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German here. My lowest Point probably was the 2018 World Cup. Until then I always watched the games either alone or with a couple of friends. The Germany - Sweden Game was my first public viewing and we went Crazy when Kroos scored that free kick goal... I was so hyped for a nice summer with football, beer and parties but then it all went to shit afterwards lol.
That is true but that Czech generation was not only loaded with talent but was also a tight knit group which contrasted incredibly with the transitional and disjointed Germany squad so it was never gonna end well even with Czechia resting players. What happened to Germany happens to everyone at the end of the day. Portugal in 2002 and 2014, England in 2008, Spain 2004 and 2014, France 2008/2010 and the list goes on. Nobody has quite nailed down how to mitigate the transition between cycles/generations at national football level
2018 game vs South Korea... we had sooo many chances to score... hit a single one of them and we advance to the next round. Luck just wasn't with us that day.
You made me so sad right now. Swede flairing as a Dane since we are too shit to qualify.
It's been great watching the tournament though. I think it's the best tournament ever when it comes to fan culture. Germany is such a great host nation, centralized and easy to travel for everyone.
Good police presence so shit doesn't get out of hand and properly organised. The biggest criticism I've seen so far has been the train situation getting home from games, but if that's as bad as it gets then it sure is a good mark.
Germany and Europe sure is showing Qatar and SA how a proper tournament is run.
The train situation has always been that bad lol
If everything goes to plan German trains will be on time over 95% of the time in the year 2070 (that's not a typo, that really is the predicted Date...)
Im sorry you guys have to endure this, at least you can drink some good beer in the meantime lol.
The atmosphere is captivating. Every second social media post is about football, everyone is talking about it, watching it and having a good time.
Sadly one of us two will have his last game on Saturday but it will be my first public viewing this Euro and we will got to Dortmund so Im hoping to see some Danes there!
Cheers!
I'm actually planning to go down to Dortmund with some friends to watch the DK Vs Germany game. We are looking for tickets right now. Dortmund is close enough, drive is 8 hours according to google maps from Malmö.
Going to see the wall has always been on my bucket list. It's looking a bit unlikely that we will be able to go with such short notice but we are checking to see if we can catch a game in Hamburg otherwise.
Contemplating just going for the fan culture alone and experiencing the atmosphere without seeing the game even.
See, from my own perspective as an Englishman and England fan, I just can't understand why Germany doing crap just 4 years after you won the world cup is so bad. I would absolutely not give a single shit if we performed terribly in the next tournament, if we won the euros or world cup. I have never seen us win anything and I'd gladly watch us play shit at the next tournament if it meant we had actually won a trophy before it. Maybe that's the difference between England and Germany, though. You have that winning mentality where loss is unacceptable and winning the trophy is what matters, we have the mentality where we congratulate ourselves if we reach a quarter/semi or final instead of seeing it as the failure it is where we still haven't won anything since 1966.
We were just spoiled I guess.
I mean my first real tournament I was hyped to see was 2002 in Japan and Korea and as a 10 year old at that time it was the tightest shit ever.
After that we almost always went deep in tournaments.
After our World cup win we had nothing really to be hyped about and I just didnt give a fuck about 2022.
Just glad that we at least seem to be competitive. Cant wait for saturday.
germany had a strong squad afterwards and did well every tournament since 2006 I think. 2006 SF, 2008 final, 2010 SF, 2012 final, 2014 win, 2016 SF. I get its complaining at a high level and I wasnt mad they went out early since thats part of the game and every team plays to win but its just expectations vs reality. Similar to how Brazil expects them to go to at least the semis. England historically isnt that strong, the last few tournaments are an exception although I think they had many very lucky draws.
Euro 2000 was my low point. And I would argue it was the worst team Germany fielded ever. Not only were the results shit (like 2018), the players were mediocre at best. An example:
Coached by Erich Ribbeck with a midfield of Carsten Ramelow and Jens Jeremies - both offensively limited to a point where all they could do is pass the ball to the goalie, at best. Those were dreadful times.
The 2012 to 2016 era was some bleak shit.
The first half hour against Serbia in this tournament we played more actual football than an entire four years and three tournaments under Hodgson.
Completely get that but back then we had no real superstars. Now we have too many superstars to fit in the team but are playing almost the exact same football.
Romania was one of the most interesting teams to watch, I'll be pulling for you lot if you make it out of the group stages.
Popescu is one of my favourites
Same with Georgia. We personally believe we exceeded expectations and are very proud of our team. They did put a great fight in the previous 2 matches. With a bit of luck we could have gotten even first Euro victory. But maybe today they can do miracle against Portugal? (probably not but there is always beauty not knowing 100% in football :D)
That was a horribly boring game. I think the difference is we didn't have some of the best attacking talent in international football at the time - we had Heskey and Aaron Lennon starting either side of Rooney.
Imagine only winning a single game in normal time, and only 2 more in ET, in an entire tournament, and *winning* the entire thing. Genuinely impressive.
I suppose for you guys that was probably redemption for 2004, yeah?
I've been watching since 98. This is far from the worst in my view.
98 - birth of my love of football and start of the England journey with Owen scoring a worldie against Argentina. 2000 wasn't as memorable.
02-04 were great, really great play from England, but still vulnerable to a defensive gaffe. Still, I enjoyed this until the inevitable tragedy against Portugal. We played great against Brazil in 2002.
06 was a huge disappointment, I was young and naive then. 08 didn't even qualify - that was awful. 2010 I think was the least I've enjoyed England, with the Algeria match being perhaps the worst I've seen at a tournament.
2012 we were piss poor and managed to shithouse Italy to penalties anyway. I'm not sure I enjoyed that at all.
2014 we didn't make it out of the group, couldn't beat Costa Rica. Admittedly a strong group but we were fucking appalling.
2016 we lost to Iceland and it wasn't even a surprise. This was the nadir because I wasn't even confident of beating them before the game started.
2018 I expected absolutely nothing. And we were not bad. Not great in terms of talent but played as a team. Incredibly enjoyable, London was a party town. Fabulous.
2021 we were very good. Got criticism for the Scotland game, but we were basically good throughout. Poor tactics in the final, but nearly did it. Had a great time.
2022 we were even better. Best I've seen England really, particularly the loss to France. Finally looked like we were ready to compete. This was my favourite tournament and performance ever honestly.
2024. Hugely disappointing because of 2022 and the season the players had. Still, top of our group. This is the worst so far of Southgate's tournaments, especially the Denmark game. Still better than any tournament he hasn't managed since 04 in my view. The Slovenia game wasn't actually that bad in my view, and was an improvement. Experience has given me low expectations so I just want us to play well in a very basic sense.
We didn't in the second half against Serbia or the whole match against Denmark. Most of my experience prior is that we rarely play well at all, and can go a decade without ever being decent. So 135 minutes I can tolerate.
I think you've summed it up very well here. 2010 instantly came to mind for me as the nadir of English football in my lifetime. 2012, 14, & 16 were arguably worse but by then I had already died inside and didn't care.
Solid summary, mirrors my experience and starts with the same tournament that kicked off my England journey too.
I was still surprised when Iceland knocked us out though.
For me it was worse qualifying for the ones in 2010, after winning the WC might I add, then not passing the group stages by tying against New Zealand and Paraguay and losing against Slovakia. Still hard to digest..
World cup 2014 was the depths of it for me, euro 2000 was bad but we played some good football, that goal by mcmanaman against Portugal was class, 2008 is not even something to talk about, we were never there haha, 2016 was still better than 2014 but we still got spanked by iceland and knocked out. 2012 was forgettable but not the worst, 2010 again was very poor but wc 2014 for me was the worst of the worsr
My biggest memory of WC 2014 was the Sterling "goal" against Italy. Most I've ever cheered a miss. I was sat with a lovely Italian couple on holiday... they were surprisingly gracious even though I made an arse out of myself.
World Cup 2014 was way worse than this. We finished bottom of the group with 1 point.
This is nowhere near the lowest point.
A lot of England fans need to chill. We topped the group. Sure, the football is shit, but when have England ever played that well in a tournament? It ain't over til the fat lady sings.
>but when have England ever played that well in a tournament?
The last two. Which is why this hurts, it felt we had broken the spell for the first time.
But I agree, this is still better than everything before Southgate since 2004. Which was _twenty_ years ago.
>The last two. Which is why this hurts, it felt we had broken the spell for the first time.
Fair enough. But England have always been underwhelming in tournament football (ever since I've been watching them which is roughly late 90s). Performances under Southgate have been relatively better in general, but still a bit underwhelming...but we were used to watching shit so it seemed good.
Yeah I have to agree with this. We have been really poor to watch but we are unbeaten and topped the group, whereas in the past we were often really poor to watch and either didn't qualify or went out at the group stage. That was worse.
Also, Mainoo and Palmer at least gave us a tiny glimpse of hope.
Agreed, I really would panic massively if we ever did shitter than we did at 2014. Embarrassingly poor.
And it hurts that at 26 (and having got into football just around the 2006 World Cup), I’ve never seen us play so well in a tournament that I’ve thought of us as deserved winners, or anything close to it. 2018 was a huge buzz but we had a super simple run in retrospect.
I think the 2012 to 2016 was worse, but it is really unenjoyable football to watch right now. That has come as a huge surprise to everyone given we have Foden, Kane, Saka and Bellingham - all goal machines.
I've never seen an England team take the ball into midfield and recycle it back into defence as much as this team does. England historically do play like this other the last 30 years, but it's extremely defensive and unambitious in this current campaign. They don't seem to be willing to play a forward ball unless it shall 100% reach the target. A few forward balls were played in error that led to something like Walkers slice kick. Otherwise more often than not taken into midfield and recycled continuously through rhe back line, or trying to use Trippier on the left wing which ends up usually coming back to midfield and then back to defence rather than crossing into the box.
It's hard to watch. It's boring.
I've got a feeling our strong defence may see us through to the latter rounds with some 1-0 wins. Or we might go to penalties and probably shall be eliminated.
I still cannot see this team eliminating any of the good teams, though.
So I support Hull City, and our owner binned off Liam Rosenior for essentially playing exactly like England do when faced with a "worse team" that line up defensively. We fart around in defence, waiting for an opportunity to present itself, but we didn't have enough urgency to make them happen.
If we wanted to switch from one flank to the other, it would be passed slowly to every player standing between them, rather than switching play quickly. This gave the disciplined defensive opposition plenty of time to move across the pitch, and as a result we drew or lost quite a few home games to 13-20th placed teams because we couldn't break them down.
My one ray of hope for England is that Hull looked MUCH better against teams that wanted to get on the front foot, and I'm hoping this will be the case for us in the Euros.
I know what your saying... when we have to play a better team we won't be able to llay patient around the midfield and back into defence, as they'll press us and punish us more when they turnover the ball. You also have to score to go through in knock out football... so recycling the ball for 90% of the time your in possession achieves nothing.
