I count 7. 1966 WC winners 1968 EC SF 1990 WC SF 1996 EC SF 2018 WC SF 2021 EC finalists 2024 EC finalists
They also lost to the Netherlands under Southgate (yes, I know, Nations League... but when you're a trophy-starved side like England [or Belgium], beggars can't be choosers )
How many times have CONCACAF teams reached the semis in the last 75 years, including the 3 times they hosted?
I just enjoy it when fans of countries who have never accomplished anything criticize the records of other countries.
Before money and marketing corrupted football they all would have been suspended during the tournament. It's all about FIFA wanting the big name players and strongest possible teams in the tournament which is why rules like that now exist. He got suspended for a deliberate elbow so I don't think the "well he's not a dirty player" excuse washes really. Anyway, my point was Portugal won't drop him for the same reason that FIFA won't suspend him during the tournament. $$$
Germany were not great though to be fair. Southgate was a useless manager. His only redeeming quality was to somehow get easy fixtures all the way to the semi's/final. If we'd had an half decent manager whose tactics weren't just to pass sideways/back to the keeper all game and rely on moments of individual brilliance when things got desperate late on, we'd have probably won at least one of the previous tournaments.
Sure, the guy I was responding arbitrarily picked 6 ("big") sides England always lose to in k.o, and missed out when they did beat one of those teams! so thought it should be corrected. Don't think anyone thinks they were a great side but any team with Neuer, Rudiger, Hummels, Kimmich, Kroos, Muller in it is certainly very good.
a. It's not a criticism, it's an observation. b. I'm English, even though I've been following the USA for the last ten years. In a match between the two I'd support the Yanks as I've been following the players since they were teens.
I really don't mind water break thing. As annoying as it may be, I think it's good to have the same standard across all games. As mentioned, the break will give the opportunity for a coach to rearrange something tactically without the need for the goalkeeper fake injury deal. In my view you don't want one set of matches with coaches having that opportunity while another set of matches doesn't.
Since England crashed out at the 2014 World Cup they have had the following results. 2018: Wins vs Tunisia, Panama, Sweden. Tie vs Colombia. Losses vs Belgium (x2) and Croatia. 2022: Wins vs Wales, Iran, Senegal. Tie vs USA. Loss vs France. For the Euros: 2016: Win vs Wales. Ties vs Russia and Slovakia. Loss vs Iceland. 2020 (all in London except Ukraine): Wins vs Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Ukraine*, Denmark. Ties vs Scotland and Italy. 2024: Win vs Serbia, Slovakia, Netherlands. Ties vs Denmark, Slovenia, Switzerland. Loss vs Spain. That win vs Netherlands in 2024 is the only win that is truly impressive imo. 2020 they were basically the home team.
🇳🇬🇨🇩 ATENCIÓN! NIGERIA VA A LA FIFA PARA PEDIR LA DESCALIFICACIÓN DE RD CONGO DE LOS PLAYOFFSSegún la Federación, RD Congo tiene "nacionalizaciones" indebidas ya que la ley del país no admite la doble nacionalidad. Si la FIFA hace a lugar, Nigeria debería tomar su lugar. pic.twitter.com/3yjWHXj1Wa— Nahuel Lanzón (@nahuelzn) December 16, 2025
My favorite was when FIFA created a way for Inter Miami to qualify for the Club World Cup. They could've waited 2 weeks and had the MLS champion qualify but instead they ordained that the club with the best regular season record would participate. And as luck would have it that was Messi's team.
15 additional nations for a total of 39 are hit with travel bans. But of course, awarding the biggest global event in the planet to a nation banning primarily (blacks and browns) should be awarded hosting rights for CONCACAF - forever and ever and ever
People make this argument all the time and I never understand what exactly it's supposed to signify? Most of the best players in every top league are foreigners. No country produces enough talent to populate a world-beating domestic league without mass foreign imports. Serie A in the 80s/90s was full of top global talent that outstripped the top Italian talent, and even Spanish football has been propped up by overseas players throughout Spain's domestic production pomp. Amongst Xavi, Iniesta, Ramos and Busquets, you had Messi, Ronaldo, Benzema, Dani Alves, Modric, Bale, Kroos, Eto'o, Ibrahimovic, Neymar etc, etc, etc. For what it's even worth, I think roughly half of the PL's 10 best players are English anyway. I don't think you could make a credible top 10 list without Palmer, Saka, Foden, Rice, and Reece James. Would be even higher if Kane and Bellingham didn't play abroad. You've only really got Haaland, Rodri (when fit) and Gabriel/Saliba who blow you away in terms of overseas talents atm. Ekitike is getting there though and maybe Wirtz and Cherki will too eventually.
You have to take it in context. Barcelona was such a super team and it was because of a bunch of Fantastic Spanish greats and some foreigners here and there. We are talking about some of the best domestic talents of the last couple generations when compared to any other country. English super teams do not have the backbones built on English players for the most part. That is the key difference.
You could very much argue a bit part of that is the talent being dispersed across multiple big clubs. Man United won a treble with a young English core in the 90s but most of the time you have a really heavy separation of English talent across 4/5 (or more) clubs rather than a concentration within two clubs (Madrid & Barca). I'm not denying that Spain team was especially special, but you don't need to be that good to win. Pretty much nobody else is, and may never be in our lifetimes.
I brought it up in context because that was the team brought up to compare with England. England needs more players that good to get over the hump of not winning big games.
I don't think England need players as good as Xavi and Iniesta to take that step because nobody else has players that good. They've lost a lot of games to big teams on tiny margins (some even through awful refereeing decisions) in my lifetime so the gap isn't as large as it's made out at times. I'm not arguing that England will win the World Cup because I don't think they're the favourites, but I think people always, always put way too much stock in "history". People struggle to envision things possibly happening a different way because they've always known things to be a certain way. It's always that way until it isn't.
World Class players win World Cups. Nobody on England comes close to France's very best players of 2018. No one on England comes close to the Messi. The closest team they can be compared to recently is maybe Germany but that team had German Bayern stars that dominated Euros that were German and other guys like Klose who did not forgive in front of goal and Ozil who was just magic for a shot period of time. People have difficulty to envision things happening like England winning the World Cup because it is difficult to do. Not because they put too much stock into history. It is more layered and more nuanced than that.
France 2018 and prime Messi aren't competing in the 2026 World Cup. You analyse what's in front of you. In terms of the quality of the players, the gap between England and the top two or three nations in the world is currently the smallest it's been in my lifetime imo. Smaller than it was in the mid-2000s. World-class players do win World Cups but the reality is that England do have world-class players. There's a still a lot of unknowns about the team under a new manager, but to argue they don't have the talent on paper to contend for the trophy if everything else goes right is a hard position to justify imo. I'm not talking about envisioning England winning it, I'm talking about envisioning them beating other top teams consistently.