The Official *England to Euro 2012 Glory* Thread

[Duty281]

First topic message reminder :

46 years of hurt will end on the 1 July 2012 for this is England's time! The foreign enemy will pale at the sight of England's mighty warriors who will all be heroes over the next 6 weeks and become legends.

Yes, many may point to weaknesses in the squad but what do I see?

I see a team with quite possibly the greatest keeper in the World at the moment. A team with the greatest left back in the world. A defence full of men, full of leaders and full of warriors that will fight for the cause! A midfield general by the name of Steven Gerrard - a Champions League winner - who will lead England to that next step. Backing him will be another Champions League winner, Frank Lampard who has played against the best this season and beaten them and Scotty Parker, the glue in England's midfield. A team that has two very exciting and talented wingers - the Ox and Ashley Young who could be as great as John Barnes and Paul Gascoigne respectfully. A strikeforce led by Wayne Rooney who is one of the best and the most feared in the World at the minute backed up by his clubmate Danny Welbeck and a proven international goalscorer Jermain Defoe. The fearless band of players will be led by the impeccable Roy Hodgson, a man with international experience and someone who's actually English.

Then I take a look at the other 15 teams in the tournament and this is what I see:

France - Terrible World Cup and going nowhere fast. 1-0 England.
Sweden - Didn't qualify for the last World Cup. Next.
Ukraine - A test as their on home soil but I would still back England.

And the rest:

Poland - Won't make it out of their group.
Greece - Read above.
Russia - Probably won't meet England but if they do a 2-0 victory for England.
Czech Republic - Read above.

Holland - Tough but not good defensively, 2-1 England if the two ever should meet.
Denmark - Won't make it past the group stages.
Germany - Possible semi-final, don't think a dodgy Uruguayan will deny England this time.
Portugal - Will be edged out by Holland in the group. Bye bye Ronaldo, don't cry.

Spain - Tap, tap, tap. Play like Barca and will crumble like Barca as well.
Italy - Probable quarter-final, and it should be 2-0 England. Remember Italy-New Zealand?
Ireland - Sorry Ireland, you'll finish 3rd.
Croatia - Won't make it out of the group.

So yeah, that's how I see it. The probable path will be:

GS: France (1-0 England)
GS: Sweden (2-0 England)
GS: Ukraine (1-1 England)
QF: Italy (2-0 England)
SF: Germany (3-2 England)
F: Spain (1-0 England)

Come on England!

Spoiler:

[GG]

People were saying England had a tough group, they didn't. England are doing well, they have a solid defence and a good keeper. Midfield is an area where they struggle a bit Gerrard is playing well but if Parker is a defensive mid, I don't think he is doing a great job at it. I think England need to stop hitting these Hollywood passes and keep it on the deck. Look at Wellbeck's goal agains the Ukraine to see what happens when they play it around. Too often they hit wild passes.


Best of luck to them tonight, all I was saying is that it wasn't an exceedingly tough group.

This guy has absoluteley no knowledge of football. At all.

(post edited in order to clarify the relevant bits of my comment)

England to beat Italy 2-0 this evening,

[b]



I'm often amused by people who start with statements like "this guy has absolutely no knowledge of football" and then go on to display their superior knowledge of the game by making..... er..... wildly inaccurate predictions.

Thank you for putting a smile on my face this morning. Mondays are so much better when somebody gets them off to a good start.


.

[cherriesfna]

People were saying England had a tough group, they didn't. England are doing well, they have a solid defence and a good keeper. Midfield is an area where they struggle a bit Gerrard is playing well but if Parker is a defensive mid, I don't think he is doing a great job at it. I think England need to stop hitting these Hollywood passes and keep it on the deck. Look at Wellbeck's goal agains the Ukraine to see what happens when they play it around. Too often they hit wild passes.


Best of luck to them tonight, all I was saying is that it wasn't an exceedingly tough group.

This guy has absoluteley no knowledge of football. At all.

(post edited in order to clarify the relevant bits of my comment)

England to beat Italy 2-0 this evening,

[b]



I'm often amused by people who start with statements like "this guy has absolutely no knowledge of football" and then go on to display their superior knowledge of the game by making..... er..... wildly inaccurate predictions.

Thank you for putting a smile on my face this morning. Mondays are so much better when somebody gets them off to a good start.


.

BURN!

[mystiroakey]

whats with the witch hunt guys?

[JamesLincs]

another correct prediction from me, thanks. just finished crying

[super_realist]

another correct prediction from me, thanks. just finished crying

.....with laughter?

[Leff]

Determination and team cohesiveness can carry you only so far. England lost to Italy's superior skills. Nothing to be ashamed of.

[Josiah Maiestas]

English FA needs to create a Pirlo. How they can possibly justify Parker and Milner i'll never know. Ashley Young has never been a good player, can't even stay on his feet.