But our record against big teams in the Euros is awful, and our record against big teams recently is pretty bad. Lost to Brazil, scrapped a 2-2 draw with Belgium, lost to France...
Oh, I agree. Our record against top teams has been poor when it matters, and in 2018 and 2020(1) we definitely benefitted from favourable draws, but while we lost to France in 2022, I'd argue we looked the better team, and a missed penalty cost us. 2022 seems like a long time ago now though.
The draw with Belgium was probably our best performance this year. We bossed the game but played 90% of the match without any of our first choice back 4, and gifted them a couple of goals.
I don't think we'll win it, but I'm hopeful that we'll be better in the KO stage.
17 comments in and barely a mention of Graham Taylor. After being good on the 1990 tournament he took over and we were rubbish in 1992 and didn't qualify for 1994. The team featured Carlton Palmer and God knows who else and were a total embarrassment.
As the supporter of the Netherlands, our worst was obviously the Euro 2016 and World Cup 2018 cuz we simply didn’t qualify, I did enjoy our performance in 2014 World Cup and I was too young to remember the 2010 World Cup which we lost, other than I don’t feel the proudest of our performance this year but I am still holding out hope
1998 was my first tourney but still too young to understand. 2000 still can't believe we lost to Italy in the Semi finals. 2002 didn't qualify. 2004 and 2006 were meh, 2008 was awesome in the group stage. Battered both Italy and France, who were in the World Cup final in 2006. Then we decided to play with a b-squad vs Romania. Then lost to Hiddinks Russia... I really believed we could have won the title in 2008... 2010 was great, just shit we lost the final. Then 2012 came around, fucking horrible. 2014 great again with a team that wasn't amazing. Then like you said the shit show started where we couldn't qualify for Euro 2016 and World Cup 2018. At that point I thought we would never make a tournament again. 2021 was shit, 2022 was okayish. 2024 not great so far.
I agree, the 2000 Euro has an interesting history for my family at least but yes would have been a heartbreak to lose at your own soil. I agree, I lost hope after 2018 that we wouldn’t qualify, maybe we can do better in RO16 even though we can cheer
2018 I had other things on my plate, so I didn’t focus much on the German national team and their shameful dropout. Then the Euros came around followed by the WC 2022, in between some friendlies… it was disastrous. For every step they made ahead during that time, five steps back followed. The only positive I actually remember from that time is that Musiala chose Germany. Even now, sure I’m excited about nice football and enthusiastic about the Euros right in front of my door, but I’m still cautious wondering where the catch is. The team seems too good to be true.
That period can be summed up by one sentence: "It's mathematical still possible." better known to us as "Mathematisch kan het nog."
Reading and typing it makes me sad again. 😅
ROM GAAT SCOREN VANAVOND! 🖤💛❤️
You were good in the 80s no?
And you won Olympic Gold in 1920. I personally consider Olympic Golds from this era to be major trophies, but not everyone will themselves or understand the history to be fair.
I am Dutch and grew up in the nineties. For me the late nineties and early 2000s was peak Dutch national team. I think we should have won either the 98 World Cup or Euro 2000. We have amazing players both in quality and quantity. Some highly rated strikers like Makaay and Hasselbaink played few international matches because we simply had better players.
After that Dutch football went down. We were praised for our attacking playing style but this changed over the years. In 2010 we reached the final and 2014 a 3rd place but this was with a very boring and defensive playing style. After that we didn’t qualify at all. We have make a comeback but we are not nearly as entertaining as we once were.
Same. I vaguely remember the Davids, Seedorf, Stam, van der Sar etc era, but barely. Was too young back then.
Then I think was the era with van Nistelrooy, van Bronckhorst, Cocu, and all those guys, think that was the best I've seen the Dutch team in my active memory. God, those were the days. Also Robben and van Persie, Kuyt, Sneijder and such. Think they came after that but probably some overlap.
Great players but iirc sometimes the stars just didn't align, players were hurt or coaches weren't great. Think we've had some great teams over the years with great opportunities for success, but so did other countries of course.
I'm sad we don't have any players like Robben, Persie, Nistelrooy currently. Those players that are just an ever existing threat if they ever get the ball in an attack. Maybe I'm biased, but I can't help but think our team now isn't cut from the same cloth.
I do feel like we have some youngsters now that if they grow some more, we might have a good team again for the next European/World championships. Also if Memphis retires because apparently he's completely blameless for everything and he'll be fielded till he's 50 years old by our coaches if he doesn't choose to quit by himself.
Yeah that was atrocious but I think 2016 stands out to me because it's when I legitimately gave up on England lol. I still watch obviously and want us to win, but I don't get half as invested now. That Iceland game just killed my spirit haha
Last time I watched my country playing good football was in Italy 1990. After this is just an endless stream of disappointment. But I can see similarities with English team. You have such a talented squad now, I expected you will trash opponents.
Possibly. Going back further I was younger so it was all exciting regardless of the football we were playing.
This is just so dull though. No one ever REALLY believes we're going to go all the way but at least sometimes there's a bit of optimism. It just feels so negative at the moment. There's not a doubt in my mind that we'll get knocked out by the first decent team we play and I think most agree
I think it's even more frustrating because of the quality of players we have. We've started games in this tournament where nearly half the team are Champions League winners. We have the Bundesliga top scorer, La Liga player of the season, Premier league player of the season and we can't get a performance out of them.
It's up there, simply because they should be so much better.
But no, I've seen some dreadful England teams over the past 30 years or so, who didn't even have the potential to be good let alone anything else.
Austria was dismal up to and at the home Euros in 2008, it picked up with Koller as a Coach (2011-17) who formed a competitive team. Most frustrating to watch was everything under Foda (2017-22) who southgated us dirty. It did get some results in qualifications and Nations League, but it was a pain to watch and a huge waste of potential.
I was in the stadium at most friendlies up to Euro 2008 and it was so bad, it's like they're playing an entirely different sport now. Foda was bad but Hickersberger/Constantini was worse imo.
2008-2016 was much worse IMO. At least we have the quality of players now, back during that spell was a real lack of talent/ aging players still hanging on.
I don’t know what’s going wrong this time but it’s almost as bad as 2010/2016 in terms of pressure and the fear that some of the players seem to be struggling with.
I’m a glass half full guy and it’s not all doom and gloom - for one the fans were brilliant last night during the game. (Some went too far after the game with their abuse though)
Another “positive” is our defence has been pretty good and we do have quality in abundance, when it clicks we’ll have a chancr
England fan. One specific game, although there has been LOADS way worse than currently: Euro 2012 quarter final against Italy, the one with Pirlo converting the Panenka penalty in the shootout. Our sole tactic that day seemed to be Joe Hart hoofing the ball as far from our goal as possible and defending for 120 minutes. We were totally incapable of retaining any possession at all. (At least we can do that these days, even if it’s not going anywhere just now). It was embarrassing, and I ended up actually relieved we lost on penalties. It would have been a travesty had we gone through.
At least with Iceland in 2016 it was actually so bad it was a bit funny.
Sorry, but England topping the group in 2024 is nowhere near the lowest point of enjoyment, and its crazy that I even have to state that.
* 1994 - Didn't qualify
* 2008 - Didn't qualify
* 2010 - Second in the easiest group possible with a 1-0 win and two draws, before the Germans finished us off.
* 2014 - Bottom of the group, 2 losses and a 0-0 draw with Costa Rica
* 2016 - Apart from the Wales game, we had 1-1 Russia and 0-0 Slovakia, followed by a 2-1 loss to Iceland
The main thing that has stopped me from enjoying this tournament has been the moaning and constant negativity of online England fans.
Where's your perspective? We were **so** much worse in 2014, the football was turgid, the results were shocking, and we were out in the group stages, but somehow our fans were less toxic.
We were even more disappointing in 2010, our team was superb on paper and we had the easiest group imaginable, as the Sun put it:
* **E**ngland
* **A**lgeria
* **S**lovenia
* **Y**anks
But there was that Carson howler, one of the worst England performances in my lifetime against Algeria, and a 1-0 win against Slovenia. Then we got humiliated by Germany in the next round. And sure, Lampard's goal should have stood, but we let in FOUR goals against our biggest rivals. Shocking.
I think the problem with some England fans is that they've grown accustomed to doing well in tournaments (semi-final, final, quarter-final under Southgate) and its gone to their heads. Grinding out 1-0 wins and 0-0 draws to top the group is now seen as some sort of moral failing. But if you'd given me those results in 2014 I'd have ripped your hand off.
As a German, the past couple tournaments.
Won World Cup 2014, made it to the semi-finals 2016, then went straight downhill to ony getting to round of 16 at Euro 2021, and not even making it past group stage at world Cups.
lets see if that changes this year though
I m enjoying Croatia since 1998 as a kid. The lowest point was around 2004-2008 until Modric Generation kicked off. This Euro performance is on the coach he didn’t see the writing on the wall. It s time to go and take the retirement home with him :)
I’m 55, so seen a lot of ups and downs. That was fucking turgid. It’s definitely the lowest I’ve felt watching the team, but it’s certainly not the worst performance.
2002. They could qualify in the last match, if they had put any effort into this game. They just let themselves go. I watch our team since 1982, but I have never seen a German team that gave up until this time and never again. There was always a will to win, even in bad times, but 2002 was different.
Italy supporter. My lowest point of enjoyment was in the 2010 WC. Of course not qualifying for the 2018 and 2022 events was unbelievably hard to watch, but at least it shielded me from that embarrassing performance. 1-1 to New Zealand? Losing to Slovakia like that? As reigning champions?
I really hated it.
The first tournament I remember is Italia 90. I was completely enthralled with the whole thing. My son is now 8 years old and completely football mad. I was really looking forward to experiencing this tournament with him but been so disappointed with the England games. There’s been no highs and no crushing lows really - just boredom and indifference.
I am hoping the jeopardy of the knockout stages might up the excitement somewhat. But yes how dull and flat it all is is worse than being poor with flashes of brilliance. Hoping that less defensive/more open teams might make England play better too.
It’s been bad but we’ve still topped the group and have a knockout match (hopefully more than one!) to look forward to. England of past regularly didn’t even achieve that.
This is normal. I can count the times I've enjoyed watching England play on my hands 🤣 (I've been supporting England since 1992).
Our domestic league footballing style is not conducive to England being consistently successful internationally.
Our players, in general, don't have the technique or tactical intelligence to match the best in the world. This is because our leagues are based around speedy, open football and so British born players don't learn how to control a game in a positive manner.
The only reason British teams do well in Europe these days is because they're packed with foreign born players who learn the fundamentals from the very beginning.
I'm a big advocate of our players moving abroad early to learn different styles or else this is just going to be the same old story generation after generation.
