The Euro 2024 Thread

[Tredman]

Can't take him seriously when he's talking about Venables' England as "fun". Six 0-0 draws in 24 games says we weren't. Before we get into him putting Hoddle in the same bracket.

He’s a bit young to remember Tel’s time properly, he’s probably just remember the general feel good’ness of 96.

That said we DID have a formation and style under Venables.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Venables reign is massively coloured by that one game where England destroyed the Dutch. In the remainder of the tournament they were rather more uninspiring.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Even that game isn't what people remember. I watched the whole thing back in the first lockdown. We had a feverish 20 minute spell where everything clicked and nearly everything went in but prior to that it was an even contest and Seaman was probably the busier keeper.

 

[jd1981]

I think the Venables era came from the back drop of not qualifying for USA 94 so any kind of improvement would be seen as success.
Reaching a semi final and going out on penalties was seen as success. Reality is we played 2 good half’s of football 2nd half v Scotland and 2nd half v Netherlands.
Lots of cagey stuff around all that though.
If we reach the semi final now by playing well once and being cagey the rest it’ll be seen as a poor effort.

 

[jd1981]

Some of those friendlies whilst waiting for Euro 96 were utter tripe in front less than 30k at Wembley. 0-0 v Uruguay and Colombia were abysmal. The summer tournament in 95 was a grim watch, lucky to beat Japan, outplayed by Sweden for 80 minutes and schooled by Brazil second half at Wembley.
Euro 96 was massively overhyped as a tournament, stadiums rarely close to being full. Lots of 1-0 or 0-0 games.

Knockout games were
QF 0-0, 0-0, 1-2, 1-0
SF 0-0, 1-1
F 1-2

9 goals in 7 games

 

[Tony Towner]

I think the Venables era came from the back drop of not qualifying for USA 94 so any kind of improvement would be seen as success.
Reaching a semi final and going out on penalties was seen as success. Reality is we played 2 good half’s of football 2nd half v Scotland and 2nd half v Netherlands.
Lots of cagey stuff around all that though.
If we reach the semi final now by playing well once and being cagey the rest it’ll be seen as a poor effort.

The press helped a lot, very supportive as they thought he was one of them, at a time when circulation was still high and they set the narrative. Succeeding Robson and Taylor who they'd absolutely destroyed.

 

[jd1981]

The press helped a lot, very supportive as they thought he was one of them, at a time when circulation was still high and they set the narrative. Succeeding Robson and Taylor who they'd absolutely destroyed.

Yeah remember any criticism pre tournament was directed at players like Gazza or Shearer etc
Media were awful at the time especially in pre social media era where written press was your main outlet, some of the headlines before the Germany game were vile and embarrassing which hyped up a lot of people.
With Venables it always helps if you’ve played and managed at big London club and have a bit of a “quality geezer” type persona and are from the south east.
Harry Redknapp would’ve been given similar grace had he been given the job.

 

[Sniffer]

Looking back at all tournaments in my lifetime 1982 and 2004 were the ones where we played consistently well. 2020 (2021) comes into it too but apart from Ukraine the other games were quite edgy.

1980 - Poor and my memory of it was more of the crowd problems.
1982 - Pissed the 1st group and competed well in the 2nd group - should have beaten Spain to go through.
1986 - Crap in the group bar the Poland game, easy next fixture and performed well for last 20 odd minutes against Argentina.
1988 - Appalling
1990 - Crap against the Irish and Egypt but played well against the Dutch in the group. Tough game against Belgium, Cameroon should have beaten us, played well against Germany.
1992 - Crap
1996 - As mentioned above
1998 - Two good group games but poor against Romania - Tough game against Argentina
2000 - Crap
2002 - Group stages were very edgy, good against Denmark, no complaints that Brazil beat us.
2004 - Should have won it. Should have beaten France let alone lose it, easy in the other two games and we'd have beaten Portugal if Rooney had stayed on or if Shearer hadn't retired.
2006 - Edgy in the group, 10 men against Portugal killed us although we did play well with the 10. Hargreaves outstanding in that game.
2010 - Poor and the Germans played us off the park in the 2nd round.
2012 - Ok (ish) but lacking the quality that we have now.
2014 - Crap
2016 - Poor in the group and lost to Iceland.
2018 - Poor in the first game, hammered a mediocre opponent in the 2nd, rested in the 3rd, should have comfortably beaten Colombia, relatively comfortable against the Swedes, Crotia should have been buried by half time. Tactically crap from then on.
2020 - Italy could have been buried by half time. Tactically crap from then on

 

[jd1981]

Looking at 1982 seriously how unlucky do want to be, piss the group then end up with Spain & Germany. France come second and get N.Ireland and Austria.
2004 was gut wrenching, most refs at the time would’ve let Campbell goal stand in the last minute.

