Football

Yeah that passing sequence at the end. Felt dream like.

It was quiet in zone 3. A few toots on car horns. A shout of "fuck the neighbours". But all quiet on the Sydenham borders.

The kids in the local school are literally being taught 3 lions...I can hear it belting out

Quite, but being contrarian about the England football team is very edgy don't you know?

England were the better team with the better chances and more attacking attitude. Bring on the Italians!

Criticising the two holding/defensive midfielders for a lack of creativity is a little naive. Criticising the front 4 would make more sense, and that is where this England team lacks still, too reliant on individuals doing something special and sterling being in the right place.

I’m not sure Denmark can complain too much when they basically played for penalties from the half-hour mark.

A curiously negative approach for a team that was a goal ahead at the time?

Pretty reliant on own goals and iffy penalties too. Absolutely no guarantee sterling would have scored from there. Has form missing from a yard or two

denmark looked handy in fits and starts but england clearly outplayed them for long spells, particularly towards the end of the game and ET.

italy have come through belgium and spain to get here, which suggests they're a more robust outfit than anyone england has faced so far (barring the extremely highly motivated scotland ofc) - spinnazola omission will smart though and game's definitely not a banker for the boys in blue. tough one to call. if england just run everything down emerson's side all night maybe they'll batter them 5-0

One of the primary schools local to us had it as this term's 'cultural study' music piece... bit weird, I suppose it's picked up quite a history over the years though.

For balance I will do the negatives I saw.

Pickford was badly positioned for the goal, and had an erratic spell in the first half. He gave the ball directly to their wide forwards twice in quick succession, and we lost confidence to play through the press and resorted to kicking long. Unfortunately his long kicking was poor as well, and the height of the Danes meant we kept losing the ball in the air. That was our poorest period in the game.

In attack, we tried to cross the call in the air too often in the first half, which was easy for their centrebacks. The players took a bit too long to realise that our best way of playing was keeping the ball on the ground and using speed to turn their centrebacks in the channels. People call Kane thick, but he was the first to make the tactical adjustment, dropping into the 10 role and playing through balls.

In midfield, we didn't make our numerical advantage count enough in the first half. I think Mount should have dropped deeper to help play through the press. We seemed to do better in the second half. There is also a compromise playing both Rice and Philips, as neither will run beyond the opposition defence. Henderson did that when he came on, which helped going forward.

It was a good performance overall, but if we don't play better against Italy we will lose.

Italy haven't played Portugal..

I think Denmark played really quite well and forced a tempo that another team hasn't managed against England up until that point - pressing high and hard in a way that England had done against other teams. That said, it certainly took its physical toll as, especially with 10 men at the end, they looked out on their feet.

I actually thought Phillips was relatively ineffective last night - he made one decent snapping interception but I'm sure I counted at least 5 times he was pulled out of position and bypassed completely often being just half a yard too early or late which I thought was poignant and clearly meant either he was targeted or just wasn't quite on his game. I was concerned with the number of times Denmark were able to play 30-40 yard central passes from their edge of the centre circle type area straight through the England midfield to start attacks 35 yards out - they seemed to constantly win the second/third/pinball exchanges too. Re: the 'pen'. Sterling was bumped by the second defender which probably stopped a clear and obvious mistake but yes it was soft; that said, in the prem the Kane one would've been given I suspect. Never seen England in a major final so very much looking forward to it and there's no question, as good as Bonucci and Chiellini are, they will not relish being one-on-one with Sterling Sako, Sancho etc; England definitely need to afford less general space in the middle third mind - we've seemed often to have defensive players in the first third, attacking players up top and not much in the middle.

England were not impressive in the group games, attrition and grinding out the clock.
Effective but not fun to watch.

Vs Germany they were actually impressive. really good at getting into position, defending well and moving the ball out of harms way without panicking.
Same against Ukraine, with the added impetus of several goals.