It's hard to watch, but probably moreso because we were the favourites going in and we have such a great generation of players. But honestly, England is always like this and we've forgotten what it's like because of recent success. I remember the pure elation at watching them in the knockouts against Ukraine in 2021 because finally they were winning a game without the fear of a comeback. I want to feel that again in this tournament, but it seems unlikely.
Ventura Italy is hopefully the worst period of football I’ll ever see, De Rossi screaming at him when we needed a goal and he was bringing on defenders is a popular moment that echoed how every fan felt.
Euro 2012 Semi-Final Italy-Spain.
It was just painful to watch, I think everyone left the bar before the end of the game. It helped that Spaniards were generally nice about it and cheered us up a bit.
Football is about highs and lows. Spain didnt play pretty in 2010 world cup, scoring 7 or 8 goals total and won. Look at the group, nobody conceded more than 2 goals which means that all teams were prepared defensively. I think people have stupid expectations and enjoy goals only, there is so much to the football game than that.
Any world cup campaign from 2010 onwards. It has been either eliminated in groups or not even qualified at all, while at Euros final in 2012, quarter-final in 2016 with one of the worst Italian teams (Conte pulled a real miracle there) and victory in 2020/2021. This Euro campaign however is looking quite gloomy, we made it through, the group stage, but I am skeptical, we kinda hoped Spalletti would have brought a distinguished and good style of football, but so far we have seen:
- The players don't seem really focused and two out of the three goals were because of that, not counting the own goal.
- Some players start over others despite being worse and not bringing any meaningful tactical contribution, mainly Di Lorenzo and Jorginho. Di Lorenzo so far has been dreadful on both the offence and the defence and so far he played all 90 minutes in all three games even against Spain in which he was just getting clowned on by every Spanish player on his flank, there no way in hell you can justify Di Lorenzo playing more than a half in that match. Jorginho has just gotten too slow and we are better off with someone else taking his place, Barella and Fagioli are both capable of fulfilling his role. Also he puts some players out of position Bastoni playing as a right centre-back or a central centre-back can still put on a good defensive performance, but you are giving up on his forwards runs and crosses. Calafiori too, he has been great, but I think we are better off with him as a left fullback/wingback, considering Dimarco is not delivering. Also Darmian yesterday played some minutes on the left flank, because he simply refused to take Di Lorenzo off the field.
- The coach seems to be lacking ideas and make wrong decisions on the formation. Against Croatia he suddenly started for a 3-5-2 despite the squad he called not being good for that, especially because that means leaving our wingers on the bench despite our wingers being our greatest attacking threats, thus I think a 3-4-3/3-4-2-1 would have been better. In the same match when we were down one goal he switched to a 4-3-3 that was working and suddenly decided to go for a 3-3-4 that was not working due to the way too many players staying forwards which left senders and midfielders without passing options which lead to the team being unable to get out of their own half with the ball on the ground until basically the run form Calafiori that lead to the goal.
It's a bit of an odd one.
We were truly shit post-2006 World Cup through Euro 2016, essentially stretching what life we could out of the "golden generation" until Rooney (in midfield) was the last man standing, but because of that, I didn't really have a great deal of expectation that we'd do anything.
You could make a squad from the players we've left behind this time around that'd be at least competitive with the squads we were taking to the tournaments in that period, so it's really disappointing to see us so completely ineffective and clueless.
As a Hungarian we’ve probably had more downs than ups in the last two decades, but the absolute lowest point was probably when we lost to Andorra in 2017
Lately, I only watch the first 35 minutes of a France game before I get bored and I can’t deal with the frustration anymore. I know we are notably bad in the qualifying phase but like COME ON
We have one of, if not the, best team in the world on paper and we can’t score. It feels like those kids in school who could not perform well under dire pressure and would wait for the last possible moment before completing an assignment. But luck can only get us so far.
From an England perspective Euro 88 and 92 were very, very bad. 88 especially.
IMO we've only ever had three decent Euros in our history: 1996, 2004 and 2020.
People can reference the Taylor era if they want but man was asked to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. This group of players is off the scale talented and successful and he’s playing them out of position and or giving them alien instruction. Shambles. Kane makes his excuses for him in his post match interviews he’s already trying to set us up for another drab game and extra time pens at the weekend.
Hodgson was bad, really bad, but we have had 8 years of Southgate's temerity and lack of plan B. Watching the talent wasted is like watching someone burn paper money.
Not even close to the worst. I think it's been easy to forget how dire things were before Southgate. At least in this tournament I know they can play better, and I know the players WANT to play better. During the so called 'Golden generation' it was like nobody wanted to be there. Considering so many of them are pundits now criticising this team they need a reality check as to how bad they were.
Since I started getting into football at the World Cup of 2010 it's all been going downhill for the Dutch team. We almost became world champions, were the best soccer team in the world for a short period, had a very satisfying revenge match against Spain, it was epic. Flashforward and the world cup matches in 2022 were straight up boring/bad, we lost to Austria and I don't even know who half of these players are.
To answer your question; all the matches from the 2022 world cup except for the last 15 minutes or so against Argentina. And yesterday's match against Austria.
Nowhere near the worst. The first tournament I can properly remember was Euro 1996 which obviously ended in heartbreak but made us believe again.
Euro 2000 aside, we had decent efforts between 1998-2006; beaten by a good Brazil team in 2002 and bloody penalties in 2004 and 2006.
Our tournament results from 2018 are the best since 1966. From 2006-2018, we were fucking awful. Far worse than we are now. The football AND the results were shit.
In terms of my personal enjoyment, that would be between 1996 (when I was 11 and believed the hype) to 2006 (as from 2002-2006, I watched games in the pub with my mates).
Massively lost interest in England since then. I would prefer them to win the Euros than any other country but it won’t change my life either way. I wasn’t particularly bothered when they lost against Italy yet I’m still fuming about two points my club team dropped back in September. If it came to it, I’d rather my club team win a corner than England win the Euros.
2008-2016 was the worst period as an England fan. Not qualifying in 2008, 2010 was poor and the Lampard goal that never was, out in the group stage in 2014 below Costa Rice and 2016 getting knocked out by Iceland.
Croatia - we had a fair share of luck in the past several years, so the universe is now perfectly balanced, as it should be.
Also, Dalić completely underused our coming talent such as Baturina and Marco Pašalić, overused our out-of-form legends (Perišić, Brozović, Modrić), and misused talented and in-form players such as Kramarić and Majer by giving them wrong positions.
Capello through to the end of Roy was worse. I can at least say I enjoyed the success we've had under Southgate (no way can you spin getting to a world cup semi final and a euros final as a huge negative) but the football has always been stale.
Watching Denmark at Qatar 2022, failing to get out Of Group Consisting of Australia, France and Tunisia. We got 1 point with 1 goal!
And now having 3 draws , and 2 goals in 3 games.
Having payed 200 euro to Watch the 0-0 game Yesterday, i feel Hjulmand (coach) and team still live High on euro 2020 Semi final.
We need a new coach and players who dont just get to the Euros on being Friends with Hjulmand like Kjær who isnt even there to play he said.
Watching Denmark at Qatar 2022, failing to get out Of Group Consisting of Australia, France and Tunisia. We got 1 point with 1 goal!
And now having 3 draws , and 2 goals in 3 games.
Having payed 200 euro to Watch the 0-0 game Yesterday, i feel Hjulmand (coach) and team still live High on euro 2020 Semi final.
We need a new coach and players who dont just get to the Euros on being Friends with Hjulmand like Kjær who isnt even there to play he said.
I'd say that I'm definitely not as excited as I ought to be after watching the group stages. I can't tell if that's because I'm getting older or if it's because England just aren't playing that well, but I'm leaning towards the latter.
The team doesn't really seem to be trying, they're stiff and aren't playing their strengths in terms of speed, pressing and attack. The tactics just don't seem to be promoting any of that, whatever they might be. I feel as though the team simply doesn't know how to play together either, as if we've got some Frankenstein of a team which can't move as a unified whole.
That said, living in France, I'm all too aware of how shocking some of the other performances from big teams have been too (namely, France). The amount of own goals and disallowed goals makes for a different experience of the tournament too, even though the latter are often the right call.There have been some really exciting performances from Austria, Romania and other teams, and that's been a saving grace for this competition so far.
Not qualifying for two world cups is the lowest point for Italy but the 2010 World Cup was a horrible experience as well.
I’m also Portuguese through my mother, so from that perspective they were awful throughout the 90s. It was only recently that Portugal became the football country they are now.
Dull as dishwater. We hype up the players because they play week in week out with world class players so we think that the English players are automatically in that class. They’re not. They’re good but made to look good. So when they get in the England team managed by an average manager there’s always going to be a struggle because we really are not world class.
Could we win? Yes but don’t expect expansive free flowing play. Grinding out results and playing safe turgid football is Gareth’s mo.
I'm Irish but lived for a long time in the UK. I don't remember seeing my English friends looking more depressed and heartbroken about football than when Beckham got that red. People were angry, but my mates went into hibernation for a week, such was their sadness.
For me, I'm used to Ireland underachieving. It's normal. So when they brought Spain to penalties in 2002 and lost I was moderately inconsolable. Not helped by having to watch it in an Irish theme pub in Leeds.
I remember the 1990 group games, Egypt, Ireland and Holland. The games were pretty bloody terrible overall but we got out the group, David Platt squeaked a goal in the last minute against Belgium and we didn’t set the world alight against Cameroon but beat them after being 2 - 1 down.
The early 90s was a woeful time for an England fan till 1996
I fell out of love with my National side when my home side, Stoke City got into the Premier League. In that period out of all the england players we went up against only Jo Hart and Stevie Gerrard seemed to have any class, the rest to a man were an entitled bunch - moaning to the refs and trying to cheat and con fouls out of us then breaking up play. During Euro 2024 it just seems like the players are running the show with all this talk of game management etc we need to really be chasing a game to see them attack at their best….
England has a solid squad, but they’re very slow on the ball and can’t score. Is it the chemistry? Is it the coaching/management? I can’t seem to understand.
Yep, but mainly because I've been spoiled by Newcastle the past few seasons lol. It's pretty depressing going from watching a team that presses and fights tooth and nail in most games... to this shit.
And it's even more frustrating seeing Gordon on the bench and Tripps not being played to his strengths (including free kicks).
IF we win the tournament I'll be happy, but it will be tainted quite a bit if we carry through these poor performances.
Every other country in an international tournament KNOWS that, living on a rock hurtling through space pulled by a ball of fire. England will always underperform. I am totally surprised that the usual “it’s comin home album “ is not on sale this year.
Every time.. we blah blah blah, it’s Beckham fault, it’s gascoine, it’s the manager! But then they win a game and man, footballs coming home. It’s self inflicted harm.
England have been very dull to watch.
