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Croatia v. England - Official Matchday Thread

CyderInACan

By CyderInACan
in Football Chat

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Mr Popodopolous

Mr Popodopolous

Posted
Posted

It's going to be tough, no doubt. Their midfield is very good.

There's one other factor- which could count for us or against us.

Tactically speaking, Croatia are, have very much down the years been a 3 at the back side. Not for a decade or so though, maybe longer but it has been a go-to system in Croatian football, plus a decent number play in Serie A where it's been common.

Will this be an advantage given they no longer really play it at National team level, or a disadvantage as they could have had grounding in it at clubs etc?

A definite weaker point to target tonight is at RB- Vrsaljko of Atletico is injured so a 32 year old Corluka it will probably be! He's obviously an RB by trade, but more a centre back now so...plus he's over 30 and that could prove fairly important against a young and dynamic side like we have.

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oldstandrobin

oldstandrobin

Posted
Posted
18 minutes ago, CyderInACan said:

Croatia v England

Date: Wednesday, 11 July (19:00 BST). Venue: Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow

Coverage: Listen on BBC Radio 5 live, with live text commentary online

Football is sold to the world as fun. As colour, as sunshine, as joy. Football is sold as winning.

 

Football is experienced as doubt. Football is watched feeling sick. It is wishing matches finished, wanting to walk out of a stadium even as you've been desperate to be there, being convinced that the most heartbreaking possible scenario is the most likely thing to pass.

 

And usually it does. Football is about losing. Only one team can win a league. Thirty-two teams went to the World Cup; 31 will go home wondering what if.

 

The idea England might be the exception both to that rule and to a torturous history of defeat, pain and regrets still feels extraordinary. It also feels dangerous, because while football is also about being powerless to prevent something awful happening to something that matters to you so much, it is equally about being convinced that even a thought or stray sentence could instantly summon disaster.

 

Any neutral watching England 2-0 up against Sweden could tell they were not going to lose. Many England fans were convinced that remarking "we're the better team here" to the person next to them would be to guarantee an immediate Swedish goal.

 

It is why being 1-0 down can often be more relaxing than being 1-0 up. What's the worst that can happen now the worst thing is already happening?

 

And so you lie to yourself. We're just going to enjoy the occasion. It's only sport. I didn't expect us to win anyway.

 

You tuck yourself behind established beliefs. England are an embarrassment at big tournaments. England don't win penalty shootouts. English footballers are spoiled, selfish and out of touch with those who help fund their crazy wages.

 

Hope is a delusion. Dreaming is for night-time. Football is disappointment.

 

You know all this is true. You also know what football can do for you. It makes you leap around and grab your friends around the neck and roar at each other's faces from inches away. It makes you jump on the back of strangers. It makes you feel the same way at exactly the same time as millions of people you will never meet.

 

You stay with football because of the possibility of all this. You keep daydreaming because of the little part of you that doesn't consider this a dream at all. You tell other people not to look beyond the next game and then do exactly that.

 

Because football can change. You miss a penalty and then the other team miss two. You go further into a tournament than you have in more than a quarter of a century and look up to see the big boys all gone. You listen to the players and read their social media and you find yourself seeing shared characteristics and people you like.

 

And when football changes, we change with it. From shouting at defenders to get rid of it, to lump it long when the press comes on, to contentedly watching them keep hold and play it out. From worrying which unheralded opposition player will be the bogeyman this time to relishing the world waking up to Kieran Trippier and Harry Maguire. From avoiding deathless England friendlies and their endless substitutions and meaningless results to wishing the next game was here now and being able to name Gareth Southgate's first-choice team in a single breath.

 

One of the few lasting bequests of London 2012, a sporting carnival where too many big races now have asterisks next to them, was that sense - for a nation that spends so much time reflexively looking backwards - of a vision of modern Britain that felt simultaneously new and familiar to every one of us.

 

It was there in the stories of the three stars of Super Saturday: Jessica Ennis-Hill, a mixed-race girl from Sheffield; Greg Rutherford, a lad whose great-grandfather played football for England over a century ago; Mo Farah, a boy who arrived in west London aged eight from east Africa to make the capital his home.

 

This is an England team that represents the England of 2018. The pale kid from Sunderland in goal, a midfielder from Milton Keynes with a Nigerian dad and English mum. Three big lads from south Yorkshire in defence, a striker born in Jamaica and raised in the scruffy part of west London. Another midfielder schooled in Lisbon, a superstar captain who learned on loan at Orient and Millwall.

 

There is an unreality to it all. A frozen, sodden winter when the rain never stopped, a summer that started early and lit up everything for weeks. Sunlit mornings, evenings watching football with the windows and doors open and daylight in the sky until all the celebrating is done. A team beaten by a nation of 330,000 at their last big tournament, gone after the group stages at the previous World Cup, careering into the semi-finals and enjoying every moment of it.