 

[Sniffer]

Looking at 1982 seriously how unlucky do want to be, piss the group then end up with Spain & Germany. France come second and get N.Ireland and Austria.

With our best player (Keegan) and another important one (Brooking) injured for all games bar sub appearances against Spain too.

Edit: Just looked at who played - Steve Coppell was injured against Spain having played all of the other games.

 

[Tony Towner]

Looking back at all tournaments in my lifetime 1982 and 2004 were the ones where we played consistently well. 2020 (2021) comes into it too but apart from Ukraine the other games were quite edgy.

1980 - Poor and my memory of it was more of the crowd problems.
1982 - Pissed the 1st group and competed well in the 2nd group - should have beaten Spain to go through.
1986 - Crap in the group bar the Poland game, easy next fixture and performed well for last 20 odd minutes against Argentina.
1988 - Appalling
1990 - Crap against the Irish and Egypt but played well against the Dutch in the group. Tough game against Belgium, Cameroon should have beaten us, played well against Germany.
1992 - Crap
1996 - As mentioned above
1998 - Two good group games but poor against Romania - Tough game against Argentina
2000 - Crap
2002 - Group stages were very edgy, good against Denmark, no complaints that Brazil beat us.
2004 - Should have won it. Should have beaten France let alone lose it, easy in the other two games and we'd have beaten Portugal if Rooney had stayed on or if Shearer hadn't retired.
2006 - Edgy in the group, 10 men against Portugal killed us although we did play well with the 10. Hargreaves outstanding in that game.
2010 - Poor and the Germans played us off the park in the 2nd round.
2012 - Ok (ish) but lacking the quality that we have now.
2014 - Crap
2016 - Poor in the group and lost to Iceland.
2018 - Poor in the first game, hammered a mediocre opponent in the 2nd, rested in the 3rd, should have comfortably beaten Colombia, relatively comfortable against the Swedes, Crotia should have been buried by half time. Tactically crap from then on.
2020 - Italy could have been buried by half time. Tactically crap from then on

2022 - a soft group, 2 resounding wins either side of a stodgy game against the US. Favourable last 16 game, comfortably despatched. Equal to France in the 1/4s but conceded 2 poor goals defensively and missed a pen

 

[Tony Towner]

With our best player (Keegan) and another important one (Brooking) injured for all games bar sub appearances against Spain too.

The taking players who weren't fit and them becoming a distraction mistake repeated a number of times since.

 

[Sniffer]

How could I forget 2022 !

 

[Sniffer]

I may have mentioned it on here before but at antenatal classes prior to our eldest being born the medic/teacher/midwife(?) asked if anybody knew anyone who had received an epidural. My hand went straight up, much to everyone else's dismay after I gave the answer of Kevin Keegan prior to the 1982 World Cup.

 

[Del Woppio]

 

[Quirkafleeg]

Drove past his house yesterday after dropping my Granddaughter off from school, just thought I’d drop it in there.

Casing the joint?

 

[ROVERT47]

Ha, he’s got loads of dogs bollocks security fitted.

 

[Sniffer]

Casing the joint?

Looking to buy it off him when he he's sold for £5m and Doherty regains his starting berth in the side for next season?

 

[Sniffer]

Luke Shaw has declared himself fit for the Slovakia game. Fit but surely not match fit after 4 months out?

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

I think it's important to note, that whilst Southgate has been fortunate in some instances with draws (particularly us getting Slovakia rather than Holland). The reason our draws have been good during his tenure is because we have absolutely pissed the qualifying groups and group stages of tournaments meaning our seeding and ranking has stayed consistently high.

That hasn't been the case in the past, look at 98 when Hoddle lost to Romania meaning we played Argentina, or in 2000 where we had a group with Germany and Portugal in it because our seeding was poor (pot 4) due to winning a playoff to qualify, there are many other instances too. A world cup group with Uruguay and Italy another.

It's not luck.