The more I think about this idea, the more intrigued I am. Would there be a minimum distance like with throw ins? What if you're fouled 2 inches from the goal line but outside the width of the posts? If you're closer than ten yards, do you get a shot at an empty goal? If not, what happens when a foul is almost on the goal line? Can the keeper just stand there and block it? Can you pass back to a teammate if you choose, or does the ball have to go forwards like with current penalties? Lots of things to iron out but it's definitely interesting!
With better officiating the game would probably have been finished after 90 minutes though, to be fair. Separately, I have full sympathy with your position on “garbage takes" but "gladly take a dump on your win" does you no favours. While this a cosmopolitan board and Chelsea are known in the last quarter century for being a multinational team, it's still an English club with primarily English supporters enjoying their rare international success. I wouldn't dream of dumping on your country's victories on this board or any other.
So here we go. The game. Our biggest national game in my lifetime. The ABE forces are out there. But I don't really care tbh. Fcuck 'em. We have the home crowd and the “coming home” anthem and the “sweet Caroline” - why are they singing “sweet Caroline”? I have no idea. Anybody? Very popular drunk wedding song, but is there any other connection? Makes about as much sense to me as the Mexican wave. We have a lot of depth and we have a lot of fast strikers. We need to not let the Italian lot get the first goal. Italy can hold on to a 1-0 forever and a day. I am really looking forwards to this game. I have no idea who is going to win it. Italy have a great team and team spirit and an intelligent manager. England have some better players, but our manager is an idiot. Southgate is a nice bloke, but not a great manager tactically. Mancini is a proper manager. The weaknesses in the England team start at the back. A goalkeeper that is a liability. Clumsy. Inept. Not a bad shot stopper, but terrible with his distribution. The Italian goalkeeper is the best in the world. Our full backs are good, and they are fast and we shall need that, because not having pace is a problem these days. Our centre backs are very average. The Italian centre backs are amazing, but they are old and slow. There must be a way for us to exploit that, although Spain tried and it didn’t work out for them. Those two CBs lasted the entire game and extra time. Spain put quick strikers on the Italian CBs with the idea of tiring them out and then bringing on Moratta. He kind of worked, Moratta did come in and score. But Moratta is not the best striker - he needs 5 chances to maybe convert one. Our strikers are better. Faster. I just hope our manager has an intelligent way of deploying them. We need to press and stretch those two old timers at CB. Easier said than done. The real battle will be in the middle of the park. Our formation will be key to this. Italy play a nice solid 4-3-3. We play with 2 defensive mids, which is a waste in my opinion. Especially against the Italian team, we won’t be needing 2 DMs as they will get lost. The key to the midfield battle is Jorghino. As a Chelsea fan we know how he can be stopped, I just hope the England manager has been paying attention. Maybe I should write to him? Everything goes through Jorghino. You have to press him constantly, maybe even man mark him. He is not the quickest player. Hassle him. Press him. close him down. Bite his ankles. Jack Russel that motherfcucker. He will make mistakes. I would put one of our super fast young players on him, maybe Foden or Mount, take him out and break the mechanism of the Italian team. But that relationship between Jorghino and the two CBs is where it has to be attacked. Stopped. Exploited. here we go, this time more than any other time, this time. . .
I said on the England boards they should put Mount on him when they have the ball as he can definitely cough up possession as we all know.. But I don't think our midfield pairing, particularly Rice, is good enough at the highest level. For me it's just a matter of if our more direct style from Sterling, Saka and Mount can break them down in a way that Spain's tiki-taka style failed to do. As you say, our keeper is a blunder waiting to happen, (he virtually threw the ball out to the other sides CF the other day if you remember), so it will probably end badly but we'll see. As long as it's a good game and we show that we can play a bit, (which is a shit load more than we've done many times in the past), I'll be quite happy. Remember this? I mean, even as proud Englishman, even I found that pretty funny Well, I meant his commentary. Not that actual incident, obviously So whatever happens, happens and the bottom line is that, with the WC in 2018 and now this, we've shown we can at least be competitive in international football which is more than we've been able to say for a LONG time.
Mancini has hinted that he may not play the usual 4-3-3 which put Italy in trouble when Spain had the three midfielders man marked when they were manouvering the ball. I wonder what Southgate can come up with. It's not easy to break down this Italian team. But all we ask is a good showing. Winning would be nice, but it's not really expected.
I mean, tbh, with guys like him in charge, it's a wonder we did as well as we did But typical of the sort of fella that blazers at the FA would go for as he wouldn't rock the boat too much and cause problems. If you think of some of the players that were wasted by clowns like him, it's bloody criminal.
Fans love singing it. Best rendition I saw was at the ally pally for the pdc worlds some years back. Daryl Gurney has it as his walk on song and the drunk crowd loves it.
I liked this bit... Even one of the writers of England’s other unofficial anthem, “Three Lions” — written ahead of Euro 1996 and popularizing the English catchphrase, “it’s coming home” — acknowledged “Sweet Caroline’s” current favor amongst the fans. “I thought ‘Sweet Caroline’ went slightly better than ‘Three Lions’ in the post-match sing-song,” musician Frank Skinner admitted on his radio show following the win over Germany. “I felt like we’d beat Germany and lost to Neil Diamond in extra time.” But.... er... musician???? I think not mate He's a comic, (and quite a good one), who used to have a late night, off the wall, show about football with his best mate, David Baddiel called 'Fantasy Football League'... That's worth watching if you have the time as it's pretty funny. Of course, Baddiel is famously a HUGE Chelsea fan, (and an atheist jew), whilst Skinner supports West Brom and, not surprisingly, is a practising Catholic which, y'know... has a sort of grim coherence I suppose Anyway, they're well known footie fans who wrote that song with a guy from The Lightning Seeds who had a few hits back in the day.
By way of reference this is one walk on video. Darts walk ons are usually epic as a) they are in arenas so the sound is amplified and b) on a pint per capita basis, no fans are more lubricated than those at the darts. Until you've seen it you'd have no idea how mad it is. A pub game but in front of thousands of pissed up people. Northern Ireland's number 1, "Superchin".
Lightning seeds played one of our uni balls back in 1998 ahead of the world cup and they were brilliant. They must have done three lions (number 1 at the time) 5 times due to encores plus they didnt have the drag factor of skinner and baddiel "singing". They also did life of riley which any self respecting brit will recognise as the regular music for goal of the month on match of the day. Had a bevvie with them afterwards and they were solid lads. For scousers.
So is this a Messi-like moment for England fans? Rebecca Lowe posted this was potentially one of the days of her life. Is it that scale for y’all.
Jorghino with a two arm hand ball/shove on Mount. He strikes me as a guy who’d be a really poor loser. Oop. Mount takes care of himself.
******** I used to love the Lightning Seeds. Particularly the album with Life of Riley on. I want to just acknowledge now that some of the fans’ behaviour ahead of the game is utterly despicable, as are some of the excuses I’ve seen people make elsewhere. But I hope that’ll be the final mention and we actual fans of football can just watch, analyse, discuss - and hopefully enjoy - the game. 1-0
For sure. This is like one of the perennial nearly-teams getting to the CL final. Only the World Cup would be bigger, but would be a LOT bigger.