🗣️"I fear for the referees."Thomas Tuchel discusses IFAB rule changes taking place at the World Cup, including grappling at corners, with Ben White's goal against Uruguay being used as an example as one that would be disallowed under the new protocol. pic.twitter.com/lhvNtVd7SK— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) June 5, 2026 Can’t wait for the inevitable inconsistency of officiating thats going to envelop this World Cup…..
At least if things go bad the PL will be under even more pressure to call an emergency meeting to axe VAR.
Yes exactly. 86 - 90 England were very good. 98-06 likewise and now this 2018-26 stretch. All three periods though they were not the favourites or even the second favourites on paper. I think reason why people make such a big deal about Englands "failures" is because they are remarkably consistent as being a top nations through multiple eras but the player base was never really top 3 in any of those eras until now where Spain France and England are producing the best players in both quality and volume for the last 6 years or so across the pitch. The only era that confuses me is the late 70s because English football was so dominant but the national team did poorly. I know England were good in 82 but struggled with goals but thats a bit of a funny era and of course we all lived through 2010-16 where the quality just wasn't there but those 6 years are really the only period England were out of the top 5 or 6 nations on paper since 1966 more or less.
It be gone from the PL by the time we come back up. Mark Bullingham was humiliated in his attempt to get into the Championship (To the level that I suspect some at FIFA were fuming with him).
A awful as missing 3 world cups has been personally for me I always wanted to see Italy win a Euro. In many ways I am satisfied as a fan and now look at this dark period as the period between 1938 and 1982 ..if you were 18 in 38 as I was in 2006 you were 62 in 82. If I have to wait until I am 62 before Italy wins again so be it. These are the cycles. Or maybe this is the end of Italian football and they go the way of Hungary or Uruguay. That would be a sad future to live through.
It was another case of fine margins really. There were no play-offs for World Cup qualification in those days, so if you had one bad game each time like England did, then you were always up against it. In qualification for the '74 tournament, for example, we somehow lost away to Poland, then absolutely laid siege to their goal in the return leg, only to come up against a keeper having the game of his life. That failure then led to us being drawn in the same group as Italy for the '78 qualifiers. And despite beating them at home we ultimately went out on goal difference. Which was a shame, because as our success in the European club competitions showed, we had some very decent players.
I agree there's many close calls in WC knockout games, which people can pick out and become nostalgic about. Eg The 1990 WC could have easily been an Italy v England final. Although both Argentina and Germany had significantly better penalty shootout records than Italy and England. IIRC Italy were knocked out in three WC's in a row via penalties from 1990-1998. England lost 6 out of 7 shootouts from 1990-2012, only beating Spain at pens at Euro96. Then there was WC 2002, back then, I thought that 2002 team were an even better Italy side than the 2006 team because they still had players like Vieri, Maldini and prime Totti. But ofc they were the victims of daylight robbery from the Koreans. And I still think if they hadn't been victims of what happened vs Korea, they would have been a stylistic nightmare and cancelled out that Brazil side in the final. This is why around 2010, I stopped blaming England's shortfalls on something as simplistic as bad luck, individual moments or poor referee decisions etc. You can do that with a particular cycle or tournament. But its irrational to keep making that excuse over multiple cohorts or in England's case, 50 straight yrs of bad luck... Plus I think sometimes we cling on (nostalgically) to those close calls in England a bit more than other countrys, because our record has been so underwhelming against the best teams in knockout games
makes sense. yeah it was seriously fine margins at that time. its not like England even lost many games between 74 and 82. Especially with the Euros at that time.
There's obviously a need for a rebuild but Italy will be back competing for trophies again. There's clearly a lot of talent at youth level still.