[Stella]

Determination and team cohesiveness can carry you only so far. England lost to Italy's superior skills. Nothing to be ashamed of.

There is, when you don't even close down (Rooney) and play in a negative manner. I don't mind getting beat but Italy trampled all over us because we tried to defend to deep and couldn't support our front players.

Italy are good but we made them look a whole lot better.

[Josiah Maiestas]

I'll support Roy if he finally gives the axe to our awful midfielders. As rubbish as Downing was for Liverpool, he would have offered plenty more than any midfielder who played last nite.

[Leff]

Italy behaved as if Rooney was not even worth paying attention to. It seemed as though they felt he could do no harm.

[Josiah Maiestas]

That is because we kept giving them the ball Leff. We don't pass and move the ball about, Italy passed the ball 4x more than we did.

[Stella]

What bugs me about Rooney, is that when he plays for Utd, he works his socks off and IMO is a hard working player but not for the first time he chose not to, when playing for England.

He should have been subbed tbh and only his name kept him on.

[compelling and rich]

so englands glory was cut short yet again with a dissapointing penatly defeat, how predictable. i liked your enthasim duty but england were quite clearly never good enough to win the competition. think they did about par of what was expected of them, slighty better by winning the group. those who were saying that group C was on par with our group were having a laugh, spain miles better than anything in our group. italy shown that they are clearly better than the group winners. crotia would havce had a decent chance of winning our group. still dont see what the fuss was made out of france team (a very similar france team which finished bottom in the world cup)

[mystiroakey]

Italy behaved as if Rooney was not even worth paying attention to. It seemed as though they felt he could do no harm.

really

[lorus59]

Duty won't come back to face the music. He can't possibly think this England team will improve enough to do any damage in Brazil in 2 years time, or can he?

[Josiah Maiestas]

Apart from the Sweden game the boys were very dire, this could change if they start to replicate what the better teams are doing, the English players are far too ignorant to ever try something new though.

[Stella]

http://t.co/Cee0uJCQ

[Duty281]

Can I apologise most humbly for my absence, a laptop hardware issue involving the touchpad stopped me from posting my thoughts. But it's fixed now so here's my thoughts.

It was pretty similar to the French game. England dominated the first 30 minutes and really should have got a goal, Johnson's chance sticks out but so does Welbeck's shot from distance. Sadly, after those 30 minutes, Italy dominated and England's chances from then were few and far between. England set up their shield wall, and Italy couldn't score despite their domination of chances and possession. After 2 hours of nail-biting football, neither team had lost.

But somebody has to win. Somebody has to play Germany on Thursday. So the greatest of team games was reduced to a lottery. I wasn't too confident for England's chances but at 1-2 after 2 kicks each I dared to dream. I shouldn't have. Young missed and Cole's effort was saved. They joined Pearce, Waddle, Southgate, Ince, Batty, Beckham, Vassell, Gerrard, Lampard and Carragher in missing pens during shoot outs for England.

While Euro 2012 is over for England, Roy Hodgson has laid some promising foundations for the future. We're playing as a team, we'll be difficult to beat. Dare I say the semis should be our expectation? I think I should. This could be our team come the first game of Brazil 2014:

Hart
Walker
Cahill
Smalling
Cole
Young
Gerrard
Wilshere
Ox
Rooney
Welbeck

Of course, we need to work on possession. We won't win anything till we sort that problem out. Getting it fixed at grassroots level is a start and it's good to see the FA are starting to catch up, St.Georges Park looks fantastic.

It's sad to say Euro 2012 ended for England just as people started to believe but that's football for you. Won 2 drew 2 at this tournament. That's better that Euro 2004 isn't it? We all know how we wanted it to finish;

It could have been all
Songs in the street
It was nearly complete
It was nearly so sweet

Roll on 2014 and the qualifiers, come on England!

[Crimey]

I can't work out why everybody wants to drop Johnson and replace him with Walker for the World Cup despite the fact that Glen Johnson was one of England's best players at the Euros showing great skill in both defence and attack.

I have yet to see anything that suggests Kyle Walker is better then Glen Johnson. Like most full-backs, Walker is just as suspect of being caught out of position as Johnson is. The only difference being that Glen Johnson has a lot of international experience now unlike Walker.

[JamesLincs]

walker anyday imo. johnson had a very good tournament, but otherwise hes not very good. im optimistic ahead of 2012. look who we have.. hart, jones, smalling, cahill, lescott, wilshere, cleverly, rodwell, ox, welbeck, carroll. more than enough there to suggest we can have a good 2014, 16', 18'

[Duty281]

As for our qualifying group:

Montenegro - 6 points
Ukraine - 6 points
Poland - 4 points
Moldova - 6 points
San Marino - 6 points

It really is quite an easy group.

