Is football coming home to England? Don't bet against it

My initial reaction was that it was pretty dumb of the defender to do what he did. Pretty clear penalty. Just when looking over the replay more times it seriously looked like Kane actually had hold of the defenders arm at the start of the movement and was pulling on him. The fact that the defender started out just about hugging him which gave him the chance to do that is entirely on the defender. What's wrong with observing that. I wasn't doing an overall review of the match as a whole. I'd actually be quite happy to see England do well here. But pointing out that it might be good to keep the excitement on hold a little because they haven't actually been the most impressive team at the world cup so far is a reasonable observation. I think you have got such a defensive mindset of anything English that you instantly look at anyone who's trying to critically analyse things as attacking England. But it's just not true.

Beautifully put Neil.

Lol your clearly on the bus with the Sky sport hype team. Every team has young players and most of these players play in the most competitive league in the world. They had a good team for this WC but will not win it unless they get like 2 penalties in the final and that's even if they make the final of the easiest knockout stage.

You really should stop talking mate. England have the joint second youngest squad in this years tournament behind Nigeria by an average of one month. If Sterling is over hyped it’s not by the English fans on BBC boards who have been calling for him to be dropped. His record transfer to Man City is worth about half of what Real are being reported as about to offer for Ronaldo. Kane has only three seasons in the top flight, having spent the previous seasons on loan to clubs in the Premiership and even the Championship. Keep flapping your chops if you like mate but you’re just exposing your predjudices. I’m done with you.

They'd only lost 1 penalty shootout ever before the Spain game at Euro '96 - hardly a hoodoo compared to the 5 in a row they'd lost before Tuesday.

Yeah I pay attention and have watched England football for 40 years s And Martin Tyler has lived in Australia for a long time . 3 at the back isn’t ground breaking .been around for donkeys , way before I was born . England are not heaving the long ball , but they haven’t played long ball for 15 years anyway . That’s the myth I think you are trying to untangle . As I said before, Belgian played the long ball to beat japan . And every body raves about Belgium. All the goals for England are from set pieces , nothing wrong with that . It’s effective. You can compare Southgate to guardiola all you want , but it’s chalk and cheese . I’m actually enjoying England, but I think Southgate influence is psychological not tactical.

False. Harry Kane,Sterling are 2 of the best known fowards in EPL the best competition in the world. Deli Ali is supposedly one of the best young talents in the world (completely overhyped). France have a team of youngsters as well Mbappe is 19. Age isnt a factor in making a team low profile some of the best players in the World at the moment are quite young.

Those penalties have been given of set pieces not open play. They have come where he has slightly been touched and a strong man who is 6ft4 has tumbled...Nothing like open play where someone like Mbappe has destroyed a defender then is running in on goal then dlberately taken out.

It's quite simple Chris; it's a constant theme of yours concerning anything English it seems. Lets be kind and assume you're unaware of it. Take your view of this penalty award. As they line up, Sanchez has both arms either side of Kane's waist obstructing a clear run. That is illegal and he's already been warned by the ref. The fact Kane has likewise is irrelevant unless Sanchez attempts a run - he doesn't. This is key. As the ball is delivered, Kane and Sanchez wrestle each other. It's the same push and shove that happens at that instant nine times out of ten between a defender man marking an attacker. The difference here is that Sanchez stays engaged and embellishes by putting his shoulder into Kane's midriff as he tracks him. Bad enough as continued illegal blocking but he then rounds him to end up on top of Kane as he fights to keep his feet - also important as he's not going down like a sack of proverbial at the slightest contact (as someone milking penalties might). That, my friend, is a clear penalty. To claim Kane instigated it is, as I've pointed out, typical of you. Further, I can say with almost one hundred percent certainty, if English players had surrounded the ref for a full three and a half minutes, you would have been all over it with indignation. If during that time English players were also in the ear of the elected penalty taker, hounding him as he tried to walk away, you would have been all over it with indignation. If during that time an English player went gardening on the penalty spot as Mojica did, you would have been all over it with indignation. But no. Your focus is your belief Kane is an expert at milking penalties, rather than the blindingly obvious cheating, thuggery and gamesmanship of the Colombians throughout the match, the penalty award being a barely adequate consequence. Clear?

