England 1-2 France

Your thoughts please

I don't personally believe it

Too many expletives to post on here... wouldn't want to get banned.

*walks away mumbling something about shooting the f****** England squad*

I was convinced it would be France 3 england 1.

Just cos they got VAVAVOOM

I`d believe it, Beckhams penalty was saved and they led up to 90 minutes and then lost it. No surprise to me glad i watched the other side.

I knew that Beckham would miss, he should have let someone else take it the greedy git

I wondered whether Beckham's 'style' would be known to Barthes.

The general feeling here at The Towers was that Heskey gave away the first one and then the knock in confidence allowed the second one.

Perhaps the question should be 'Heskey: Why??'

There was a US Civil War General who was famed for 'seizing defeat from the jaws of victory'. Well, England were like that tonight.

It's just so depressing.

Have just put the kids to bed who are still muttering and singing rude songs about Zidane and Henry!

Shame they have a french lesson first thing in the morning!

As Beckham said - they had a great 89 minutes!

:(

Can't say i'm really that suprised, great in the first half but in the second half they were just letting france run the game. The only suprising thing was that it took the french so long to score.

gutted, what a nightmare,:(

With regard to the 'we had a good 89 minutes' comment, it needs to go down in history with those other great observations of current events :

"It was OK until the sceond bullet hit" - Mrs Kennedy, 1963.

"All we need to do is throw the Russians, the Americans and the British out of Germany and we can win this war!" - Adolf Hitler, March 1945.

I still can't believe what happened. Beckham isn't a natural penalty taker anyway IMO, Heskey shouldn't even be in the squad, let alone on the pitch to throw his big donkey self around the edge of the penalty area, and as for Gerrard..... WTF was that?! We threw it away needlessly.

It's certainly shut a lot of gobby 'pseudo- patriots' up.

Now maybe England will admit it. "We're c*** at football (soccer), and we always will be."

Are we? Howcome we lead the supposed best team in the world for 89 mins then? Make no mistake, France didn't win that game - WE LOST it. (Well, Heskey and Gerrard did....).

Originally posted by markham
It's certainly shut a lot of gobby 'pseudo- patriots' up.

Now maybe England will admit it. "We're c*** at football (soccer), and we always will be."

England & Football, what a pleasant thought that must be to other countries, all that lovely violence.

Originally posted by bonny
England & Football, what a pleasant thought that must be to other countries, all that lovely violence.

Yes there is a minority of English fans that are yobs, "but at the end of the day" it is a "beautiful game" and I for one won't be putting down our team on the basis that we have a few louts who have shown us up in the past.

I think tonight proves that France are nowhere near as good as they think they are, and we're not as bad as we think we are (although we're still sh*t). Can't believe it. France didn't deserve to win; we didn't deserve to lose. Bet a few Bayern Munich fans drank a toast to Zidane tonight.

gutted gutted gutted

be cynical about our second half performance BUT it was france that had to take the game to us and they never looked like scoring - if france were 1-0 up it would have been a different story second half, we'd have taken the game to them and our naturally gifted players would have certainly put them under pressure

well played england - unlucky

gutted gutted gutted

Originally posted by t020
Are we? Howcome we lead the supposed best team in the world for 89 mins then? Make no mistake, France didn't win that game - WE LOST it. (Well, Heskey and Gerrard did....).

Because England got a set-piece opportunity before France got one.

England led for 51 minutes, not 89!!

At no point did England outplay France.

And you forgot to mention that Beckham helped in the outcome by missing a penalty. Or is he beyond reproach as usual?:loopy: :loopy:

I mentioned Beckhams miss in an earlier post, but to be fair it wasn't a bad penalty, more a good save, and that happens now and again. Heskey and Gerrard on the other hand made blatant cock ups, but I do feel that we have proved that we are able enough to compete with the very best and stand a very good chance of getting to the final of this tournament.

PS. Theres no WAY this is Sheffield specific sport, so could the mods kindly move it BACK to General Chit Chat where it belongs?

No! We generally try to keep all sports related threads together in one forum. If you care to check the sports forum you will find that there are numerous sporting threads not dedicated to Sheffield already in there.

Then the question begs, why name the forum "Sheffield Sport & Activities" within the Sheffield sub-section of the forum?

Does it really matter ?

:loopy: took Wayne Rooney off brought Heskey on answers on a postcard too :D come on we have 2 games left we play like that again we will get into the knock out stage and we will meet France in the final and win.

Originally posted by beckb
Does it really matter ?

Yes - no one checks this forum so this thread will quickly die out. Also, someone will no doubt create a new thread in the General Chat forum, meaning mods will have to merge it with this and again it will die out. If this was in the General forum people would just reply to it and it would be a much more lively thread as well.

