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It's been such a weird tournament from an England perspective for me, mainly because of the Slovakia game.

For all the plaudits we'll now receive, I can't get it out of my head that we were seconds away from Iceland 2.0. Yes, we've been better since and Southgate has an incredible record now, but we were that close to abject and deserved humiliation.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it'll take away it if we win, it's just led to a weird feeling. We could win the Euros AND the Southgate haters were largely right.

It also makes me wonder. I remember in 2016, Rashford had a great chance in the dying seconds against Iceland. Is there an alternate universe where that goes in and we end up winning it?

Football is such a funny old game.

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7 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

It's been such a weird tournament from an England perspective for me, mainly because of the Slovakia game.

For all the plaudits we'll now receive, I can't get it out of my head that we were seconds away from Iceland 2.0. Yes, we've been better since and Southgate has an incredible record now, but we were that close to abject and deserved humiliation.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it'll take away it if we win, it's just led to a weird feeling. We could win the Euros AND the Southgate haters were largely right.

It also makes me wonder. I remember in 2016, Rashford had a great chance in the dying seconds against Iceland. Is there an alternate universe where that goes in and we end up winning it?

Football is such a funny old game.

Another funny little thing is how much criticism Harry Kane has received during this tournament, and indeed how average he has looked in a lot of games and how few chances he seems to have had and created, yet there is a very good chance he could end up winning the Golden Boot on Sunday.

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The one thing that football events like the Euros or World cup provide is drama that simply is very rarely matched by anything else. Regardless of whether the game is 89 minutes of tedium, that last minute of drama will have whole countries, if not continents jumping up and down. 

And that is the reality. 

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   I have been keeping a watch on Kyle Walkers career.When he was at Sheff United academy him and about five or six others used to come into the Bookies i managed after Monday night training.They wanted to see the end of the Monday night game on SKY.We closed at 9-30 then and sometimes the games stretched out for another 10 min after that.I cleared the shop at 9-25 but told them to hang back and i let them see the end of the game with the shop shutters down.Two of the others played in the Premier League Gibbs and Naughton so i kept an eye on them.I had to tell them to stop kicking the ball about a couple of times but on the whole they were no trouble and non of them ever had a bet.

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10 hours ago, HawkMan said:

I think you've got to acknowledge that people are going to be so interested in the final that their event is going to be heavily affected.

I love the darts, but even if I had tickets wouldn't be missing the final. 

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In other news, rumours are that they want Southgate to stay on until the next WC.

I think regardless, that this shouldn't happen. If we win, he'll never recreate it and even if we lose he has to acknowledge that this would almost certainly be a high point. Just imagine if Bellingham doesn't score the overhead kick, his reputation is near ruined. Why risk that again?

It's also clear that we need something new tactically, to deal with the players we now have. Hopefully, we get a huge monkey off our back on Sunday which would help a new person stepping in.

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Just looking on some Dutch news websites and found something that would truly make the English proud:

"Just as the footballers were defeated by the English on the pitch, the Dutch supporters in the stadium also had to acknowledge their superiority to the British. "Apparently, the English can handle a day of drinking in the city better than the Dutch," concludes the Volkskrant ."

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49 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

This is just magic.

Download it before UEFA/BBC block it.

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Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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21 hours ago, Maximus Decimus said:

In other news, rumours are that they want Southgate to stay on until the next WC.

I think regardless, that this shouldn't happen. If we win, he'll never recreate it and even if we lose he has to acknowledge that this would almost certainly be a high point. Just imagine if Bellingham doesn't score the overhead kick, his reputation is near ruined. Why risk that again?

It's also clear that we need something new tactically, to deal with the players we now have. Hopefully, we get a huge monkey off our back on Sunday which would help a new person stepping in.

It's really simple.

Compare both the team spirit in the sense of players consistently wanting to be part of the England set-up and not putting club loyalties ahead of the national side - and the overall progress in tournaments under Southgate with every other set-up and tournament bar the one we hosted in 1966.

And if you still don't get it, compare them some more. England have historically massively underperformed to an embarrassing level, and now we're closer to getting there in an era with more competitive nations.

It's not perfect but it's a golden period compared to what has gone before. And, rather crucially, no indication that there's anyone out there who would take the job who would do better.

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