England Crash Out
You know, after my last blogpost on England, in which I lamented the state of the English game, Roy Hodgson's hapless managerial ability, and lambasted our chances of doing anything at this tournament, even I still wasn't convinced that we couldn't make a semi-decent run at this tournament. Iceland were, after all, nothing special and the French were there for the taking (I'll give Iceland their proper dues for this when I come to preview their game against the French but for now let's just say that they were utterly phenomenal against England and thoroughly deserved to beat them). Nevertheless, the cynical part of me still firmly believed that there was a very, very solid possibility that Iceland would completely and utterly outmaneuver us. And here we are.
Once the anger, the white hot rage that must have filled every England fan finally dissipated, I woke up this morning feeling...relieved. Relieved that this horrific, disgraceful, unacceptable mess of a tournament is finally over, and even more relieved that Roy Hodgson had the good grace to step down, having finally stopped driving the future of our national team into the dirt.
Now I recognise that I shouldn't feel that way. I shouldn't be able to wake up the morning after one of the lowest points in English football's history and be glad that it's over, but honestly watching England in this tournament, and watching England under Hodgson in general has been so utterly, utterly turgid. Shambolic. Bluntly: I'm out of adjectives to describe it. And the Iceland performance was the cherry on the sundae, the perfect epitome of every single lifeless, listless, utterly pathetic display that Hodgson has inflicted on us, magnified to beyond the point of parody, where England genuinely couldn't have played this badly if they'd been trying to.
So focusing on the positive first. Because for two minutes out of the ninety we looked semi-competent. A lovely pass from Sturridge, a good run from Sterling, and a coolly dispatched penalty from Rooney. And that's it. That's all the positive I have to say. So, the negative. Oh boy.
As I've made abundantly clear over the last few weeks, England's problems begin and end with Roy Hodgson. The team selection, the squad selection, the motivation, the tactics, the strategy, the set-pieces. Every single little thing that Roy could have gotten wrong, he has. The man is a tactically inept, big-name choosing, clueless, hopeless chancer who should never have been anywhere near the England job to begin with. He utterly bottled the only previous big job he'd been handed and we gifted him the biggest job of all, even when it was staggeringly clear from the off that he was totally incapable of handling it.
To come into an international tournament with no clue what your best formation was, your best team was, or even who your best corner taker was is an absolute disgrace. It was painfully obvious even before the Russia game that Roy was totally out of his depth and that England had no cohesion or creativity, with a defence littered with liabilities. Kyle Walker was a defensive error waiting to happen, and when he shambolically let a central defender sprint past him unchallenged to score Iceland's first goal, the level of surprise was somewhere between non-existent and negligibly small. The formation was baffling, the individuals selected in the squad to play in said formation made the formation even more baffling, and then the team selection to fit that formation somehow more baffling than that. The fact that Roy didn't change the formation after it clearly wasn't working is staggering. To suggest that England had no Plan B would be incredibly kind, since they quite clearly didn't even have a Plan A. Roy's idea of taking the game to Iceland was throwing on all his strikers, and looking confused when none of them had any chances to score, since he'd left nobody on the pitch capable of creating the chances for his numerous plethora of goalscorers. Jack Wilshere for Eric Dier at half time, when Wilshere was totally woeful and unfit against Slovakia, and Dier has been England's best player in this tournament, not that that's saying much, was blindingly poor.
I could go on, such are the depths of Roy's limitless ineptitude. The man couldn't manage an Under-7s team based on the performance that he gave at this Euros. And what baffles me the most, more than any of Roy's own complete and utter incompetence, is that there are professional pundits, people paid to understand the game, who are acting surprised. As if we should have swept aside Iceland, as if they hadn't been watching the tournament, which suggested time and time again that there was a very, very good chance that this was exactly what was going to happen. It sounds hollow when Alan Shearer says England have been useless all tournament, given that the BBC and ITV have been saying how decent England were during the group stage (spoiler alert: they weren't). To be quite honest, I'm not even surprised that England managed to find even lower depths to fall to, but they somehow managed it.