Originally posted by t020
Then the question begs, why name the forum "Sheffield Sport & Activities" within the Sheffield sub-section of the forum?

That is another issue.

Originally posted by Jon
:loopy: took Wayne Rooney off brought Heskey on answers on a postcard too :D come on we have 2 games left we play like that again we will get into the knock out stage and we will meet France in the final and win.

I agree Jon, I was extremely confused by that decision. Rooney was the biggest threat out there. France simply not cope with his strength and energy.

Originally posted by t020
Then the question begs, why name the forum "Sheffield Sport & Activities" within the Sheffield sub-section of the forum?
What does the question beg? and from whom?

Originally posted by t020
Yes - no one checks this forum so this thread will quickly die out. Also, someone will no doubt create a new thread in the General Chat forum, meaning mods will have to merge it with this and again it will die out. If this was in the General forum people would just reply to it and it would be a much more lively thread as well.
*Yawwnnn* If you had your own t020 Forum you could put things in whichever of the 437 required sections you liked. Mind you, what would you do with all the complaints that you would make??

At the end of the day... this sort of stuff happens in footy. Neither team was massively better than the other.

Originally posted by t020
Yes - no one checks this forum so this thread will quickly die out. Also, someone will no doubt create a new thread in the General Chat forum, meaning mods will have to merge it with this and again it will die out. If this was in the General forum people would just reply to it and it would be a much more lively thread as well.

yea, a shame this isn't in the genral chat thread

oh well.

Must agree with T020 here guys sorry.
It's definately a General Chit Chat thread rather than a 'Sheffield Sport' thread TBH.

That's my 2p worth! :P

...and back to the original topic...

four things - beckhams penalty miss....heskey tackling like a baffoon outside his own area, gerrard's kenny sansom-like (circa World Cup '86) hoof into the air towards his own keeper...not forgetting calamity James bull-in-a-china-shop challenge on terry henry...

it's a good job that Switzerland & Croatia are absolutely useless or else we'd really be up the creek...

Just glad it didn't really kick off in Portugal with our fans - apparently there were more arrests in Birmingham than Lisbon last night!!

We were robbed of a great victory!! :mad:

The France game is history now. It is time for the fans to stand up (not just the part time glory hunters) and support our country even more. It doesn't take much for people to turn against the team and start slating players. Fair enough Becks missed the penalty but he stood up and took the responsibility just like Gerrard did when he made the bad backpass and just like Heskey did trying to tackle back for the team...a lot more than people sat in their armchair with a can of beer can do. I saw a lot of things about an England team that I haven't seen in a long time and we scared the sh*te out of them for long periods of the game.
Well done boys and bring on the Swiss

I wonder how many car flags got ripped off in disgust last night? As wibbles said it's history now, we must move on and concentrate on the next two games. I would be more dissapointed on losing to the Swiss like that than France, it did take two mistakes for France to score the rest of the time they were reduced to long range shots. But a Sheffield United like performance from France there, be down until the 89th minute then score twice! :D

Well the Swiss have the towering pacey defender Stephane Henchoz at the back...gulp. How will England ever score????

True as we don't have the old fashioned target man to draw away the defence.

Personally I was impressed with England. To say France are supposed to be the best team in the world, they didn't look it. Had it not been for those cock ups in the last few minutes we would have beaten them. If we can do that who knows what we can do?

Rooney is fab but also needs to chill out a bit. It drives me mad thinking he's going to get booked all the time, It's nerve racking!:D

I think Beckham's penalty was just unlucky, as someone said earlier it wasn't a bad shot, more of a fantastic save.

The players I think deserve praise after last night are Rooney, Lampard, King and Campbell.

Zidane is just completely amazing. He deserves a lot of respect and admiration. His first goal was brilliant. If we were going to lose at least we lost to "the best team in the world".

Bring on Croatia and Switzerland. I so want us to meet France in the final! Now that will be a game and a half. :thumbsup:

A good point from Steelblade, Wayne Rooney as well as he did looks more likely to get booked even sent off then score. It's been said loads of time and i'll say it again....We need Alan Shearer for a level head upfront to partner Owen

we don't need alan shearer - he's history
rooney is hot headed but that's because he's fearless and passionate - good lad :thumbsup: but i share your concern that he could easily go over the edge

i think we can take a lot from the game - we looked inpenetrable and that's against zidane henry pires
we were forced into being defensive by going 1-0 up. We however, have the players to force goals if we went behind knowing that our defense seems solid - we don't therefore necessarily have to chase the game by getting the wing backs forward all the time

wonder if Terry will replace King against switzerland?

Originally posted by markham
It's certainly shut a lot of gobby 'pseudo- patriots' up.

Now maybe England will admit it. "We're c*** at football (soccer), and we always will be."

What are you talking about????

Do you know anything about football????

