Maximus Decimus

Fair play that they actually went for it at the end. I hope England will do that if we're behind in the knockout stages.

If only all football was like that last 15 minutes. They had the chances just lacked the serious quality.

England?

At this stage, it's hard to argue either deserve to go through.

One for the purists... Hungary look rubbish, they feel like a team that have had issues off the pitch. The Liverpool player who begins with S (Szobosli...) looks disinterested and almost bored. The question is can Scotland get a goal. Over 2 and a half games, I'm not sure they've created anything you'd call a clear goalscoring chance.

They have but they've also been in competitions that were harder to qualify for, with a presumably higher standard of teams. In 1990, there were 13 qualifying spots for European teams, in a 24 team tournament, compared to 23 spots in 2020 and 2024. I'm not trying to denigrate it, and I'll be made up for them, but I suspect much of press will be presuming it's the same achievement and they've finally done it. Tbh, I'm not sure why I felt the need to make the point .

This is very much my opinion. As somebody who has tried quite a few times to learn French, it is incredibly hard and requires a great deal of time and effort. Without the necessity of needing to, most people won't. Some people get a cheat code, like a foreign partner or the opportunity to work abroad and learn that way but for most it's nothing more than a hobby. The reality is that most of the world wouldn't learn it either if they didn't have to or have far more opportunity to do so. As a teacher, I don't really believe in teaching MFL other than as a bit of fun. We do it as a half an hour a week thing, which is pointless, but there is no justification in doing it for any longer like they do on the continent. I was introduced to an AI music app the other day, and my first thought was that in time this will see a dramatic decline in the numbers of people learning instruments. If you eliminate the need to learn an instrument to create a decent song, people won't bother. It'll become a niche activity for purists. Being born with English as a first language is like this in many ways.

I wish you'd never told me this lol. I think I did 5-600 days and realised how far away I still was from even being able to hold a simple conversation, and came to the conclusion I'd have to go to classes or do much more immersive stuff.

I'm in a quandary, as I genuinely want Scotland to qualify but I don't think they will so I want to bet on Hungary. If I bet on them, I'll end up wanting them to win. On a slightly different point, if Scotland do qualify I'm fully expecting to hear the plaudits about how they're the first team in 70 years to qualify through the groups and what a great achievement it is etc Whilst this would be true to an extent, it'll also be because it is much easier than ever to do so. I somehow suspect this will barely get a mention.

I'd love to have learned a language, and have tried to learn French a few times. I went travelling when I was 22 and did a bit then. I was demoralised when I plucked up the courage to speak French and the guy responded in English. During lockdown, I did Duolingo for ages and came to the conclusion that to learn it in any way I'd have to go to totally different lengths. I naively hoped if I used an app long enough, I'd get to a point where I could read it or watch stuff. That's my personality sadly. There are quite a number of things I can do better than your average Joe (piano, guitar, darts), but none I am expert in. I just haven't got the discipline required.

God, wouldn't you love to see England play like this?

David Moyes putting himself forward for the future England job with insightful analysis. 'England have got to get back to playing better.'

I had this exact thought. After all, it has been such a common experience as an England fan that it makes you think. Objectively, the Denmark game was boring, but maybe the Serbia game wasn't so bad. I was watching the Spain-Italy game and thinking how I'd feel if I was an Italy fan. As a neutral, they seemed limited and were getting outplayed, but I didn't think they were playing terribly, more that it was their style. I wonder if I'd have thought that as an England fan.

Walker's probably been our best player over the two games. I suppose the big remaining hope, after a transformation against Slovenia, is that this is a team that will rise to the occasion like in 90 and 98 (although we still lost...).

For me, that's the one relatively OK part. We haven't really conceded many clear-cut chances, the majority that we did on Thursday were to do with mistakes caused by the pitch. The big problem is on the ball and inability to move it up the pitch. This must be the system, or some players not being good enough. One thing that struck me when the Spain game came on, was the speed of play. We tend to walk around with the ball whereas their movements were all quick and purposeful. There's a video doing the rounds of Declan Rice passing it sideways and backwards all game.

Is it just me or has the weather been a bit dodgy in Aus this season? Been like watching Super League at times. Albeit with high-quality athletes.

I do worry that this is becoming a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and an easy answer to our problems. There are seemingly clear examples where we've gone ahead and sat back. Italy in 2020/1 seems like the obvious candidate. However, there have been plenty of cases where this hasn't happened - Panama, Iran, Wales, Senegal and Ukraine in a QF. The Serbia game seemed like the most obvious example ever. 35 decent minutes followed by sitting back and durge. The Denmark game was a turning point for me. We weren't playing well but got a goal. This has been rewritten as another example but it masks a bigger problem for me. Maybe, teams are figuring out a way to counter us and we can't respond. The proof of the pudding will be what happens when we go behind. If we still sit back and are unable to respond, what is the narrative then? For instance, do we really think that if Denmark had gone ahead, we would have been able to switch it up and respond?