[mystiroakey]

That is a basic group

[monty junior]

Agreed England will qualify easily from that group.

Though Duty i really have no idea what you were watching if you think England "dominated the first 30 minutes", they were good for about 15 minutes but at the best the first half hour was even with chances for both. After that it was the most one sided game you could ever wish (or not) to see.

[lorus59]

I think people forget that even if England improve, the other teams don't just stand still. This German team has not reached its peak yet. The Brazilians at home will be formidable to say the least. The good young players in England will still be playing in the 100 mph Premier league and how will they adapt to International football in the hot conditions of Brazil? Having such an easy group will mean easy qualification and therefore more unrealistic hype.

[Guest]

As for our qualifying group:

Montenegro - 6 points
Ukraine - 6 points
Poland - 4 points
Moldova - 6 points
San Marino - 6 points

It really is quite an easy group.

Easy group????? That's the same Montenegro team we drew 0-0 with at Wembley in the Euro Qualifiers and the same Montenegro side we drew 2-2 with away from home. So how are we guaranteed those 6pts? We should be focusing on 2016, it's just going to be another embarrasment watching Gerrard huffing and puffing in the hot conditions of Brazil. The Brazilians have been off the boil for quite a number of years but they've timed it absolutely perfectly with Ganso, Neymar, Lucas Moura, Hulk, Pato, Silva, Kaka and many more. It's all about cycles of developing your team, Germany and Spain did it and Brazil will show it.

[Thomond]

The only time I ca nrecall England getting anywhere near a tough group was 2008 Euro qualifying. Heck that wasn't even too bad. That WC group is as easy as it gets.

[Stella]

That group is pretty easy. Couple this with the fact we're not going to win the world cup then should we not start again with this team/squad?

Maybe it's time to replace Terry, Parker and even Gerrard.

[mystiroakey]

England played nice for the first 20 mins- the next 100 mins it was all italy

[Thomond]

Am I the one who thought Glen Johnson was only alright in the tournament. He got caught out a lot of time due to his positioning. He wasn't exposed too often due to his pace but I thought he got caught out a fair bit.

[compelling and rich]

Am I the one who thought Glen Johnson was only alright in the tournament. He got caught out a lot of time due to his positioning. He wasn't exposed too often due to his pace but I thought he got caught out a fair bit.

no i agree, a couple of games he kept getting found out of postion. played ok against italy but you have you remember he was getting a lot of help from milner. in fact the only reason milner was playing was to protect johnsen!!

[super_realist]

Fair bit of turd polishing going on here.

[mystiroakey]

good day SR?

[Stella]

Am I the one who thought Glen Johnson was only alright in the tournament. He got caught out a lot of time due to his positioning. He wasn't exposed too often due to his pace but I thought he got caught out a fair bit.

Terry and Lescott were the same. Great recoveries but only because there was no communication. Look at Balotelli. He had so much space in that first half.

[J.Benson II]

As for our qualifying group:

Montenegro - 6 points
Ukraine - 6 points
Poland - 4 points
Moldova - 6 points
San Marino - 6 points

It really is quite an easy group.

You do know that England failed to beat Montenegro on 2 occassions during their 2012 qualification campaign?

[Duty281]

As for our qualifying group:

Montenegro - 6 points
Ukraine - 6 points
Poland - 4 points
Moldova - 6 points
San Marino - 6 points

It really is quite an easy group.

You do know that England failed to beat Montenegro on 2 occassions during their 2012 qualification campaign?

I do, 0-0 and 2-2. We'd probably have won the away tie if Rooney didn't lose his rag and the home display was poor. England should win both this time around.

[dyrewolfe]

As for our qualifying group:

Montenegro - 6 points
Ukraine - 6 points
Poland - 4 points
Moldova - 6 points
San Marino - 6 points

It really is quite an easy group.

You do know that England failed to beat Montenegro on 2 occassions during their 2012 qualification campaign?

John already reminded us of that, thankyou.

Even so, San Marino and Moldova should be a guaranteed 12 points. Even if we draw 5 and win one of the remaining games, thats still 20 points, which ought to be enough to qualify. Also factor in that over the last decade or so, we have been better in qualifying that in actual tournaments.

[Thomond]

It's an incredibly easy group, there will be no problems.

[lorus59]

The group is too easy and won't be good preparation for the finals.

[mystiroakey]

It is what it is. Many groups are easy. All the favs have easy groups and i dont hear them complaining.. We dont need any excuses at all, and we wont use them either

[Duty281]

I love how we have two polar opposites on this board. John is completely negative and thinks England will struggle while Thomond, despite being Irish, thinks that everything will be a cakewalk for England. Although this time I do agree with Thomond, it is an incredibly easy group.

[Guest]

The group will, or at least should be, a complete stroll.

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