England controlled the game throughout. France never looked like scoring even with all that possession they had.

Until "carthorse" Heskey did his thing, that is.

Anyone who knows anything about football knows we were by far the better and most threatening team.

After King's game last night I think it would be a shame to replace him with Terry.

To say how inexperienced he is in playing for England, and how young he is, I thought he showed great maturity and calmness. He didn't seem at all intimidated by the other side. I think Sven should play him in the next game. I think he's earned his place and if Sven wants to play Terry then at least let King have half the game.

Originally posted by duffman
A good point from Steelblade, Wayne Rooney as well as he did looks more likely to get booked even sent off then score. It's been said loads of time and i'll say it again....We need Alan Shearer for a level head upfront to partner Owen

Quite right and IMO anyone who says Alan Shearer wouldn't benefit us doesn't know English football. Shearer, to this very day, is the best English striker in the game. He can do it all, 35 yard volleys, 6 yard box scrambling, he upsets and niggles defenders, and is one of the greatest England strikers in history. This view was also shared on that all-time England VI show on TV a few days ago! Anyway, it's gone now, onwards and upwards. C'mon England, we can do it.

Originally posted by Jonesy
Anyway, it's gone now, onwards and upwards. C'mon England, we can do it.

yea that's what i was hinting at but like you say we have to forget about him

onwards and upwards!
and how many england fans were there!!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Sorry Andyman, and here's me thinking that the idea of football was to score more goals than the opposition, and thereby win the game.

If it hadn't been for a foul, England wouldn't have got their goal either.

Oh, and by the way, 'threatening' ain't winning.

Just wondering what the reaction would be if France had led until 89th minute and England had pulled two back!!!:loopy: :loopy:

Markham I hav to say you are clearly not a football fan in any way shape or form so I wouldn't start being like that with people who are. The comment about 'threatening', yes i think most people realise that this doesn't mean winning, but it doesn't always work like that. You can play well and not have the run of the ball and lose, it doesn't mean you played crap or that you are a crap team. Your comment about England being **** at football, again, if you were a football fan you would know what a talented team we have packed full of quality players. Last night could've gone either way, it wasn't our night. Your problem seems to be more political than anything else, going on about 'pseudo-patriots' and such like. That's not a football argument, we're talking about football here, you're clearly on some kind of political crusade against something or other.

I think Andyman probably realises that you have to score more goals than the other team to win a game, but thanks for clearing it up.

You talk about what the reaction would have been if it had happened the other way round.... well we'd be chuffed and the French would be gutted- your point being?!

Originally posted by Jonesy
Your problem seems to be more political than anything else, going on about 'pseudo-patriots' and such like. That's not a football argument, we're talking about football here, you're clearly on some kind of political crusade against something or other.



very good point

It's irritating to see people try and bring politics into football.
It's a game!
There is nothing wrong with supporting the country that you belong to. Do you complain about the French patriots also?

England can still do it in my view, and you never know!
Croatia or Switzerland may nick a winner from France just as France nicked one from us!

Fair play to the french, they must be hopping with joy at being outplayed & outclassed and yet still managing to win.

It's not over at all for England! before the game it was an expected win for France - on paper they had the much better side.

The only reason it hurts so much is because the goals were so, so, soooo late on! if France had scored 2 in the first half it wouldn't be as painful to take in.

Anyway, watch out Switzerland & Croatia, get ready for the backlash! COME ON ENGLAND!! :thumbsup:

Lestat, I'm sorry to dispel you illusions but England did not "Play France off the park"

Yes they defended quite well for 90 minutes, and did play well considering France are tournament favourites. England had onedecent attack in the second half, and fair enough could and should have scored.

Okay France did have that many chances either but it was a fairly even game.

King and Rooney stood out for me. I thing King should now be given the benefit of the doubt over Terry. Rooney is very 'hot headed' but IMO this is where the captain or more experieance players should take control and calm him down and give him encouragement. The defence held up very well but I wish they would just get control of the ball sometimes instead of clearing it and giving it straight back.

The back pass was awful and left James up the creek without a paddle but it was a clumsy challenge he should have kept on his feet. If James would have got sent off perhaps we might have had a better chance of saving the penalty :D

However, I don't think James can be blamed for the first one, he never saw it until the last minute. Some say it was bad positioning but I can't go along with that.

England are going to have to make sure they win now as draws will not be good enough.

Originally posted by Jonesy
Markham I hav to say you are clearly not a football fan in any way shape or form so I wouldn't start being like that with people who are.


You talk about what the reaction would have been if it had happened the other way round.... well we'd be chuffed and the French would be gutted- your point being?!

A. So someone isn't a football fan if they don't support England?:loopy:

B. If it had happened the other way round, you'd be saying that England got two well-deserved late goals. (Just like I'm saying France got two well-deserved late goals.) So, as I don't support England, I'm chuffed!!