I've been pondering reactions to this tournament and the last. 2020 is interesting, as on paper we started pretty similar. My memory of the opening win against Croatia was that we were unimpressive but got the result, and then the Scotland game was similar to Thursday night. Souness famously said we've got no chance. However, this time feels a lot more negative overall. Of course, the Croatia match was a semi-final repeat and in theory better opposition but they're still not one of the big teams. Maybe it's because of the fact that we got to the final in 2020 and played well in 2022 that means people are less forgiving of a team finding its feet. Maybe it's from the disconnect between being bookies favourites and looking so bad? Hopefully, a la 2020 we'll have long forgotten what come to be seen as teething issues. I think the Slovenia game is crucial to this, there has to be at least an indication that things are coming together.

I do think there's an element of 1 and 3. I'm somewhat of a defender of Southgate but recognise he's far from perfect. Take the 2020 final, he definitely was part of the problem including the bizarre decision to bring on people for the shootout. My issue with many England fans is that they seem to negate the whole getting to the final bit. Just ignore the fact that we hadn't in any circumstances for 55 years got to a final, Southgate was lucky and held us back. In this tournament so far, I think he's much more at fault. We seem to have come in without knowing our best system, trying to simply fit players on the pitch and putting square pegs in round holes. This has previously been one of Southgate's strengths even if it wasn't pretty to watch. The whole Trent situation will be something we ridicule in years to come. Some of the continental newspapers already have been doing. However, as Gary Neville said in the aftermath, the inability to control the game in possession has been an England problem for decades. The changes made at youth level mean that the newer crop are more technical than ever. The changes to team culture mean that the old problems about the weight of the England shirt aren't nearly as bad. I did consider that maybe our stars are players who are great in systems surrounded by superstars but less effective when they have to lead the play. That still doesn't account for why we struggle against Serbia.

I was explaining to my lad last night that there have been countless prior tournaments where poor group performances had been explained away with the hope that things will come good when we meet a top team. I think it comes from the 1990 experience, where our best performance was easily the semi vs West-Germany as well as the 1998 game against Argentina, both of which came after very Realistically, it is far more often an indication of significant problems or at the very least a lack of real quality. 2016, 2012 and 2010 are the worst examples of this but you can also throw in 2002 and 2006 to an extent. I still have hope of course. Slovenia is crucial to morale. We need to see something that shows improvement and ideally a few goals. If it's like Slovenia in 2010 (a dire and fortunate 1-0) or Slovakia in 2016 (a horrendous 0-0) then we'll be clutching at straws.

This very much depends the stock you hold in the Nations League. Personally, I don't hold much. It's a step up from previous friendlies but still not a fully fledged competition. Don't get me wrong, it's not good but in the past England have been great in tournament qualification and friendlies only to fail miserably when it matters. I'm pretty sure in the build up to 2016 we had some great results like beating Germany in Germany. Using 2022 as a step down in comparison to 2018 is completely disingenuous IMO. You don't choose when you face the best teams. Facing the current champions and actually outplaying them for large periods, isn't a step backwards because it happened in a Quarter-Final rather than a semi-final. IMO 2022 performance wise was probably our best overall since 2004. It's close with 2020, but the final performance takes away from that somewhat.

I read an interesting quote from back in the day from an FA suit when talking about England at big tournaments. "Unrealistic expectations, dawning realisations, bitter recriminations." Southgate's reign largely hasn't been this, but right now it seems rather prophetic when talking about 2024. Far from being a dead rubber, the Slovenia game feels like it's make or break for England. We have to see something that gets people positive again or we could see a real spiral.

I was saying this last night, and tbf it goes back a generation not just recently. For as bad as England are at times, we have an incredible knack of not actually losing. If you'd have said to me last night the game would be 1-1, I wouldn't automatically have assumed it was terrible. After all, that's the same score from 2020 before extra-time. In so many of those penalty defeats, we were basically dreadful for long periods but got the game to penalties. I include Italy 2020 in that. The outlier is of course Germany 4-1. Other than that, when was the last time we lost by say 2 clear goals in a tournament. 1988?

I think this is unfair. What was striking about the second half of Sunday and last night is how often you are hearing the accusation that it was like the bad old days. This itself is a reflection of how things haven't been like that. As for his record, nobody judges it on qualifying or friendlies. Not only was he not the first manager to benefit from playing teams like this, but the teams he's faced in tournaments have certainly been no different in quality since say 2004. The reality is that since Alf Ramsey, England haven't strung 2 decent tournaments together until Southgate who managed 3. That's the record he's judged on. Don't get me wrong, we've never been a great team to watch - the closest we came was 2022 - but we were effective and didn't suffer from an inability to keep the ball like the worst teams of yonderyear. Southgate himself said he knows how this ends. Either in Trafalgar Square or in disaster. I suspect heavily we're looking at the latter and it was one tournament too far for him. Sadly, like a boxer who ruins his record by fighting on too long, it'll allow his detractors to pour scorn over his previous record. What I will say is be careful what you wish for. Before Southgate, we had a string of failed managers from every stripe who just couldn't figure out how to get England to play. I don't know why we suddenly think it'll be any different next time around.

Can someone tell ITV to stop playing this game in fast-forward its hard to keep up, and also get the message to Spain that they need to stop playing the ball forward so much. Aimlessly passing around the back is top level football.