In 78 England and Italy both finished on 10 points in qualifying. Italy beat England 2-0 at home and England beat Italy 2-0 at home. It came down to England beating Finland 4-1 and Italy beating them 6-1 so they progressed on a +2 goal difference. In the final tournament Italy topped their group stage beating eventual winners Argentina 1-0. They missed out on making the final by losing 1-2 to the legendary Dutch side of that era. Reports say they were the better side but the Dutch scored two long rage efforts in the second half. I think this particular qualifying campaign and tournament is quite instructive about international football and what most fans don't understand about the simple fact of probability. There are about 7-10 sides going into this tournament that are of a similar level and only one can win it. Realistically no side has more than a 7-20% chance of winning the tournament so you can name every big nation in the tournament and say they won't win it and you'll be right nearly all of the time. I hear people saying that Brazil are 'due' a win but they are not. They go into this and every tournament unlikely to win it. They may not win another World Cup for the next 40 years and it wouldn't be at all surprising, especially given that we should see improvements from nations that have never won the tournament before. You can put whatever manager you want in charge of England, pick any squad you like and adopt any tactics you like and England will still be statistically unlikely to win this tournament. edit: Opta's model says I've been far too generous. Who Will Win the 2026 FIFA World Cup?Forty-eight teams will battle it out for glory in North America, but who will win the tournament?We asked the Opta supercomputer for its predictions before the tournament kicks off on 11 June. pic.twitter.com/nPyiTqnKpT— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) June 1, 2026
This is it. We shouldn't go beating ourselves up over our poor record in knockout football. It's an inexact science after all, where any one of a number of variables can throw you off course on any particular day. You only have to think back to the great Dutch side of the '70s, or the swashbuckling Brazil boys of '82, to recognise that the best team doesn't always win. It is what it is. Just buckle yourself in and enjoy the ride. Because at the end of the day, football in this country will continue to be the best in the world. No matter what new fate befalls our national team.
The 78 England side is an interesting one because the English league was exceptionally dominant in the European Cup of that era but the international side had one of it's worst periods. That 78 side was as good as any of its peers though, that squad won more European Cup titles than any other international side at that World Cup. If you simulated that 1978 qualifying and tournament 10000 times, all things being equal, then that England side would win it near as much as any other side. Short format tournaments are subject to a lot of chaos by their nature. As you say, just enjoy the chaos.
. You're right. To put things into perspective, that '78 World Cup was won by Argentina. A team we'd drawn with the year before in Buenos Aries then comfortably beat at Wembley two years later. England genuinely had some top players at that time. It was just the lottery of knockout football again that denied them the chance to prove it on the biggest stage.
Arsenal quartet unavailable with Thomas Tuchel set to experiment in pre-World Cup friendly 🏴How @MrDomSmith thinks England will line up against New Zealand ⬇️#ThreeLions | #ENGNZLhttps://t.co/VbpbZigWax— Standard Sport (@standardsport) June 6, 2026 England World Cup ticket prices have plummeted by almost half - as FIFA finally put thousands of withheld seats on the market - The Sun
It’s going to be a weird second XI in the second half. Pretty much have to use the standby options to have any balance. Also, we probably can’t start with Gordon and Rashford from the start because we will have very little in that area for the second half.
Seems like it will be a pointless exercise where we learn nothing. Hopefully we can get Rio and Nwaneri on the pitch.
I wouldn't start kane rice saka or Bellingham In either game. We've seen teams lose big players in these friendlies
That would be weird. The argument for limiting his minutes is obvious but we need to win the games and he needs match sharpness in the knockouts. Sure bring him off if we're two up and have him on the bench in the last if we've qualified. There is also the psychological boost for opponents when they see him missing from the team sheet. Bayern managed his minutes to an extent so if he is knackered at this stage what hope for others? Hopefully just mind games or speculation. I suppose it would show that everyone has a role to play and would demonstrate some balls from Tuchel.
Pointless exercise in terms of learning anything tactically or taking the performance seriously but I think it’s obviously important for the players to get used to the conditions of the weather in a match situation. Funnily enough I was talking to some Swedish guys at work and they couldn’t understand why they didn’t fly out early like England and get used to the climate and conditions but they just played two friendly games in Sweden which is totally different environment compared to what they will face in the US.
Where did you hear this? I would be amazed if he’s not at least starting the first two games unless he’s already carrying a knock we aren’t aware of.