Note to Markham :
I get the feeling from most of your posts related to this matter that you are very anti-english football. Just wondered where you are from originally. I'm guessing Scotland or Wales because your gripes sound predictably bitter and full of envy. Good luck to your team in Euro 2004 (unless you are from one of the above and of course you wouldn't have qualified)




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England were unlucky in many respects but France were clearly the better team over 90 minutes.
The back 4 were excellent, especially King but midfield played far too deep and for most of the second half didn't seem to want to leave the last third of the field. There were too many occasions when opponents were allowed to run with the ball and weren't closed down. We shouldn't be seeing opponents in the last third being able to run to the edge of the box with a b****y great space in front of them.
I blame Erikson's tactics as being too timid. Owen and Rooney had little support and the service to them was poor (cos midfield were in their own half) He's made England difficult to beat but at the same time don't look capable of beating the best.
It may also help to drop Scholes who was poor and (putting tin hat on!) Owen who was almost invisible. Play Rooney and Vassal together and push midfield into errrr midfield.
You usually make your own luck in football

Originally posted by Ned Ludd
England were unlucky in many respects but France were clearly the better team over 90 minutes.


Have to disagree with you there Ned Ludd.

England looked in total control for most of the game. Obviously France had more possession but they could not do anything with it because England would not let them.

That to me is control.

Andy

Hmm, i'm not so sure. i think it seemed that we defended and won the ball well in the second half, but never made anything with it. quite often just clearing it up the pitch and losing possession. i do think there was a gap between midfield and the forwards. Rooney did really well under the circumstances, but owen was just not getting the delivery. All in all though, i figure that we were playing france and did pretty well all things considered. The defence was spot on. When i was watching the replays you could see the whole back four moving as a unit. really was excellent positional play. Hopefully the strength of the midfield will be more apparent in thursdays game as we should be able to play a more open game. Matches with france are always cagey and not the most pretty to watch.

Originally posted by wibbles
Note to Markham :
I get the feeling from most of your posts related to this matter that you are very anti-english football. Just wondered where you are from originally. I'm guessing Scotland or Wales because your gripes sound predictably bitter and full of envy. Good luck to your team in Euro 2004 (unless you are from one of the above and of course you wouldn't have qualified)

Reply by markham-

And good luck to your team England as well. Remember though, it is the yobs, who have already started, I'm having a pop at here not the decent supporters.

The reason why I will laugh if England get knocked out (but I doubt they will) is to see the yobs using OUR England flag as a banner crying their eyes out. And don't you just know that these vermin are going to TEAR those flags up if England get knocked out.

Am I Welsh or Scottish? No!

My team will probably get hammered, but "Deutschland uber alles" anyway.

May the best team win, and if its England I'll say 'Well done'.

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you're a Germany fan then markham??

So Sven intends to drop King? Players should be in or out on merit and King should definately be in. Another poor decision.

Originally posted by Ned Ludd
So Sven intends to drop King? Players should be in or out on merit and King should definately be in. Another poor decision.

he's really dropping King after THAT performance? or surely that must be speculation at this stage - sven always names his teams quite late...

Sven knows where his heart is, and he'll be proud of our boys with a score like that. Heja Sverige!

Originally posted by Bedhead
you're a Germany fan then markham??

Yes, I admit it. You've rumbled me:rolleyes:

are you german then?
lived there for 3 years that's all

Germany are a good team, always have been, always will be. Just something about their sides. You all know the old saying "never write off Germany"

Originally posted by Bedhead
are you german then?
lived there for 3 years that's all

In a way. Born there (Hannover) when my dad was in army.

Left at age 3, but spent 2 years there (Dortmund) in 69-71.

Dual nationality, and would probably support England if not for reasons I've already mentioned. So, natural choice = Germany.

Prefer England in ALL other respects though!

And thanks ianmitchell for the compliments about the German team.:thumbsup:

yea i don't mind germany - i used to have a german girlfriend and i remember actually celebrating in the streets (in germany!) with her and all our german friends when they won euro 96' and chanting 'oliver bierhoff'!
don't get me wrong though i'm a HUGE england fan of course and was soooooo gutted when you beat us

I feel Germany are not much different to England, in the way that they are not as skillful as other teams like Italy and Brazil but their strength was always team spirit and been organised.

Originally posted by Bedhead
yea i don't mind germany - i used to have a german girlfriend and i remember actually celebrating in the streets (in germany!) with her and all our german friends when they won euro 96' and chanting 'oliver bierhoff'!
don't get me wrong though i'm a HUGE england fan of course and was soooooo gutted when you beat us

Don't feel too gutted Bedhead, you got your own back. Err....5-1 ring any bells? Now let's change the subject, eh!!:P :thumbsup: