I know my wifey is much smarter and gracious than me so I'll quote her quote (!) here:

As painful as the loss is, Italy were ultimately the strongest team in the entire tournament, and they were the better team on the night. I just hope that the young english team can reflect, learn and come back stronger and more confident.. next time.

Congratulations to Italy and a heartfelt thank you to England.

2 hours ago, psolk said:

The contact with the leg came after contact with the ball after Grealish had already gone to ground. 

 

Yep, fair enough, I take it back. looked like he skidded off the ball onto the knee.

 

👍

Edited July 12, 20214 yr by martin-w

50 minutes ago, Dirk98 said:

I know my wifey is much smarter and gracious than me so I'll quote her

 

Is that what you just let her believe? 😁

He left his foot in and leg straight, but you don't get sent off for that because it's hard to confirm.

What Italy and other sides understand is that playing by the rules is a mugs game. In the last game of a tournament they will deliberately take a yellow if not already on one, like they did with the collar pull, that should have been a red but they don't give reds for those.

8 minutes ago, SteveW said:

He left his foot in and leg straight, but you don't get sent off for that because it's hard to confirm.

What Italy and other sides understand is that playing by the rules is a mugs game. In the last game of a tournament they will deliberately take a yellow if not already on one, like they did with the collar pull, that should have been a red but they don't give reds for those.

 

Yeah that's very true Steve, he kept his leg locked and let it drive through after skidding off the ball. 

 

Did you notice how after he had hit Grealish's knee, he feigned injury. 😠

Edited July 12, 20214 yr by martin-w

4 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

Did you notice how after he had hit Grealish's knee, he feigned injury. 😠

Yes, they will always do that to make it look even.

 

England were the better side, they had a good goal and Italy had a scrappy lucky rebound goal. Italy felt it better to go to penalties and took deliberate yellows. England were not defeated they had a draw and lost the penalty shootout.

Edited July 12, 20214 yr by SteveW

1 hour ago, Dirk98 said:

I know my wifey is much smarter and gracious than me so I'll quote her quote (!) here:

As painful as the loss is, Italy were ultimately the strongest team in the entire tournament, and they were the better team on the night. I just hope that the young english team can reflect, learn and come back stronger and more confident.. next time.

Congratulations to Italy and a heartfelt thank you to England.

Not sure I'd fully agree with that. They were certainly better than England were last night at the time it mattered, but England's performance last night was not exactly true to more recent pretty good form, so it was easy to look better than them on that occasion. In the run up to the match, I think a lot of people were crediting Italy with being a lot better than they actually are overall for having got through. Not that this makes matters in any way complimentary to England based on their fairly poor performance in the final, but let's be honest, if your team was drawn against Switzerland, Wales and Turkey, you'd hardly be worrying about making it through a group of that kind of calibre, and even then they only managed to get one past Wales, which is of course enough, but I wouldn't call that a challenging route to the final by any stretch of the imagination in comparison to the squads England were drawn against, probably Belgium were the only squad which were in with a real shot at stopping Italy.

Regardless of any of that however, the fact is that England fell asleep for a period of about 20 minutes in the second half and let Italy equalise fairly easily since it was a pretty lucky scrappy free for all in the six yard box which resulted in their equaliser. After that however, England basically didn't play a very attacking game until about the last five minutes, when they might possibly have had a chance but left that push too late to guarantee it. So it was more a case of England being a bit cack on the night for about 20 minutes to let Italy equalise, rather than Italy being masterful, and then pretty much giving up. You can see that in their substitutions aimed at penalties rather than winning the game, which is tantamount to saying we give up, let's roll some dice to decide. 

So you have penalties. It is always a bit rubbish as an end to a championship after hours of well-contested footie, to have the thing end up being decided by a game of mostly chance. Might as well have the players sit down and play noughts and crosses to determine who wins, since most of a penalty shoot out is decided by the keeper taking a fifty-fifty guess at which way to dive for an attempt at saving. I'm not saying there's no skill at all involved, but frankly, a rematch after extra time if it was still a draw by that point, would be better than penalties and do far more justice to the entire competition.

In the end after all the talk and analysis and excuses etc, Italy deserved the win because that's the way it went, and so heartfelt congratulations to them for their Victory, which let's not forget, can't have been easy against that home crowd's barrage of vocal support at Wembley.

Any England fans who don't like the result should be grown up enough to be able to take it without descending into racist tantrums as, unfortunately, some meathead England 'fans' have apparently done. Especially when the standout player in the England squad, and indeed the tournament, is Sterling, who they might possibly have noticed, is not a white dude.

The people who indulge in that kind of juvenile idiotic behaviour are a disgrace to our country, whereas even in spite of a lacklustre performance last night, the England squad and their coach are a credit to it; they did a pretty splendid job in making it to the final with some great footie en-route to the last match.

Edited July 12, 20214 yr by Chock

46 minutes ago, Chock said:

a rematch after extra time if it was still a draw by that point, would be better than penalties and do far more justice to the entire competition.

Agreed, a rematch for a draw in the final would be better.

 

If going by chances Italy were the better side with a couple of near misses that could have been very good goals and put them at 3-1, but they didn't get them because luck plays a big part in these games, especially where both teams are so evenly matched.

if going by the actual goals, England's goal was better, Italy were lucky.

With hind-sight, England went too defensive and should have continued pressure for a second goal which turned out to be a bad call but has got them the win in several other games. 

In terms of fouls, there will always be miss-timed tackles and accidents, you get a yellow card if it looked like you might have had time to avoid or if it appeared deliberate. Reds are now rare for those obvious deliberate fouls. However I felt Italy took a deliberate yellow (the collar pull) simply because they felt they needed to, they did not want to take a chance with the England side at that time. England didn't go that far with fouls because no reasons were presented to them to do so. For that reason I felt Italy were more worried by England, and for me, that weighted the England side the stronger overall.

Edited July 12, 20214 yr by SteveW

3 hours ago, Chock said:

So you have penalties. It is always a bit rubbish as an end to a championship after hours of well-contested footie, to have the thing end up being decided by a game of mostly chance.

 

Maybe we should dispense with penalties and let them keep playing for hour after hour after hour, until their legs can barely function and somebody, with the last pocket of flatulence, farts it into the net. I think that's a very good idea. it would amuse the crowd and the players would be working for their millions. 👍