They're eternally optimistic in their pessimism. I admire that, and do get a good laugh out of their knighthoods and arrogant dismissal of all comers. My heritage is Irish but I usually find a personable character behind the outward pretence of champion of all things sport.

My dad was English. I followed them in WCs growing up and remember being very disappointed after the 82, 86 and 90 exits. Not now though. All that "football's coming home" nonsense, "blah blah years of hurt" and now "the hoodoo is broken" winds me up, the perception the game is theirs, they have a divine right to win it. Now they can successfully play out from the back, against teams sitting off them, you'd think we are seeing the reemergence of total football. The prospect of knighthoods if they won is enough for me to hope they crash and burn, though not on penalties - I'd hate for them to make a scapegoat out of someone, tainting them for life

Everyone thought the hoodoo was gone after beating Spain in the quarters of the euros. They lost on penalties in the semis to restart it.

For some reason I'm thinking of Catweasel :)

Whilst it's certainly prudent advice not to look past Sweden, if you're expecting the average English football fan not to get ahead of themselves then you clearly don't know the average English football fan. They started dreaming when Germany got knocked out, whilst the slightly more optimistic amongst us started believing after the 'trouncing' of Tunisia. I haven't felt like England could win a WC since 1990, however I'm enjoying this ride while it lasts. Just have to say that I was one of many who rolled my eyes when Southgate was appointed but I'm happy to admit that he's really impressed me. He picked his squad based on form, he has a clear idea of how he wants to play but also appears flexible at the same time, he's fostered a really good team spirit, he seems quite astute tactically and he seems very self aware (ie he realises that he doesn't know it all and is keen to learn) and finally he has prepared the team well. Practising penalties seems so obvious, especially given England's history at major championships, but successive England managers haven't really bothered claiming that you can't replicate the pressure of a penalty shootout. This might be true, but it's still both dumb and negligent not to even bother trying. Whilst Jonny Wilkinson would never have felt the same pressure attempting a drop girl to win a WC final, you can bet your bottom dollar that he'd practiced the scenario as much as he possibly could have...paid off in the end.

I'd disagree that Spain are a 'traditional powerhouse', up until fairly recently they were the great underachievers in world football...even more so than England. But tbf, they've rather turned that around in the last 10 years. ?

I'd agree with all of that, England have always struggled against Sweden, however if you'd offered Sweden up as QF opponents before the tournament started to any English fan, player, pundit etc they would have bitten your arm off...although Swedish fans, players, pundits etc would probably have done the same when offered England.

Ken, you know that a penalty is awarded when one team is trying to score in open play and the other commits a foul to stop this from happening, right?! The fact that Kane is such a prolific scorer is precisely why he has been fouled so often. It's absurd to blame England for the fact that they've been awarded so many penalties (they should have had more), they aren't playing for penalties it's just that other teams are very wary of Kane.

I don't think anyone is saying it's fixed. But when you look at the final 8, one half certainly looks a lot stronger than the other. But then the thing to remember is, the teams in the supposedly "weak" half, have got there by knocking out more fancied teams. Hence "looks weaker on paper" is true, but not necessarily how it will work out. This is a very hard WC to pick. I think Brazil are probably favourites at this point. But it's probably the most open WC quarter finals ever. If you said at the start of the WC that one of Russia, Croatia, England and Sweden was going to be in the final people would probably have called you crazy! But it's actually good to see other teams doing well and not just the same traditional powerhouse nations being the ones left when we reach the quarters and semi's. We often see one or two surprise teams in the quarters, not usually this many!

Croatia aren't out yet, did you mean Switzerland?!

I think it was before the England v Belgium game that Craig Foster was asked if he thought England were a serious chance of winning, and his comment was pretty much that teams like England and Belgium have to be considered very realistic chances for this tournament, even if for no other reason than so many of the traditionally really strong nations are faltering. Of the remaining 8 teams, there are only 2 teams that have won the world cup in the last 50 years. Uruguay and England have both won it, but neither have come close for a long, long time. France and Brazil are the only teams left who've really been contenders in any recent world cups. As such, this has to be considered probably the most open final 8 teams in the world cup probably ever!