 

There are limitless reasons to fall out of love with football. The idiots you know even in the home end at your own club, the jingoism that snarls in the slipstream of national success. The price of shirts, the price of tickets, the booking fee for something bought in a microsecond from an automated page. The multiple satellite packages, the kick-offs before lunch and after Sunday tea-time, the money going to middlemen in a deal that didn't need them.

 

Then you think of the adrenalised peaks and emotional releases of the past three weeks, the scenes in front of big screens around the country, the pleasure of seeing your happiness reflected in the faces and moods of people you have almost nothing else in common with.

 

Only football can do this. England winning the rugby union World Cup brought enormous pleasure to vast numbers, the home Ashes triumph of 2005 giddy disbelief to those who had long grown used to Australian domination.

 

Yet neither touched as many distant corners as this World Cup. The peak television audience for the deeds of Michael Vaughan's team was 8.4 million; 15 million saw Jonny Wilkinson drop his goal. Andy Murray's first Wimbledon victory brought in 17.3m, and that was a win for Great Britain.

 

England's last-16 win over Colombia peaked at 23.6 million. Wednesday night's semi-final is likely to draw in yet more.

 

And you don't want any of it to end. Football is going to revert to type for two of the teams still left in this World Cup. It will go back to being about regret and dejection and what might have been.

 

For one team it will be something else. Colour, sunshine, joy.

 

Maybe it will all end here. Maybe, this once, it will not

 

Well said Reg and its why we support Bristol City :city::englandflag:

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exAtyeoMax

exAtyeoMax

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, CyderInACan said:

Croatia v England

Date: Wednesday, 11 July (19:00 BST). Venue: Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow

Coverage: Listen on BBC Radio 5 live, with live text commentary online

Football is sold to the world as fun. As colour, as sunshine, as joy. Football is sold as winning.

 

Football is experienced as doubt. Football is watched feeling sick. It is wishing matches finished, wanting to walk out of a stadium even as you've been desperate to be there, being convinced that the most heartbreaking possible scenario is the most likely thing to pass.

 

And usually it does. Football is about losing. Only one team can win a league. Thirty-two teams went to the World Cup; 31 will go home wondering what if.

 

The idea England might be the exception both to that rule and to a torturous history of defeat, pain and regrets still feels extraordinary. It also feels dangerous, because while football is also about being powerless to prevent something awful happening to something that matters to you so much, it is equally about being convinced that even a thought or stray sentence could instantly summon disaster.

 

Any neutral watching England 2-0 up against Sweden could tell they were not going to lose. Many England fans were convinced that remarking "we're the better team here" to the person next to them would be to guarantee an immediate Swedish goal.

 

It is why being 1-0 down can often be more relaxing than being 1-0 up. What's the worst that can happen now the worst thing is already happening?

 

And so you lie to yourself. We're just going to enjoy the occasion. It's only sport. I didn't expect us to win anyway.

 

You tuck yourself behind established beliefs. England are an embarrassment at big tournaments. England don't win penalty shootouts. English footballers are spoiled, selfish and out of touch with those who help fund their crazy wages.

 

Hope is a delusion. Dreaming is for night-time. Football is disappointment.

 

You know all this is true. You also know what football can do for you. It makes you leap around and grab your friends around the neck and roar at each other's faces from inches away. It makes you jump on the back of strangers. It makes you feel the same way at exactly the same time as millions of people you will never meet.

 

You stay with football because of the possibility of all this. You keep daydreaming because of the little part of you that doesn't consider this a dream at all. You tell other people not to look beyond the next game and then do exactly that.

 

Because football can change. You miss a penalty and then the other team miss two. You go further into a tournament than you have in more than a quarter of a century and look up to see the big boys all gone. You listen to the players and read their social media and you find yourself seeing shared characteristics and people you like.

 

And when football changes, we change with it. From shouting at defenders to get rid of it, to lump it long when the press comes on, to contentedly watching them keep hold and play it out. From worrying which unheralded opposition player will be the bogeyman this time to relishing the world waking up to Kieran Trippier and Harry Maguire. From avoiding deathless England friendlies and their endless substitutions and meaningless results to wishing the next game was here now and being able to name Gareth Southgate's first-choice team in a single breath.

 

One of the few lasting bequests of London 2012, a sporting carnival where too many big races now have asterisks next to them, was that sense - for a nation that spends so much time reflexively looking backwards - of a vision of modern Britain that felt simultaneously new and familiar to every one of us.

 

It was there in the stories of the three stars of Super Saturday: Jessica Ennis-Hill, a mixed-race girl from Sheffield; Greg Rutherford, a lad whose great-grandfather played football for England over a century ago; Mo Farah, a boy who arrived in west London aged eight from east Africa to make the capital his home.

 

This is an England team that represents the England of 2018. The pale kid from Sunderland in goal, a midfielder from Milton Keynes with a Nigerian dad and English mum. Three big lads from south Yorkshire in defence, a striker born in Jamaica and raised in the scruffy part of west London. Another midfielder schooled in Lisbon, a superstar captain who learned on loan at Orient and Millwall.