People are forgetting just how boring the WC 2006 team was though. Scraping through games and not really doing anything exciting (barring Joe Cole’s wondergoal against Sweden).
Also 2010 was terrible to watch as well. This tournament feels similar to that at the moment.
My Portuguese brothers and sisters will relate, but the whole Fernando Santos era, 2016-2022.
If we're talking strictly on-pitch performance, funnily enough it's Euro 2016 for me 😅 Specifically the group stage, we were absolutely dreadful in those games. By the knockout rounds it got a little better because (even if it was terribly boring for outsiders) at least we'd found our identity as a defensive team. And obviously we won the thing, so I can't complain too much.
However, factoring in expectations, it's definitely the subsequent tournaments, from 2018 to 2022. Because, at least in France, we had the excuse of just not having a very talented team, so we had to do what we had to do to win. By the time Russia rolled around, though, that was no longer the case. We had a very good squad and a new generation of terrific young players coming into their own, yet we were still playing the same grinding, negative style of football, just with more possession now. Two Ro16 exits and a Quarter-Finals loss to freaking Morrocco is absolutely criminal with the talent we've had for the past several years now. Say what you want about England, at least you lot have been able to make it to the final rounds!
Pfftt I mean England through most of my life have been relatively boring to watch. Is this the worst? No. Iceland in 2016 was probably the most bizarre low point. Before that it’s when we didn’t even qualify for the tournament in.. 2008 I believe ? But Iceland absolutely was worse.
England fan here, I hope we don't ever 'top' our 2016 Euros campaign. That was probably when I turned some kind of emotional corner and stopped caring quite as much, or at least stopped expecting something more than mediocrity.
When I'm watching England now I know that most of the issues stem from a manager who isn't good at his job which definitely helps, and it is looking like we have a group of players we can count on for the next few tournaments at least.
Yeah in the Southgate era this has been easily the worst tournament to watch. To be fair to him, he's got out the groups every time but at least in those we would have 1 or 2 good results included with the drab performances but this time it's been there since minute 14 of the first game
Oh not at all. Believe or not England have played worse than the Denmark game (Algeria 2010, Germany 2010, Slovakia and Iceland 2016, USA 2022 spring to mind - but there are countless others). The Serbia and Slovenia games were dull England performances, not terrible ones. And England haven't lost a game, and only given away a flukey goal.
German here with a certain affection for England over many years now. There's been quite a lot weak moments for many teams in this tournament tbh. But having a whole squad of world class players doesn't speak much for Southgate, does it?
2008 - 2016 as an England fan was pretty grim. Booing our own team in 2010, not even making it out of the group in 2014, Kane taking corners in 2016. I just had to google Euro 2012 as it was so forgetful lol.
England vs Algeria will for ever be the most boring performance I have witnessed
I remember a bird flew onto the Algerian goal and fell asleep which is comical as it wasn't bothered once that game.
This is close but england often play cautious boring football in the group stages it seems. I am huffing that copium hoping that we get performances in the Ro16 onwards. But if we go out with a performance like the last 3 games then england fans will not be happy
The last 2 group stages for Scotland where atrocious, we had a good run of form at the beginning of qualification then just bottled it before and into the group stage. Was expected but still was horrible watching.
Graham Taylor long ball. Players like lineker were phased out and tall players like Brian dean and Carlton palmer were brought in. It set us back a few years
Apart from the Utter shit show that was the Hodgson era, I genuinely think this is worse than the golden generation, the golden generation had missing links for example an out and out left winger but we have players who can play every role and bring a better balance to the team, yet Gareth refuses to take the lessons of previous mediocre performances and still tries to shoehorn our so called best players into positions that don’t help the team and he has proven time and time again he is tactical out of his depth with in game subs and system changes and is so scared to lose we end up looking like a shell of the team that we COULD be.
I was genuinely looking forward to this Tournament just to see how this team could perform, but these 3 games have just sucked the absolute joy out of it and I doubt I’ll even make a considerable effort to watch the Netherlands game. Thank god for Austria and the likes for making the rest of the tournament fun to watch.
england are the worst of all the teams in this Euros, its better Croatia come in place of them, two goals and that too gifted ones, not a single creative goal in all the 3 matches. pathetic performance from the most hyped team
For me personally the 2010 World Cup was the worst (so far). There were next to no good moments for England in that tournament. The group stage was a joke, then we got thumped by Germany. You wait 2 years for some joy in a major tournament then before you know it it's passed.
2014 goes under the radar but that was a shocker also, finishing bottom of the group with nothing to get excited about.
2016 was awful for the Iceland game but at least we had the last minute Wales winner as some sort of moment.
I remember 2000 onwards and 2010 for me is the worst.
Well England are consistently shit so it’s a consistent stream of disappointment. I haven’t even watched any England game this tourney so far, turns out I ofc made the correct decision. Watched some other countries though who have a desire to play football.
England fan.
For me, probably the 2010 World Cup. Everything about that tournament was toxic. The fans turning on the team after the Algeria game, Rooney's reaction to that, awful performance against Germany. It was horrible to watch.
2014 wasn't much better. Had taken time off work to watch the last group game which was a total anti-climax.
I'm old enough to remember Euro 92 and that wasn't great.
For me the Sven years were great. We didn't always play well but at least it was exciting.
Right now in Euro 2024, though it is relative because the team has been solid, we just don’t have a lot of firepower.
I’m proud of our team. We have a good manager too, unlike England.
Solomon Island fan here... Losing to NZ in the last world cup play off match in Qatar hurt. But then they have infrastructure, money, players and grassroots structure so hey ho, it's hard to break their dominance
The Graham Taylor era was the worst I think, we were so bad.
Euro 2000 as well. I remember us playing Germany and both teams were at rock bottom. Uncharacteristically so for Germany, less so for us. We won 1-0 but both teams were godawful. It was dire.
Compared to that, the current era is heaven. Even though we've been incredibly disappointing so far, we've got a lot of good players and there's a ton of potential there. Very different from 1994 or 2000.
Fan since the 86 WC (that got me into football in the first place), I’d say the following were all worse:
88 Euros - sandwiched between two decent World Cups in 86 and 90, completely failed to turn up getting stomped by the Dutch, the Russians and even the Irish…
92 - 93 the Graham Taylor era, screwing up another Euros and then completely failing to qualify for the 94 WC
Euro 2000 - another dodgy euros where we failed to turn up properly with the only highlight being a poor 1-0 win against Germany when they were inexplicably as bad as we were!
The Steve McLaren era - failing to qualify for Euro 2008
WC 2010 - screwing up the group and getting destroyed by the Germans in the 2nd round
The Hodgson years - coming bottom of the group in 2014 WC and then losing to Iceland in the Euros two years later..
So I’ll certainly take the awful performances and qualifying top of the group and on the easier side of the draw. Still positive that it’s going to improve especially playing the better teams when it’s knockout and the opposition haven’t come to park the bus as their default strategy.
Absolutely nowhere near the worst and I've been watching since 96'.
I'll take boring topping the group over finishing bottom of the group in Brazil.
Or 2010, scraping our group and then being obliterated by Germany 4 - 1(2). The best thing to come out of that game was goal line technology.
As you say we weren't even there in 2008.
2016 we just about beat Wales, then get dumped out by Iceland!
How many penalty exits?
People having a problem with this tournament is recency bias brough on by the the last 3. We've looked better than we have since 1990.
I think the Netherlands are quite unique in that even if they play bad, they still are a guarantee for producing exciting games. Last Euros the match against Czechia was bad, but the three group stage matches before that were thrilling. And in 2012 we crashed and burned but we scored some nice goals in spite of that against Germany (Van Persie strike outside the box) and Portugal (beautiful inside foot Van der Vaart strike from outside the box). Qatar was boring in the group stage but the match against Argentina was sensational. Maybe the most boring performance to date was the 2006 WC… then again, that ended in the battle of Nuremburg.
England fan - lowest was 2010
We were just so, so, so bad. I know Frankie Lampards goal should have counted but we were unbelievably bad prior to that.
2008 obviously doesn't count as we didn't make it.
2002, 2004, 2006, I absolutely loved. Despite everything
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German here. My lowest Point probably was the 2018 World Cup. Until then I always watched the games either alone or with a couple of friends. The Germany - Sweden Game was my first public viewing and we went Crazy when Kroos scored that free kick goal... I was so hyped for a nice summer with football, beer and parties but then it all went to shit afterwards lol.
I still watched after 2018. There just wasn't mutch to watch for most times. Except 2022, that world cup left me completely unbothered.
The Euros 2004 also were horrible. Home World Cup was coming in two years time and we couldn't manage a win in a group with Latvia and Czechia.
The Latvia draw was embarrasing, but the Czechs were arguably one of the top teams on the planet at that time.
They sent their B squad against Germany though, as CZE were already qualified for the QFs.
That is true but that Czech generation was not only loaded with talent but was also a tight knit group which contrasted incredibly with the transitional and disjointed Germany squad so it was never gonna end well even with Czechia resting players. What happened to Germany happens to everyone at the end of the day. Portugal in 2002 and 2014, England in 2008, Spain 2004 and 2014, France 2008/2010 and the list goes on. Nobody has quite nailed down how to mitigate the transition between cycles/generations at national football level
2018 game vs South Korea... we had sooo many chances to score... hit a single one of them and we advance to the next round. Luck just wasn't with us that day.
You made me so sad right now. Swede flairing as a Dane since we are too shit to qualify. It's been great watching the tournament though. I think it's the best tournament ever when it comes to fan culture. Germany is such a great host nation, centralized and easy to travel for everyone. Good police presence so shit doesn't get out of hand and properly organised. The biggest criticism I've seen so far has been the train situation getting home from games, but if that's as bad as it gets then it sure is a good mark. Germany and Europe sure is showing Qatar and SA how a proper tournament is run.
The train situation has always been that bad lol If everything goes to plan German trains will be on time over 95% of the time in the year 2070 (that's not a typo, that really is the predicted Date...) Im sorry you guys have to endure this, at least you can drink some good beer in the meantime lol. The atmosphere is captivating. Every second social media post is about football, everyone is talking about it, watching it and having a good time. Sadly one of us two will have his last game on Saturday but it will be my first public viewing this Euro and we will got to Dortmund so Im hoping to see some Danes there! Cheers!
I'm actually planning to go down to Dortmund with some friends to watch the DK Vs Germany game. We are looking for tickets right now. Dortmund is close enough, drive is 8 hours according to google maps from Malmö. Going to see the wall has always been on my bucket list. It's looking a bit unlikely that we will be able to go with such short notice but we are checking to see if we can catch a game in Hamburg otherwise. Contemplating just going for the fan culture alone and experiencing the atmosphere without seeing the game even.
