Italy v England.......Match Thread

Best team won on the night. Italy bossed the game from 30 mins onwards and the two old warhorses were not troubled at all by Kane and Sterling. Chiellini was playing left wing most of the second half, and Bonucci scored a goal and a penalty.

Best performer for us was Pickford I thought, which sums up the game.

The Italians did what the Italians do and found a way. They were high fiving each other at 120 mins and looked far more confident of winning the shoot out than we did. Sadly, that turned out to be the case. Our penalties were very weak and I think I would have saved the one from Saka.

The wait goes on and I'm beginning to think I will never see England win another tournament in my lifetime. We just don't seem to have that mental strength you need to prevail.

Quoted from arryarryarry

Not sure what instructions he gave to Saka but if it was to contribute sod all then it really came off. As for making substitutions for penalty takers that is really sad, if they aren't good enough to play in the match then what makes him think they are good enough to take penalties?

Look at the penalty records of some of the best players of all time, particularly in recent years.

Messi - poor record
C Ronaldo’s isn’t great
Baggio 94
Baresi 94
Shevchenko 05
Mbappé 20/21
Maradona 90

Look at that list. Many of the greatest footballers ever. Anyone can miss a pen.

Rashford’s taken huge penalties for Utd - eg vs PSG

Sancho will be expected to take penalties for Utd in big tournaments.

Saka will play for a better team than Arsenal and will be involved in major shootouts

Quoted from HertsGTFC

Fair enough you’re clearly not making it up but the assertion that if Henderson was in the bench he should have replaced Pickford is complete bollox.

But you do get my point that, if it's OK to bring on outfield players to try and score one penalty, it's more than acceptable to bring on a keeper to potentially save a couple? The pundits were going on about how intimidating the Italian keeper was because he's so physically large and imposing. At the other end of the scale in the Europa League final, you had De Gea in goal who, if anything, gave the Villarreal players a boost because they know he isn't great with penalties. Bringing on a keeper really good with penalties (not that we could tonight), would have been making a real statement and intimidating the opposition as well. Overall, Henderson could potentially be first choice for England come next summer as I think he has the fewest weaknesses of the English keepers but, if not, I hope he's on the bench...

You can pick the bones out of the game but at the end of the day penalties are a lottery and before Rashord missed I thought we had won it.

So near but yet so far.

Pickford did his job and saved 2, the second being an incredible save under the circumstances. It was our penalty takers who weren't up to the task. The saves by the Italy keeper were routine, such were the poor shots he had to deal with.

Not sure Henderson would have done any better, but there is precedence for a side bringing on a goalie substitute just for penalties fairly recently I seem to remember. Can't think who it was though.

Quoted from ginnywings

Pickford did his job and saved 2, the second being an incredible save under the circumstances. It was our penalty takers who weren't up to the task. The saves by the Italy keeper were routine, such were the poor shots he had to deal with.

Not sure Henderson would have done any better, but there is precedence for a side bringing on a goalie substitute just for penalties fairly recently I seem to remember. Can't think who it was though.

Tim Krul vs Cillessen

Quoted from ginnywings

The wait goes on and I'm beginning to think I will never see England win another tournament in my lifetime. We just don't seem to have that mental strength you need to prevail.

To be fair though, we did better than everyone expected to get to the final and with a pretty inexperienced squad and we also faced a good Italian squad tonight who are on a ludicrous winning streak. I don't think we played really well throughout the whole tournament other than in brief spells so there is plenty of room for improvement and the squad is young enough. These days, contenders for the World Cup are realistically the best European teams + Argentina and Brazil so we could certainly be in the running for the next world cup and then again for the Euros in 3 years time. Southgate is gradually improving as a manager (and it certainly helps when you have better players available!), but he is still very inexperienced in comparison to the likes of Mancini.

I'm not despondent as I never really expected us to win, but I'm more hopeful for future success than I was a couple of weeks ago.

Quoted from promotion plaice

You can pick the bones out of the game but at the end of the day penalties are a lottery and before Rashord missed I thought we had won it.

So near but yet so far.

Penalties aren’t a lottery

Quoted from Kris2

Why a literal child was taking a penalty in a world cup final I don't know, neither of those subs did anything either. I guess at least Southgate will be able to comfort them as somebody who also choked on penalties in a major tournament and they'll probably get some sweet deal to be in an advert laughing about their failure.

Guess we wait a couple of years now to do it all again.

Was it the World Cup? My my, I was under the impression for four weeks that it was the Euros.

By the way, kids often play without fear.

The England caps in Sports Direct in Grimsby were priced just short of £19 about three days ago.

What a rip off, probably worth no more than a quid now, shame.