Vs Denmark, it was more end-end (and reminiscent of the SpaIta game the night before)
The Danes fell apart after 40 minutes and stopped their attacking play and tried to defend, but were not as clinical as England.
I think Eng deserved the win.
(But Denmark had the better turn around from game 1, would have been beautiful for them to win it all, after the whole Eriksen saga)

Good summary - thought Kane was excellent (Spurs fan bias too) but you're absolutely right; there was a clear period when he started to move out to the flanks to pull the defence apart and create space for others. How many times was Pickford's grumpy teenager face shown yesterday?

Bonus drinking game rule:

Shot of gin everytime '66 is mentioned on Sunday.
Catatonic before the first throw in.

I think people are/were taking Denmark way too lightly. they're ranked 10th in the world. 2 places higher than Germany. England also got a result (although not quite as emphatically) against 14th ranked Croatia and smashed 4 goals past Ukraine who are ranked 24th and will probably climb up the ranking after their tournament results.

Italy are currently 7th and unbeaten in 33 games, but England are 4th and with a win could climb to 2nd behind Brazil after the Copa and Euros are over and the ranking recalculated.

An old colleague of mine from Italy has been telling me all tournament that England have the strongest squad and that their age means that they might dominate for years to come. I told him to stop winding me up. He definitely would've preferred to be playing Denmark in the final as England's style and adaptability is harder to plan against.

I'm quite optimistic that Italy won't be as tough as people are making it out in here. Sure they've bagged a few good goals from Chiesa and Insigne, but Spinazzola was one of their best players of the tournament and he's out. Their defence is slow and their 2nd/3rd choice wing backs are ineffective. England have looked solid defensively and have only conceded a worldie of a free kick ((Pickford perhaps could've done a bit better), so we shouldn't think that Italy are going to magically open up our defence and score a lot.

0-0. I won't be predicting penalties until ET is over, all my penalty predictions have been weirdly accurate so far...

I've never known a yentzing season like this.

Pfft, generating own goals and penalties is a sign of a dominant attack

And he wouldn't have missed you joker.

I've never known a yentzing season like this
this

Kane was better, but pulling out wide meant there was no-one in the box for long periods - plenty of space but no-one to attack it.
Wouldn't be surprised to see Henderson start the final - he helps move the ball forward. Would obviously also like to see Jack start as I think he would be a better option against Italy than Saka/Sancho, but that's not going to happen.

I think Saka has been great. He gets in for his overall game. He helped us to nully Maehle, who has been Denmark's biggest creative outlet in the tournament, and he also made the assist for the goal.

completely agree although it at least allowed 'us' to get hold of the ball and pull Denmark around a bit and create space especially on the right for players to run into. I would also like Grealish to start and perhaps play a bit more of a traditional midfield with Rice the holding/defensive minded one (only given I thought Phillips was ineffective yesterday) but Saka has to stay as his constant movement off the ball is so important to give other players freedom. Whatever allows 'us' to isolate the Italian defenders one-on-one

Saka is surprisingly effective defensively for an attacker. He's really strong receiving the ball with his back to goal.

You know I'm totally down with the kids, Andy... A lot of my stories feed was totally bonkers, probably says more about the company I (used to) keep than anything else...

I think we need to move away from starting 11 mentality. It's a 90 minute game and we introduce the best people at the right time. I don't have much time for the Prince of Calves, Lord of the Hairband, Duke of the Getting Kicked but Keeping Going, Baron of Bravery.
But him and Shaw have been a proper pairing. Especially against tired players. I think control the game, frustrate, build the pressure, introduce the Prince of Calves, get some goals.

I've liked Saka on the right. I think Mount in front of Rice and Phillips has been great, I'd like to see more of Foden. Because, he is fucking special.

Number 82 has hung an Italian flag out their window. A bold move.

I find the abhorration at the Sterling penalty a bit odd.

I was of the impression, from watching football, that going down to appeal being impeded is not really diving anymore. The years of slo-mo analysis showing grazing sock to sock contact before a player somersaults being the norm, and the now obvious fact that refs gives nothing unless a player goes down.

Yes it's soft and yes you'd "hate to have it given against you", but everyone has had it given against them, countless times. Maehle put his foot across Sterling's path and Sterling made the most of it. That's pretty much most penalty decisions. If we would like to change that then terrific, otherwise it's just my-team-nicer-than-your-team banality.