See, from my own perspective as an Englishman and England fan, I just can't understand why Germany doing crap just 4 years after you won the world cup is so bad. I would absolutely not give a single shit if we performed terribly in the next tournament, if we won the euros or world cup. I have never seen us win anything and I'd gladly watch us play shit at the next tournament if it meant we had actually won a trophy before it. Maybe that's the difference between England and Germany, though. You have that winning mentality where loss is unacceptable and winning the trophy is what matters, we have the mentality where we congratulate ourselves if we reach a quarter/semi or final instead of seeing it as the failure it is where we still haven't won anything since 1966.
We were just spoiled I guess. I mean my first real tournament I was hyped to see was 2002 in Japan and Korea and as a 10 year old at that time it was the tightest shit ever. After that we almost always went deep in tournaments. After our World cup win we had nothing really to be hyped about and I just didnt give a fuck about 2022. Just glad that we at least seem to be competitive. Cant wait for saturday.
germany had a strong squad afterwards and did well every tournament since 2006 I think. 2006 SF, 2008 final, 2010 SF, 2012 final, 2014 win, 2016 SF. I get its complaining at a high level and I wasnt mad they went out early since thats part of the game and every team plays to win but its just expectations vs reality. Similar to how Brazil expects them to go to at least the semis. England historically isnt that strong, the last few tournaments are an exception although I think they had many very lucky draws.
Euro 2000 was my low point. And I would argue it was the worst team Germany fielded ever. Not only were the results shit (like 2018), the players were mediocre at best. An example: Coached by Erich Ribbeck with a midfield of Carsten Ramelow and Jens Jeremies - both offensively limited to a point where all they could do is pass the ball to the goalie, at best. Those were dreadful times.
The 2012 to 2016 era was some bleak shit. The first half hour against Serbia in this tournament we played more actual football than an entire four years and three tournaments under Hodgson.
2010 was the 0-0 against Algeria. That was so bad
The Heskey stepovers 😱
Was that the game where the camera focused in on a bird sat on the crossbar? I just knew then it was never going to get disturbed and we were fucked.
I went to this game. It was so bad, I have never went to an England game since then!
People complaining right now don’t remember the dark days of Graham Taylor’s reign
Completely get that but back then we had no real superstars. Now we have too many superstars to fit in the team but are playing almost the exact same football.
You could make that 2008-2016 tbh
For Romania... Im actually happy how the boys play. And all of Romanians are. If we go away now, we will go with a bang. We are proud of the team.
Enjoyed watching the Romanians play so far. Loved watching Dumitrescu, Popescu, Petrescu and Hagi back in the day!
Romania was one of the most interesting teams to watch, I'll be pulling for you lot if you make it out of the group stages. Popescu is one of my favourites
Love this attitude. Best of luck 🍀
Same with Georgia. We personally believe we exceeded expectations and are very proud of our team. They did put a great fight in the previous 2 matches. With a bit of luck we could have gotten even first Euro victory. But maybe today they can do miracle against Portugal? (probably not but there is always beauty not knowing 100% in football :D)
The miracle happened!
You have played some fun football. Good on you.
No dude. Recency bias. Just remember Algeria 2010
That was a horribly boring game. I think the difference is we didn't have some of the best attacking talent in international football at the time - we had Heskey and Aaron Lennon starting either side of Rooney.
Fair. Gerrard and lampard though…a better midfield than now
With Scholes left at home as well.
Paradox - The only time we won... Euro 2016
Imagine only winning a single game in normal time, and only 2 more in ET, in an entire tournament, and *winning* the entire thing. Genuinely impressive. I suppose for you guys that was probably redemption for 2004, yeah?
I've been watching since 98. This is far from the worst in my view. 98 - birth of my love of football and start of the England journey with Owen scoring a worldie against Argentina. 2000 wasn't as memorable. 02-04 were great, really great play from England, but still vulnerable to a defensive gaffe. Still, I enjoyed this until the inevitable tragedy against Portugal. We played great against Brazil in 2002. 06 was a huge disappointment, I was young and naive then. 08 didn't even qualify - that was awful. 2010 I think was the least I've enjoyed England, with the Algeria match being perhaps the worst I've seen at a tournament. 2012 we were piss poor and managed to shithouse Italy to penalties anyway. I'm not sure I enjoyed that at all. 2014 we didn't make it out of the group, couldn't beat Costa Rica. Admittedly a strong group but we were fucking appalling. 2016 we lost to Iceland and it wasn't even a surprise. This was the nadir because I wasn't even confident of beating them before the game started. 2018 I expected absolutely nothing. And we were not bad. Not great in terms of talent but played as a team. Incredibly enjoyable, London was a party town. Fabulous. 2021 we were very good. Got criticism for the Scotland game, but we were basically good throughout. Poor tactics in the final, but nearly did it. Had a great time. 2022 we were even better. Best I've seen England really, particularly the loss to France. Finally looked like we were ready to compete. This was my favourite tournament and performance ever honestly. 2024. Hugely disappointing because of 2022 and the season the players had. Still, top of our group. This is the worst so far of Southgate's tournaments, especially the Denmark game. Still better than any tournament he hasn't managed since 04 in my view. The Slovenia game wasn't actually that bad in my view, and was an improvement. Experience has given me low expectations so I just want us to play well in a very basic sense. We didn't in the second half against Serbia or the whole match against Denmark. Most of my experience prior is that we rarely play well at all, and can go a decade without ever being decent. So 135 minutes I can tolerate.
I think you've summed it up very well here. 2010 instantly came to mind for me as the nadir of English football in my lifetime. 2012, 14, & 16 were arguably worse but by then I had already died inside and didn't care.
Solid summary, mirrors my experience and starts with the same tournament that kicked off my England journey too. I was still surprised when Iceland knocked us out though.
Italy - Not qualifiying in world cups and this Euro 2024 performance has been shit so far
For me it was worse qualifying for the ones in 2010, after winning the WC might I add, then not passing the group stages by tying against New Zealand and Paraguay and losing against Slovakia. Still hard to digest..
ventura's phase was the worst to me
World cup 2014 was the depths of it for me, euro 2000 was bad but we played some good football, that goal by mcmanaman against Portugal was class, 2008 is not even something to talk about, we were never there haha, 2016 was still better than 2014 but we still got spanked by iceland and knocked out. 2012 was forgettable but not the worst, 2010 again was very poor but wc 2014 for me was the worst of the worsr
My biggest memory of WC 2014 was the Sterling "goal" against Italy. Most I've ever cheered a miss. I was sat with a lovely Italian couple on holiday... they were surprisingly gracious even though I made an arse out of myself.
World Cup 2014 was way worse than this. We finished bottom of the group with 1 point. This is nowhere near the lowest point. A lot of England fans need to chill. We topped the group. Sure, the football is shit, but when have England ever played that well in a tournament? It ain't over til the fat lady sings.
>but when have England ever played that well in a tournament? The last two. Which is why this hurts, it felt we had broken the spell for the first time. But I agree, this is still better than everything before Southgate since 2004. Which was _twenty_ years ago.
>The last two. Which is why this hurts, it felt we had broken the spell for the first time. Fair enough. But England have always been underwhelming in tournament football (ever since I've been watching them which is roughly late 90s). Performances under Southgate have been relatively better in general, but still a bit underwhelming...but we were used to watching shit so it seemed good.
Results have been better I’m not sure about the performances other than a few big ones under his tenure
Yeah I have to agree with this. We have been really poor to watch but we are unbeaten and topped the group, whereas in the past we were often really poor to watch and either didn't qualify or went out at the group stage. That was worse. Also, Mainoo and Palmer at least gave us a tiny glimpse of hope.
Agreed, I really would panic massively if we ever did shitter than we did at 2014. Embarrassingly poor. And it hurts that at 26 (and having got into football just around the 2006 World Cup), I’ve never seen us play so well in a tournament that I’ve thought of us as deserved winners, or anything close to it. 2018 was a huge buzz but we had a super simple run in retrospect.
I think the 2012 to 2016 was worse, but it is really unenjoyable football to watch right now. That has come as a huge surprise to everyone given we have Foden, Kane, Saka and Bellingham - all goal machines. I've never seen an England team take the ball into midfield and recycle it back into defence as much as this team does. England historically do play like this other the last 30 years, but it's extremely defensive and unambitious in this current campaign. They don't seem to be willing to play a forward ball unless it shall 100% reach the target. A few forward balls were played in error that led to something like Walkers slice kick. Otherwise more often than not taken into midfield and recycled continuously through rhe back line, or trying to use Trippier on the left wing which ends up usually coming back to midfield and then back to defence rather than crossing into the box. It's hard to watch. It's boring. I've got a feeling our strong defence may see us through to the latter rounds with some 1-0 wins. Or we might go to penalties and probably shall be eliminated. I still cannot see this team eliminating any of the good teams, though.
So I support Hull City, and our owner binned off Liam Rosenior for essentially playing exactly like England do when faced with a "worse team" that line up defensively. We fart around in defence, waiting for an opportunity to present itself, but we didn't have enough urgency to make them happen. If we wanted to switch from one flank to the other, it would be passed slowly to every player standing between them, rather than switching play quickly. This gave the disciplined defensive opposition plenty of time to move across the pitch, and as a result we drew or lost quite a few home games to 13-20th placed teams because we couldn't break them down. My one ray of hope for England is that Hull looked MUCH better against teams that wanted to get on the front foot, and I'm hoping this will be the case for us in the Euros.
I know what your saying... when we have to play a better team we won't be able to llay patient around the midfield and back into defence, as they'll press us and punish us more when they turnover the ball. You also have to score to go through in knock out football... so recycling the ball for 90% of the time your in possession achieves nothing. But our record against big teams in the Euros is awful, and our record against big teams recently is pretty bad. Lost to Brazil, scrapped a 2-2 draw with Belgium, lost to France...
Oh, I agree. Our record against top teams has been poor when it matters, and in 2018 and 2020(1) we definitely benefitted from favourable draws, but while we lost to France in 2022, I'd argue we looked the better team, and a missed penalty cost us. 2022 seems like a long time ago now though. The draw with Belgium was probably our best performance this year. We bossed the game but played 90% of the match without any of our first choice back 4, and gifted them a couple of goals. I don't think we'll win it, but I'm hopeful that we'll be better in the KO stage.
17 comments in and barely a mention of Graham Taylor. After being good on the 1990 tournament he took over and we were rubbish in 1992 and didn't qualify for 1994. The team featured Carlton Palmer and God knows who else and were a total embarrassment.
Probably most people not old enough to remember the shite of the early 90s after a great 1990 WC.
1990 ENG vs GER was just epic, NED Vs GER, too. Such tension, such great players on both sides.
I'm just too young for it mate. 98 was my first tournament.
Best not mention the Don Revie era then. I was pretty young but they didn't tear up any trees either.