Oh and the players. If it sounds like up until this point I've been giving them a free ride, then don't worry. Because every single player needs to hang their head in shame. Not a single England player showed any ounce of skill, strength or talent. Rooney gave somewhere close to the worst performance of his career second half, Joe Hart, England's No.1, wouldn't have made it into a Sunday League team based on this game. Smalling and Cahill were weak, Dele Alli anonymous, Kane as awful as he was in the previous two games he played and Sturridge and Sterling, arguably the only two players who were anywhere close to okay in the opening twenty minutes or so, completely and utterly lost their heads.
But make no mistake where the blame lies. It lies with the manager. Not a single one of England's front five understood their position. Rooney isn't a central midfielder, he doesn't understand the position. Dele Alli, isn't a central midfielder, he didn't understand his role. Daniel Sturridge is not even close to a right winger. He didn't understand the position. Harry Kane was forced to adjust to not having anyone play in behind him, passing to him. He didn't understand his role in the team. And Sterling? Well Sterling doesn't really understand football, but even so.
I could go on, I want to go on. I'm curious to see how many colourful metaphors I can come up with for how dreadful a manager I think Hodgson is. And if you think I'm being too hard on him or England then think again. Hodgson has now been England manager for four, long and painful years, guided us through three international tournaments, and in that time, we have failed to win a single game of knockout football, failed to even get out of our group at the World Cup, and in this tournament, turned in four of the worst performances I've ever seen from any football team, let alone an England team. I've had to sit through four years of the worst England team I think I've ever seen, with a squad of staggering talent. I genuinely think they've played one good game under Roy, a 3-2 win over Germany in a pointless friendly, against a Germany side who if we met them now, could quite easily put double digits past us. So no, I'm not being harsh. The apathy is gone, replaced by the sort of blinding rage that I didn't even realise I had for a football manager.
Goodbye Roy. You will not be missed.
Spain Crash Out
And England weren't the only side to crash out of the Euros, as Italy turned over Spain 2-0 in the other last 16 game on Monday. I confess, I didn't see this coming. I mean yes, I probably should have seen it coming, Spain have struggled to score against teams that weren't Turkey and Italy have been rock solid against Belgium (who I'm starting to think I may have underestimated based on how good Italy were against Spain). But I genuinely thought that Spain would have enough against Italy. I didn't think any of Italy's group stages games were comparable to the level of attacking threat that Spain would offer. But no, Italy were utterly magnificent, and 2-0 flatters the Spanish. It was a nigh on perfect performance from Italy, whereas an increasingly frustrated Spain side were let down by their goalkeeper, who despite making a string of reasonably standard saves, managed to do the one thing I genuinely didn't think he'd do, which was make another howler. And Italy carved Spain open time and again, as Spain displayed that they really haven't improved as much in the last two years since the World Cup as I thought they had.
Okay so specific analysis. Italy dominated the first half, sucking up Spain's possession based football and hitting hard and fast on the counter attack, looking very dangerous without forcing De Gea into a save that you wouldn't have expected him to make. And when De Gea spilled a free kick, it was very telling that it was an Italian, Chiellini who showed the willingness and desire to power home the goal.
And in the second half, Spain were much better. I really did think, even as the game wore on, that unless Italy killed the game that Spain would score, but in truth the Spanish didn't look like scoring. Pique came closest, before a wonderful Italian break gave Pelle a comfortable volleyed finish to end the match in stoppage time: the 10th goal scored after 90 minutes at this tournament.
Are Italy genuine contenders? Well it's hard to say. Given the way that they outclassed Belgium and Spain, two of the biggest names at the tournament, you would have to say so. I can't see the French beating them, or Wales beating them, and I definitely can't see the Belgians beating them. But, and there is a big but, they aren't playing France or Belgium or Wales. They're playing Germany. And I can very much see Germany beating them.
But who knows? I also thought Spain would beat them.
The Hard and Fast Section
- Mane confirmed. Overall I think this is a good signing.
- Williams, Murray and Konta in action today.
- Djokovic won easily yesterday, as did Federer.
- And so did Marcus Willis. Wow. Just incredible.
- Speaking of easy wins: England's women are incredible.
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