I'm sure plenty of people believed that the WC Trophy was "coming home".
Roy Keane the pundit
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
That may have been his gripe, but at the end of the day who cares about how fans go about their celebrations and match build up? Parts of his argument, like “Cmon Wrighty you’ve played the game”, are completely moot because they have no bearing on the result. If his gripe is with the fans getting over excited then all the better, because it shows how pathetic he is that it affects him that much that a rival nation has done so well in a cup tournament that has allowed the fans of that nation to go absolutely beserk with hysteria and joy. Surely he knows the English humour in being able to take the piss out of themselves. I’ve probably sang “It’s coming home” 40 times this week, my 5 year old daughter has started singing it. Did i think England were going to win the World Cup??? Absolutely not, but allow a nation to dream ffs without feeling the need to berate them for enjoying this moment.
As ever with Roy, there is some truth in what he says but he does need to lighten up a bit. This England side is not over-burdened with talent and there was nothing wrong with being excited about being in a semi-final. You can’t apply the standards and expectations of 90s United to a national team that historically has never been a major contender and had recently become a joke. As for the others, Wright is a clown and Neville and Dixon were decent.
You are expecting Ireland’s national team to go beyond that level, based on what? Qualifying for WC is a good performance by Ireland. Knock-out stages is clearly a success. Or are you just bantering, taking the piss?
Not defending Wright cos he is a bit of an idiot in this but people slagging off England fans for actually enjoying themselves and getting carried away are a bit of a miserable bunch for me.
Keane's whole act is to be a miserable fecker I get that and he plays up to it but feck off if people aren't allowed to actually enjoy a decent run in a World Cup and have fun with it.
Just stuff like this. So what if a frenzy went on, so what if people enjoyed themselves and got caught up in the moment. Isn't that what football is about? Enjoying it and dreaming something good could happen. The fun has been sucked out of football for me for the last few years watching the shite of LVG and Mourinho, the anti football. People would rather talk about FFP and parachute payments than the actual game. People seem to over analyse a shite 0-0 then enjoy watching an actual fun game of football. People, myself included, got a genuine buzz off the tournament and maybe got carried away but so what. I think people are now obsessed with not looking a bit stupid for doing that so are overly miserable.
Keane's whole act is to be a miserable fecker I get that and he plays up to it but feck off if people aren't allowed to actually enjoy a decent run in a World Cup and have fun with it.
You're right of course. Most of us on here would have given our right arm for our country to get to a world cup semi and every country would be ecstatic. Christ, I can only imagine the craic if Ireland made it that far. I feel sorry for you boys. Maybe it's just a carry over from your class system, the idea of privilege and entitlement having a firm footing amongst a small but still significant portion of your population. Maybe its just that more of them have a platform in this day and age. I don't know what it is. There are still a number of English fans in the public eye that grate. The pure, unadulterated, innocent joy that it engenders in much of the population is not as front and centre as the smugness of the rest.
Shame, the players are a good bunch and Southgate an impressively decent guy.
But England weren't underdogs, you would expect them to beat Columbia and Sweden, Croatia was a more tough game but even then it's an evenly matched game. Imo England did what was expected of them. Real underdog performance is something like Greece winning in 2004.
Gary Neville hit the nail on the head, this was a massive opportunity for England and it's very unlikely they will get a favourable draw like this again. It was perfectly setup for England to get to the final and they blew it.
Perhaps so. I can get why people don't like England especially when they're not English (I also don't think English people have to support their national team it's complete personal choice) but I'll never get why people are seemingly so smug in hindsight with fans enjoying a moment of potential history and getting somewhat caught up in it. I personally wouldn't mind Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland doing well in a tournament, I quite enjoyed Wales run a few years ago but again I can understand why people don't.
I just think a lot of football fans have become more obsessed with other parts of football rather than enjoying the actual moment. I've been of the belief for a while that football is over analysed I think it happened at the start of MNF really. I work with a lot of City fans (and it's not a dig at City in particular) and they constantly go on about FFP, salaries of players, the sheikh etc and that's just not football for me, football is on the pitch and enjoying what is happening and I don't think it's particularly fair to slag people off for getting carried away even if we did only beat Panama, Sweden and Tunisia. It was still a fun ride while it lasted and one that has got people back behind the national team. It's honestly one of the few times in the last 5 or 6 years I've enjoyed football on a constant level. Football under Moyes, LVG and Mourinho at United and Hodgson with England to often feels a chore, this brought a welcome return to football from when you were younger for me.