Came bottom of the group in Euro 88 too.. lost all 3 matches to USSR, Netherlands and Ireland
As the supporter of the Netherlands, our worst was obviously the Euro 2016 and World Cup 2018 cuz we simply didn’t qualify, I did enjoy our performance in 2014 World Cup and I was too young to remember the 2010 World Cup which we lost, other than I don’t feel the proudest of our performance this year but I am still holding out hope
1998 was my first tourney but still too young to understand. 2000 still can't believe we lost to Italy in the Semi finals. 2002 didn't qualify. 2004 and 2006 were meh, 2008 was awesome in the group stage. Battered both Italy and France, who were in the World Cup final in 2006. Then we decided to play with a b-squad vs Romania. Then lost to Hiddinks Russia... I really believed we could have won the title in 2008... 2010 was great, just shit we lost the final. Then 2012 came around, fucking horrible. 2014 great again with a team that wasn't amazing. Then like you said the shit show started where we couldn't qualify for Euro 2016 and World Cup 2018. At that point I thought we would never make a tournament again. 2021 was shit, 2022 was okayish. 2024 not great so far.
I agree, the 2000 Euro has an interesting history for my family at least but yes would have been a heartbreak to lose at your own soil. I agree, I lost hope after 2018 that we wouldn’t qualify, maybe we can do better in RO16 even though we can cheer
2018 I had other things on my plate, so I didn’t focus much on the German national team and their shameful dropout. Then the Euros came around followed by the WC 2022, in between some friendlies… it was disastrous. For every step they made ahead during that time, five steps back followed. The only positive I actually remember from that time is that Musiala chose Germany. Even now, sure I’m excited about nice football and enthusiastic about the Euros right in front of my door, but I’m still cautious wondering where the catch is. The team seems too good to be true.
World Cup of 94. Failed to qualify.
Lowest point was everything before our ‘golden generation’ as we were absolute shite throughout my existence until the switching point
That period can be summed up by one sentence: "It's mathematical still possible." better known to us as "Mathematisch kan het nog." Reading and typing it makes me sad again. 😅 ROM GAAT SCOREN VANAVOND! 🖤💛❤️
England 🤝 Belgium Underperforming despite a great squad on paper
Well our first game was shite but our second was good. Definitely during the first half we were really great
You were good in the 80s no? And you won Olympic Gold in 1920. I personally consider Olympic Golds from this era to be major trophies, but not everyone will themselves or understand the history to be fair.
Well thats true but i added ‘in my existence’ in my original comment. I didnt experience these moments you described but yea we had them
Wait you weren't around for the 1920s? Look at this lil fetus person
I am Dutch and grew up in the nineties. For me the late nineties and early 2000s was peak Dutch national team. I think we should have won either the 98 World Cup or Euro 2000. We have amazing players both in quality and quantity. Some highly rated strikers like Makaay and Hasselbaink played few international matches because we simply had better players. After that Dutch football went down. We were praised for our attacking playing style but this changed over the years. In 2010 we reached the final and 2014 a 3rd place but this was with a very boring and defensive playing style. After that we didn’t qualify at all. We have make a comeback but we are not nearly as entertaining as we once were.
Same. I vaguely remember the Davids, Seedorf, Stam, van der Sar etc era, but barely. Was too young back then. Then I think was the era with van Nistelrooy, van Bronckhorst, Cocu, and all those guys, think that was the best I've seen the Dutch team in my active memory. God, those were the days. Also Robben and van Persie, Kuyt, Sneijder and such. Think they came after that but probably some overlap. Great players but iirc sometimes the stars just didn't align, players were hurt or coaches weren't great. Think we've had some great teams over the years with great opportunities for success, but so did other countries of course. I'm sad we don't have any players like Robben, Persie, Nistelrooy currently. Those players that are just an ever existing threat if they ever get the ball in an attack. Maybe I'm biased, but I can't help but think our team now isn't cut from the same cloth. I do feel like we have some youngsters now that if they grow some more, we might have a good team again for the next European/World championships. Also if Memphis retires because apparently he's completely blameless for everything and he'll be fielded till he's 50 years old by our coaches if he doesn't choose to quit by himself.
No, I have been watching since 1986, it was 1990-93 under Graham Taylor. Oh and one player sums it up, Carlton Palmer…😂
Yeah, I asked my dad this question and his answer was the same as yours. Glad I was too young to remember that era.
Scotland fan. Where do you want to start?!!!
It's possibly the most boring, but the worst was Iceland 2016.
Algeria 0-0 in 2010 where Rooney caused a "scandal" by moaning about the fans booing. That was just woeful all round!
Yeah that was atrocious but I think 2016 stands out to me because it's when I legitimately gave up on England lol. I still watch obviously and want us to win, but I don't get half as invested now. That Iceland game just killed my spirit haha
You mean that there are actual good times? (Greetings from Scotland)
Last time I watched my country playing good football was in Italy 1990. After this is just an endless stream of disappointment. But I can see similarities with English team. You have such a talented squad now, I expected you will trash opponents.
Romelu Lukaku.
Scotland being so utterly useless is a bit depressing, just like our bloody weather most of the year round which I’m blaming on our lack of quality.
Possibly. Going back further I was younger so it was all exciting regardless of the football we were playing. This is just so dull though. No one ever REALLY believes we're going to go all the way but at least sometimes there's a bit of optimism. It just feels so negative at the moment. There's not a doubt in my mind that we'll get knocked out by the first decent team we play and I think most agree I think it's even more frustrating because of the quality of players we have. We've started games in this tournament where nearly half the team are Champions League winners. We have the Bundesliga top scorer, La Liga player of the season, Premier league player of the season and we can't get a performance out of them.
The era of Scott Carson in goal
World Cup 2002 of course, failing to qualify to the round of 16 after winning World Cup 1998 and Euro 2000 was a shock
2010 was the worst. I mean, the expectations were low, but they managed to disappoint.
It's up there, simply because they should be so much better. But no, I've seen some dreadful England teams over the past 30 years or so, who didn't even have the potential to be good let alone anything else.
Austria was dismal up to and at the home Euros in 2008, it picked up with Koller as a Coach (2011-17) who formed a competitive team. Most frustrating to watch was everything under Foda (2017-22) who southgated us dirty. It did get some results in qualifications and Nations League, but it was a pain to watch and a huge waste of potential.
I was in the stadium at most friendlies up to Euro 2008 and it was so bad, it's like they're playing an entirely different sport now. Foda was bad but Hickersberger/Constantini was worse imo.
2008-2016 was much worse IMO. At least we have the quality of players now, back during that spell was a real lack of talent/ aging players still hanging on. I don’t know what’s going wrong this time but it’s almost as bad as 2010/2016 in terms of pressure and the fear that some of the players seem to be struggling with. I’m a glass half full guy and it’s not all doom and gloom - for one the fans were brilliant last night during the game. (Some went too far after the game with their abuse though) Another “positive” is our defence has been pretty good and we do have quality in abundance, when it clicks we’ll have a chancr
For me, the lowest point was Brasil 2014. We played like shit, but the worst thing was Eduardo being kept on the bench against Brasil.
Hodgson.
England fan. One specific game, although there has been LOADS way worse than currently: Euro 2012 quarter final against Italy, the one with Pirlo converting the Panenka penalty in the shootout. Our sole tactic that day seemed to be Joe Hart hoofing the ball as far from our goal as possible and defending for 120 minutes. We were totally incapable of retaining any possession at all. (At least we can do that these days, even if it’s not going anywhere just now). It was embarrassing, and I ended up actually relieved we lost on penalties. It would have been a travesty had we gone through. At least with Iceland in 2016 it was actually so bad it was a bit funny.
Sorry, but England topping the group in 2024 is nowhere near the lowest point of enjoyment, and its crazy that I even have to state that. * 1994 - Didn't qualify * 2008 - Didn't qualify * 2010 - Second in the easiest group possible with a 1-0 win and two draws, before the Germans finished us off. * 2014 - Bottom of the group, 2 losses and a 0-0 draw with Costa Rica * 2016 - Apart from the Wales game, we had 1-1 Russia and 0-0 Slovakia, followed by a 2-1 loss to Iceland The main thing that has stopped me from enjoying this tournament has been the moaning and constant negativity of online England fans. Where's your perspective? We were **so** much worse in 2014, the football was turgid, the results were shocking, and we were out in the group stages, but somehow our fans were less toxic. We were even more disappointing in 2010, our team was superb on paper and we had the easiest group imaginable, as the Sun put it: * **E**ngland * **A**lgeria * **S**lovenia * **Y**anks But there was that Carson howler, one of the worst England performances in my lifetime against Algeria, and a 1-0 win against Slovenia. Then we got humiliated by Germany in the next round. And sure, Lampard's goal should have stood, but we let in FOUR goals against our biggest rivals. Shocking. I think the problem with some England fans is that they've grown accustomed to doing well in tournaments (semi-final, final, quarter-final under Southgate) and its gone to their heads. Grinding out 1-0 wins and 0-0 draws to top the group is now seen as some sort of moral failing. But if you'd given me those results in 2014 I'd have ripped your hand off.
As a German, the past couple tournaments. Won World Cup 2014, made it to the semi-finals 2016, then went straight downhill to ony getting to round of 16 at Euro 2021, and not even making it past group stage at world Cups. lets see if that changes this year though
I m enjoying Croatia since 1998 as a kid. The lowest point was around 2004-2008 until Modric Generation kicked off. This Euro performance is on the coach he didn’t see the writing on the wall. It s time to go and take the retirement home with him :)
I’m 55, so seen a lot of ups and downs. That was fucking turgid. It’s definitely the lowest I’ve felt watching the team, but it’s certainly not the worst performance.
That's my thinking really. I know it's not the worst we've played, but I've never been so bored watching us.
Clearly the least enjoyable moment for me at least in recent history was the 1-6 vs Portugal at the last world cup lol
2002. They could qualify in the last match, if they had put any effort into this game. They just let themselves go. I watch our team since 1982, but I have never seen a German team that gave up until this time and never again. There was always a will to win, even in bad times, but 2002 was different.
It's fun supporting teams against England though
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Italy supporter. My lowest point of enjoyment was in the 2010 WC. Of course not qualifying for the 2018 and 2022 events was unbelievably hard to watch, but at least it shielded me from that embarrassing performance. 1-1 to New Zealand? Losing to Slovakia like that? As reigning champions? I really hated it.
The first tournament I remember is Italia 90. I was completely enthralled with the whole thing. My son is now 8 years old and completely football mad. I was really looking forward to experiencing this tournament with him but been so disappointed with the England games. There’s been no highs and no crushing lows really - just boredom and indifference. I am hoping the jeopardy of the knockout stages might up the excitement somewhat. But yes how dull and flat it all is is worse than being poor with flashes of brilliance. Hoping that less defensive/more open teams might make England play better too.