 

There is an unreality to it all. A frozen, sodden winter when the rain never stopped, a summer that started early and lit up everything for weeks. Sunlit mornings, evenings watching football with the windows and doors open and daylight in the sky until all the celebrating is done. A team beaten by a nation of 330,000 at their last big tournament, gone after the group stages at the previous World Cup, careering into the semi-finals and enjoying every moment of it.

 

There are limitless reasons to fall out of love with football. The idiots you know even in the home end at your own club, the jingoism that snarls in the slipstream of national success. The price of shirts, the price of tickets, the booking fee for something bought in a microsecond from an automated page. The multiple satellite packages, the kick-offs before lunch and after Sunday tea-time, the money going to middlemen in a deal that didn't need them.

 

Then you think of the adrenalised peaks and emotional releases of the past three weeks, the scenes in front of big screens around the country, the pleasure of seeing your happiness reflected in the faces and moods of people you have almost nothing else in common with.

 

Only football can do this. England winning the rugby union World Cup brought enormous pleasure to vast numbers, the home Ashes triumph of 2005 giddy disbelief to those who had long grown used to Australian domination.

 

Yet neither touched as many distant corners as this World Cup. The peak television audience for the deeds of Michael Vaughan's team was 8.4 million; 15 million saw Jonny Wilkinson drop his goal. Andy Murray's first Wimbledon victory brought in 17.3m, and that was a win for Great Britain.

 

England's last-16 win over Colombia peaked at 23.6 million. Wednesday night's semi-final is likely to draw in yet more.

 

And you don't want any of it to end. Football is going to revert to type for two of the teams still left in this World Cup. It will go back to being about regret and dejection and what might have been.

 

For one team it will be something else. Colour, sunshine, joy.

 

Maybe it will all end here. Maybe, this once, it will not

 

Aww Reg! :englandflag:

 

 

 

:gaah:

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'Orns

'Orns

Posted
Posted

I feel sick already

I will be fine come 6ish when I have a Thatchers in my hand, but right now people need to leave me alone. Lets all just get through the day and get home

I do think we'll win tonight, but I said at the start there are three teams that we can't beat no matter how well we play. Germany (that went well!), Brazil (see Germany) and France. Thought they looked very impressive last night. I'm not convinced that Kane isn't carrying a knock, he didn't look himself on Saturday, which worries me. On saying that, IF we get to the big one I'm having a fiver (last of the big spenders!) on Sterling bagging the winner

Come on my beautiful lions. We are all behind you

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Gazred

Gazred

Posted
Posted

Out of interest, as we went into this tournament with the youngest average age and lowest average number of caps, if they made the final, would they be the youngest, least experienced team to ever make it? 

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pillred

pillred

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Phileas Fogg said:

I think people get a bit caught up on this. Football is very different to a sport like Tennis or Boxing where styles of individuals making contests, even for a stronger player, harder. Football is so transient and teams will change personnel, tactics and style every few years. I don't think one team's record over another counts for a great deal - especially when measured over a number of years and especially in an international context.

and yet every team seems to have a bogey teams, there are a few teams that city have a very poor record against despite there being no logical explanation for.

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Mr Popodopolous

Mr Popodopolous

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Phileas Fogg said:

I'd say we're the better side everywhere apart from midfield. Modric and Rakitic are two of the best centre midfielders in the world now, Brozivic, Perisic and Kovacic also very good players.

That said, Alli can be brilliant and is probably due a strong perforance. Lingard is a potential match winner - the sort of player who pops up with a bit of magic. A quiet game against Sweden hopefully means he produces tonight. Henderson being fit is also crucial, we'll need his steel and experience tonight.

Other than midfield I'd say we're far stronger. I've seen Kane perform very well against Lovren multiple times and Sterling's pace will also worry him. I fancy one of those two to score tonight.

They don't have a great deal in attack, Mandzukic is a a good player and also very experienced - but I think he plays to the strengths of our defence. I'd fancy Maguire to beat him in the air, Stones to intercept ground passes into him and obviously Walker is far quicker. 

It really depends whether we can contain their midfield and how they deal with our set pieces.

I would make us favourites tonight, but it won't be an easy game. Optimistically predicting 3-1 to England - Croatia's two recent extra time runs tiring them out early around the 60 min mark.

On the midfield front- in terms of their 3rd midfielder if they go 4-3-3, I would say that one person would worry me- not one of the heralded names you list though.

Badelj- I watch a decent amount of Serie A and while he's not as flashy as Brozovic or Kovacic in terms of 3rd midfielder, let alone Modric and Rakitic as a holding mid he would give them something the others might not- balance. Behind Modric and Rakitic and in front of the defence, he's better at holding- he would balance them better so as such I hope he's on the bench!

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downendcity

downendcity

Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, Super said:

I see she is dating one of the French players.

If that's how she looks now, I'd say she has been dating ALL of them.

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Offside

Offside

Posted
Posted

I'm nervous about tonight's game, but I'm also really enjoying how England are involved in a such a big game after so many years of abject disappointment. 

For what it's worth, my gut feeling is that we'll win tonight but lose in the final.

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