvs but for the most part the rest) means we are well set up to grow as a team. Will be interesting to see how Euro 2020 comes along with much higher expectations.
Congrats to France, Kante, and Giroux. But Croatia showed heart and desire. Btw, didn't see John Terry celebrating.