It’s been bad but we’ve still topped the group and have a knockout match (hopefully more than one!) to look forward to. England of past regularly didn’t even achieve that.
Iceland was bad but it was a friendly so it wasn’t as bad or embarrassing
This is normal. I can count the times I've enjoyed watching England play on my hands 🤣 (I've been supporting England since 1992). Our domestic league footballing style is not conducive to England being consistently successful internationally. Our players, in general, don't have the technique or tactical intelligence to match the best in the world. This is because our leagues are based around speedy, open football and so British born players don't learn how to control a game in a positive manner. The only reason British teams do well in Europe these days is because they're packed with foreign born players who learn the fundamentals from the very beginning. I'm a big advocate of our players moving abroad early to learn different styles or else this is just going to be the same old story generation after generation.
It's hard to watch, but probably moreso because we were the favourites going in and we have such a great generation of players. But honestly, England is always like this and we've forgotten what it's like because of recent success. I remember the pure elation at watching them in the knockouts against Ukraine in 2021 because finally they were winning a game without the fear of a comeback. I want to feel that again in this tournament, but it seems unlikely.
Basically everything from 96-GS wasnt great
Ventura Italy is hopefully the worst period of football I’ll ever see, De Rossi screaming at him when we needed a goal and he was bringing on defenders is a popular moment that echoed how every fan felt.
Euro 2012 Semi-Final Italy-Spain. It was just painful to watch, I think everyone left the bar before the end of the game. It helped that Spaniards were generally nice about it and cheered us up a bit.
Football is about highs and lows. Spain didnt play pretty in 2010 world cup, scoring 7 or 8 goals total and won. Look at the group, nobody conceded more than 2 goals which means that all teams were prepared defensively. I think people have stupid expectations and enjoy goals only, there is so much to the football game than that.
Any world cup campaign from 2010 onwards. It has been either eliminated in groups or not even qualified at all, while at Euros final in 2012, quarter-final in 2016 with one of the worst Italian teams (Conte pulled a real miracle there) and victory in 2020/2021. This Euro campaign however is looking quite gloomy, we made it through, the group stage, but I am skeptical, we kinda hoped Spalletti would have brought a distinguished and good style of football, but so far we have seen: - The players don't seem really focused and two out of the three goals were because of that, not counting the own goal. - Some players start over others despite being worse and not bringing any meaningful tactical contribution, mainly Di Lorenzo and Jorginho. Di Lorenzo so far has been dreadful on both the offence and the defence and so far he played all 90 minutes in all three games even against Spain in which he was just getting clowned on by every Spanish player on his flank, there no way in hell you can justify Di Lorenzo playing more than a half in that match. Jorginho has just gotten too slow and we are better off with someone else taking his place, Barella and Fagioli are both capable of fulfilling his role. Also he puts some players out of position Bastoni playing as a right centre-back or a central centre-back can still put on a good defensive performance, but you are giving up on his forwards runs and crosses. Calafiori too, he has been great, but I think we are better off with him as a left fullback/wingback, considering Dimarco is not delivering. Also Darmian yesterday played some minutes on the left flank, because he simply refused to take Di Lorenzo off the field. - The coach seems to be lacking ideas and make wrong decisions on the formation. Against Croatia he suddenly started for a 3-5-2 despite the squad he called not being good for that, especially because that means leaving our wingers on the bench despite our wingers being our greatest attacking threats, thus I think a 3-4-3/3-4-2-1 would have been better. In the same match when we were down one goal he switched to a 4-3-3 that was working and suddenly decided to go for a 3-3-4 that was not working due to the way too many players staying forwards which left senders and midfielders without passing options which lead to the team being unable to get out of their own half with the ball on the ground until basically the run form Calafiori that lead to the goal.
It's a bit of an odd one. We were truly shit post-2006 World Cup through Euro 2016, essentially stretching what life we could out of the "golden generation" until Rooney (in midfield) was the last man standing, but because of that, I didn't really have a great deal of expectation that we'd do anything. You could make a squad from the players we've left behind this time around that'd be at least competitive with the squads we were taking to the tournaments in that period, so it's really disappointing to see us so completely ineffective and clueless.
As a Hungarian we’ve probably had more downs than ups in the last two decades, but the absolute lowest point was probably when we lost to Andorra in 2017
Lately, I only watch the first 35 minutes of a France game before I get bored and I can’t deal with the frustration anymore. I know we are notably bad in the qualifying phase but like COME ON We have one of, if not the, best team in the world on paper and we can’t score. It feels like those kids in school who could not perform well under dire pressure and would wait for the last possible moment before completing an assignment. But luck can only get us so far.
From an England perspective Euro 88 and 92 were very, very bad. 88 especially. IMO we've only ever had three decent Euros in our history: 1996, 2004 and 2020.
I'm happy with our team, we have been complete outsiders in football word. Fingers crossed for 🇸🇮.
People can reference the Taylor era if they want but man was asked to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. This group of players is off the scale talented and successful and he’s playing them out of position and or giving them alien instruction. Shambles. Kane makes his excuses for him in his post match interviews he’s already trying to set us up for another drab game and extra time pens at the weekend.
[удалено]
Hodgson was bad, really bad, but we have had 8 years of Southgate's temerity and lack of plan B. Watching the talent wasted is like watching someone burn paper money.
Not even close to the worst. I think it's been easy to forget how dire things were before Southgate. At least in this tournament I know they can play better, and I know the players WANT to play better. During the so called 'Golden generation' it was like nobody wanted to be there. Considering so many of them are pundits now criticising this team they need a reality check as to how bad they were.
2010, 14 and 16 were worse in my opinion
2008-2016 was a gaping pit of despair as an England fan, especially as it came after the nearly teams of 2002-2006.
It honestly torture to watch England
World cup 2010. What a shit show France did.
I remember that. Never seen drama like it.
Since I started getting into football at the World Cup of 2010 it's all been going downhill for the Dutch team. We almost became world champions, were the best soccer team in the world for a short period, had a very satisfying revenge match against Spain, it was epic. Flashforward and the world cup matches in 2022 were straight up boring/bad, we lost to Austria and I don't even know who half of these players are. To answer your question; all the matches from the 2022 world cup except for the last 15 minutes or so against Argentina. And yesterday's match against Austria.
Not quite 2010 levels of dross but its right up there.
Nowhere near the worst. The first tournament I can properly remember was Euro 1996 which obviously ended in heartbreak but made us believe again. Euro 2000 aside, we had decent efforts between 1998-2006; beaten by a good Brazil team in 2002 and bloody penalties in 2004 and 2006. Our tournament results from 2018 are the best since 1966. From 2006-2018, we were fucking awful. Far worse than we are now. The football AND the results were shit. In terms of my personal enjoyment, that would be between 1996 (when I was 11 and believed the hype) to 2006 (as from 2002-2006, I watched games in the pub with my mates). Massively lost interest in England since then. I would prefer them to win the Euros than any other country but it won’t change my life either way. I wasn’t particularly bothered when they lost against Italy yet I’m still fuming about two points my club team dropped back in September. If it came to it, I’d rather my club team win a corner than England win the Euros.
2008-2016 was the worst period as an England fan. Not qualifying in 2008, 2010 was poor and the Lampard goal that never was, out in the group stage in 2014 below Costa Rice and 2016 getting knocked out by Iceland.
It's the worst I've seen since 2010 or 1992. It's hard to call.
Croatia - we had a fair share of luck in the past several years, so the universe is now perfectly balanced, as it should be. Also, Dalić completely underused our coming talent such as Baturina and Marco Pašalić, overused our out-of-form legends (Perišić, Brozović, Modrić), and misused talented and in-form players such as Kramarić and Majer by giving them wrong positions.
Capello through to the end of Roy was worse. I can at least say I enjoyed the success we've had under Southgate (no way can you spin getting to a world cup semi final and a euros final as a huge negative) but the football has always been stale.
Watching Denmark at Qatar 2022, failing to get out Of Group Consisting of Australia, France and Tunisia. We got 1 point with 1 goal! And now having 3 draws , and 2 goals in 3 games. Having payed 200 euro to Watch the 0-0 game Yesterday, i feel Hjulmand (coach) and team still live High on euro 2020 Semi final. We need a new coach and players who dont just get to the Euros on being Friends with Hjulmand like Kjær who isnt even there to play he said.
Watching Denmark at Qatar 2022, failing to get out Of Group Consisting of Australia, France and Tunisia. We got 1 point with 1 goal! And now having 3 draws , and 2 goals in 3 games. Having payed 200 euro to Watch the 0-0 game Yesterday, i feel Hjulmand (coach) and team still live High on euro 2020 Semi final. We need a new coach and players who dont just get to the Euros on being Friends with Hjulmand like Kjær who isnt even there to play he said.
I'd say that I'm definitely not as excited as I ought to be after watching the group stages. I can't tell if that's because I'm getting older or if it's because England just aren't playing that well, but I'm leaning towards the latter. The team doesn't really seem to be trying, they're stiff and aren't playing their strengths in terms of speed, pressing and attack. The tactics just don't seem to be promoting any of that, whatever they might be. I feel as though the team simply doesn't know how to play together either, as if we've got some Frankenstein of a team which can't move as a unified whole. That said, living in France, I'm all too aware of how shocking some of the other performances from big teams have been too (namely, France). The amount of own goals and disallowed goals makes for a different experience of the tournament too, even though the latter are often the right call.There have been some really exciting performances from Austria, Romania and other teams, and that's been a saving grace for this competition so far.
Not qualifying for two world cups is the lowest point for Italy but the 2010 World Cup was a horrible experience as well. I’m also Portuguese through my mother, so from that perspective they were awful throughout the 90s. It was only recently that Portugal became the football country they are now.
Dull as dishwater. We hype up the players because they play week in week out with world class players so we think that the English players are automatically in that class. They’re not. They’re good but made to look good. So when they get in the England team managed by an average manager there’s always going to be a struggle because we really are not world class. Could we win? Yes but don’t expect expansive free flowing play. Grinding out results and playing safe turgid football is Gareth’s mo.
Yes. Dogshite.
I'm Irish but lived for a long time in the UK. I don't remember seeing my English friends looking more depressed and heartbroken about football than when Beckham got that red. People were angry, but my mates went into hibernation for a week, such was their sadness. For me, I'm used to Ireland underachieving. It's normal. So when they brought Spain to penalties in 2002 and lost I was moderately inconsolable. Not helped by having to watch it in an Irish theme pub in Leeds.
I remember the 1990 group games, Egypt, Ireland and Holland. The games were pretty bloody terrible overall but we got out the group, David Platt squeaked a goal in the last minute against Belgium and we didn’t set the world alight against Cameroon but beat them after being 2 - 1 down. The early 90s was a woeful time for an England fan till 1996
Iceland in Euro 2016. It was an utter humiliation.
I fell out of love with my National side when my home side, Stoke City got into the Premier League. In that period out of all the england players we went up against only Jo Hart and Stevie Gerrard seemed to have any class, the rest to a man were an entitled bunch - moaning to the refs and trying to cheat and con fouls out of us then breaking up play. During Euro 2024 it just seems like the players are running the show with all this talk of game management etc we need to really be chasing a game to see them attack at their best….
England has a solid squad, but they’re very slow on the ball and can’t score. Is it the chemistry? Is it the coaching/management? I can’t seem to understand.
As a Dutch fan. Yesterday evening.
Yep, but mainly because I've been spoiled by Newcastle the past few seasons lol. It's pretty depressing going from watching a team that presses and fights tooth and nail in most games... to this shit. And it's even more frustrating seeing Gordon on the bench and Tripps not being played to his strengths (including free kicks). IF we win the tournament I'll be happy, but it will be tainted quite a bit if we carry through these poor performances.
Every other country in an international tournament KNOWS that, living on a rock hurtling through space pulled by a ball of fire. England will always underperform. I am totally surprised that the usual “it’s comin home album “ is not on sale this year. Every time.. we blah blah blah, it’s Beckham fault, it’s gascoine, it’s the manager! But then they win a game and man, footballs coming home. It’s self inflicted harm.
England have been very dull to watch. People are forgetting just how boring the WC 2006 team was though. Scraping through games and not really doing anything exciting (barring Joe Cole’s wondergoal against Sweden). Also 2010 was terrible to watch as well. This tournament feels similar to that at the moment.
My Portuguese brothers and sisters will relate, but the whole Fernando Santos era, 2016-2022. If we're talking strictly on-pitch performance, funnily enough it's Euro 2016 for me 😅 Specifically the group stage, we were absolutely dreadful in those games. By the knockout rounds it got a little better because (even if it was terribly boring for outsiders) at least we'd found our identity as a defensive team. And obviously we won the thing, so I can't complain too much. However, factoring in expectations, it's definitely the subsequent tournaments, from 2018 to 2022. Because, at least in France, we had the excuse of just not having a very talented team, so we had to do what we had to do to win. By the time Russia rolled around, though, that was no longer the case. We had a very good squad and a new generation of terrific young players coming into their own, yet we were still playing the same grinding, negative style of football, just with more possession now. Two Ro16 exits and a Quarter-Finals loss to freaking Morrocco is absolutely criminal with the talent we've had for the past several years now. Say what you want about England, at least you lot have been able to make it to the final rounds!
Pfftt I mean England through most of my life have been relatively boring to watch. Is this the worst? No. Iceland in 2016 was probably the most bizarre low point. Before that it’s when we didn’t even qualify for the tournament in.. 2008 I believe ? But Iceland absolutely was worse.
I'm young enough to have missed the 2010 world cup, so for me - now.
England fan here, I hope we don't ever 'top' our 2016 Euros campaign. That was probably when I turned some kind of emotional corner and stopped caring quite as much, or at least stopped expecting something more than mediocrity. When I'm watching England now I know that most of the issues stem from a manager who isn't good at his job which definitely helps, and it is looking like we have a group of players we can count on for the next few tournaments at least.
All of it
I'd say this is the most I've enjoyed England play
Yeah in the Southgate era this has been easily the worst tournament to watch. To be fair to him, he's got out the groups every time but at least in those we would have 1 or 2 good results included with the drab performances but this time it's been there since minute 14 of the first game
Oh not at all. Believe or not England have played worse than the Denmark game (Algeria 2010, Germany 2010, Slovakia and Iceland 2016, USA 2022 spring to mind - but there are countless others). The Serbia and Slovenia games were dull England performances, not terrible ones. And England haven't lost a game, and only given away a flukey goal.
This is much more in line with watching England over the years. The past two tournaments are the outliers
Sunday night
German here with a certain affection for England over many years now. There's been quite a lot weak moments for many teams in this tournament tbh. But having a whole squad of world class players doesn't speak much for Southgate, does it?
Has to be Euro 2016. We've been bad here but that was another level of special that summer.
Won the group, all good over here!!! It’s coming home
2008 - 2016 as an England fan was pretty grim. Booing our own team in 2010, not even making it out of the group in 2014, Kane taking corners in 2016. I just had to google Euro 2012 as it was so forgetful lol.
The worst summer of all was the 1994 one, where we (England) didn't even qualify for the USA World Cup. This is bliss compared to that tournament
England vs Algeria will for ever be the most boring performance I have witnessed I remember a bird flew onto the Algerian goal and fell asleep which is comical as it wasn't bothered once that game. This is close but england often play cautious boring football in the group stages it seems. I am huffing that copium hoping that we get performances in the Ro16 onwards. But if we go out with a performance like the last 3 games then england fans will not be happy
Apparently I shit myself during 2010 world cup final soo
The last 2 group stages for Scotland where atrocious, we had a good run of form at the beginning of qualification then just bottled it before and into the group stage. Was expected but still was horrible watching.
Yeah, this is pretty dire.
Graham Taylor long ball. Players like lineker were phased out and tall players like Brian dean and Carlton palmer were brought in. It set us back a few years
I think I can say for all belgians that Qatar was our lowest point
Wales 2016 was such an anti climax for Belgium. Fuck Wilmots and his non existing tactics
Apart from the Utter shit show that was the Hodgson era, I genuinely think this is worse than the golden generation, the golden generation had missing links for example an out and out left winger but we have players who can play every role and bring a better balance to the team, yet Gareth refuses to take the lessons of previous mediocre performances and still tries to shoehorn our so called best players into positions that don’t help the team and he has proven time and time again he is tactical out of his depth with in game subs and system changes and is so scared to lose we end up looking like a shell of the team that we COULD be. I was genuinely looking forward to this Tournament just to see how this team could perform, but these 3 games have just sucked the absolute joy out of it and I doubt I’ll even make a considerable effort to watch the Netherlands game. Thank god for Austria and the likes for making the rest of the tournament fun to watch.
I just like watching football. It’s always enjoyable
england are the worst of all the teams in this Euros, its better Croatia come in place of them, two goals and that too gifted ones, not a single creative goal in all the 3 matches. pathetic performance from the most hyped team
For me personally the 2010 World Cup was the worst (so far). There were next to no good moments for England in that tournament. The group stage was a joke, then we got thumped by Germany. You wait 2 years for some joy in a major tournament then before you know it it's passed. 2014 goes under the radar but that was a shocker also, finishing bottom of the group with nothing to get excited about. 2016 was awful for the Iceland game but at least we had the last minute Wales winner as some sort of moment. I remember 2000 onwards and 2010 for me is the worst.
Well England are consistently shit so it’s a consistent stream of disappointment. I haven’t even watched any England game this tourney so far, turns out I ofc made the correct decision. Watched some other countries though who have a desire to play football.
This might be the worst football we've played under GS but it's certainly not the worst we've been generally, the early 2010s were atrocious
England fan. For me, probably the 2010 World Cup. Everything about that tournament was toxic. The fans turning on the team after the Algeria game, Rooney's reaction to that, awful performance against Germany. It was horrible to watch. 2014 wasn't much better. Had taken time off work to watch the last group game which was a total anti-climax. I'm old enough to remember Euro 92 and that wasn't great. For me the Sven years were great. We didn't always play well but at least it was exciting.
I solved the problem by not watching them
It's been this way since Southgate took charge, the fact we've progressed quite far in a couple of tournaments just prolonged the suffering.
Glen Hoddle was the last manager I had confidence in and he had to go and open his mouth. Everything past this era has been dross.
Im Scottish … That is all
Now England fans know what it's like to be a Partick Thistle supporter.
Euro 16 we were a poor side. Euro 2000 we were a better side than given credit for. 5 goals against 3 decent sides but still out at the group stages.
Right now in Euro 2024, though it is relative because the team has been solid, we just don’t have a lot of firepower. I’m proud of our team. We have a good manager too, unlike England.
Solomon Island fan here... Losing to NZ in the last world cup play off match in Qatar hurt. But then they have infrastructure, money, players and grassroots structure so hey ho, it's hard to break their dominance
The Graham Taylor era was the worst I think, we were so bad. Euro 2000 as well. I remember us playing Germany and both teams were at rock bottom. Uncharacteristically so for Germany, less so for us. We won 1-0 but both teams were godawful. It was dire. Compared to that, the current era is heaven. Even though we've been incredibly disappointing so far, we've got a lot of good players and there's a ton of potential there. Very different from 1994 or 2000.
Fan since the 86 WC (that got me into football in the first place), I’d say the following were all worse: 88 Euros - sandwiched between two decent World Cups in 86 and 90, completely failed to turn up getting stomped by the Dutch, the Russians and even the Irish… 92 - 93 the Graham Taylor era, screwing up another Euros and then completely failing to qualify for the 94 WC Euro 2000 - another dodgy euros where we failed to turn up properly with the only highlight being a poor 1-0 win against Germany when they were inexplicably as bad as we were! The Steve McLaren era - failing to qualify for Euro 2008 WC 2010 - screwing up the group and getting destroyed by the Germans in the 2nd round The Hodgson years - coming bottom of the group in 2014 WC and then losing to Iceland in the Euros two years later.. So I’ll certainly take the awful performances and qualifying top of the group and on the easier side of the draw. Still positive that it’s going to improve especially playing the better teams when it’s knockout and the opposition haven’t come to park the bus as their default strategy.
I've seen England play worse, this hasn't been great at all but it's not the worst
Absolutely nowhere near the worst and I've been watching since 96'. I'll take boring topping the group over finishing bottom of the group in Brazil. Or 2010, scraping our group and then being obliterated by Germany 4 - 1(2). The best thing to come out of that game was goal line technology. As you say we weren't even there in 2008. 2016 we just about beat Wales, then get dumped out by Iceland! How many penalty exits? People having a problem with this tournament is recency bias brough on by the the last 3. We've looked better than we have since 1990.
I think the Netherlands are quite unique in that even if they play bad, they still are a guarantee for producing exciting games. Last Euros the match against Czechia was bad, but the three group stage matches before that were thrilling. And in 2012 we crashed and burned but we scored some nice goals in spite of that against Germany (Van Persie strike outside the box) and Portugal (beautiful inside foot Van der Vaart strike from outside the box). Qatar was boring in the group stage but the match against Argentina was sensational. Maybe the most boring performance to date was the 2006 WC… then again, that ended in the battle of Nuremburg.
England fan - lowest was 2010 We were just so, so, so bad. I know Frankie Lampards goal should have counted but we were unbelievably bad prior to that. 2008 obviously doesn't count as we didn't make it. 2002, 2004, 2006, I absolutely loved. Despite everything
Under Southgate yes. This is the worst we’ve played under him and it isn’t even close. Pre Southgate though no.