I agree with the sentiment of what you're syaing, they weren't underdogs in any of the games but at the start of the tournament no one gave them a chance so to get as far as they did so I agree with all of @OnlyTwoDaSilvas post really. It made it so much more enjoyable, the whole thing has been great for me and I am gutted it's ended.
Can understand this POV but it's a very narrow view as you have to take one game at a time when the tournament starts. The tournament opened up for England and i think as time passes the players and fans will look back in regret once it sinks in how big the opportunity was.
Maybe they will and it's fair comments I'm not disputing the draw was very nice for England and we could look back at opportunities and kick ourselves (Kane's miss, the defence switching off for 2nd goal, not using better subs) but equally I think at the start of the tournament this team was given no chance. To see it progress into where they got to and also doing it whilst actually entertaining a nation is something to look at positively as well. Maybe we could of got to a final, maybe we could of won it (I doubt this team beats France though) but it was a fun ride while it lasted and it's probably got a lot of people excited for 2020 including people who were probably not that arsed about England a year ago and that's a good thing to.
I meant over the course of the tournament, we were not ever favourites to win it, probably not even in the top 8 at the start, and didn't appear to be even possible contenders to reach the final until we got the favourable draw. I still don't think it was ever expected that we'd beat Colombia either. The only knockout game that seemed a dead cert was Sweden, and even they had chances to nick it.
If we'd have reached the final, and beaten France, I think overall it could have been compared to Greece winning the Euros, especially as most of our goals came from set pieces. Panama aside, England never looked capable of blowing a team away with the ball on the ground.
I do agree with Neville as well. The favourable draw is something they'll likely never get again. Put England on the other side of the bracket in Belgiums place, and England would not be expected to go very far, and they probably wouldn't have reached the semis. This World Cup was great fun because of that overconfidence and optimism, and that will probably help mask the regret that it was a huge opportunity wasted.
I know, but I’m sure he takes with a pinch of salt what the man on the street does or thinks. I’m sure some individuals might irritate him like anybody, but ultimately these guys beside him are highly paid British tv broadcasters driving a narrative - and he has probably felt shut down a lot in recent weeks when trying to temper expectations about a team that had beaten three ordinary sides in normal time. The positivity they have generated as a team is of course good, but looking from the outside the notion of this team being an emerging force or Southgate being lauded so much and words like heroic etc bandied about will naturally start to irritate - obviously not if you’re an English fan. But it’s like that so many have just taken all the past mistakes Southgate has been trying to drive away the culture of and just repackaging them.
Was he probably trying to have the last laugh or say I told you so? probably. I’m sure he was enjoying having a dig. But, and of course I could be wrong, but you can’t blame an outsider for thinking that if that’s how pundits and fans were behaving in light of what was a good tournament they might not exactly be the most gracious or tolerable winners. I know generalisations are never correct and large numbers of entirely decent English football folk will be hurting and gracious in defeat or victory. From the outside it’s not something the rest of the world sees up close in various news cycles and modern media. The way wright so wilfully mocked an Irish accent, competely oblivious to how that might appear , is behaviour many non English fans associate with English fans/dare I say people. Unfortunately their reputation has taken a hammering through the years and will take more than one tournament to repair.
Just as an update - there’s a video doing the rounds now of a drunk English fan throwing his pint in the face of a New Zealand reporter live on tv. I’m working abroad these days and people not even into football have been sharing videos of the idiots thrashing ikea and an ambulance. Earlier in the tournament three drunk fools were singing pro nazi songs and got sent home. These are a loud and infuriating minority that every country has. Unfortunately England’s reputation has been fostered and magnified in recent decades, and many get tarred with the same arrogant brush. This is often all overseas people see. Which is unfair, but when you see wright do things like that It resonates with a lot of non English people who have been on the receiving end of the exact same type of stuff.
FWIW, if they had beaten Croatian and France, on a personal level, I’d have seen them as worthy winners and would not being going through any sort of suffering or grievance
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Taking the piss because I don’t see why an England team containing Ashley Young as left back, Jordan Henderson in midfield and Jesse Lingard and Raheem Sterling as your creative force shouldn’t be buzzing that they made it to a semi final. If this team had Messi and Modric then yes for all means calling them bottlers and laugh at the English arrogance (which was nothing compared to previous years).
Totally agree and more should be made of him mocking irish people .
This is a guy who pulled the race card against Schmeichel and referees because he never scored against him remember .
If you want to dream, dream. But while you're awake you're setting yourself up for a fall when you aren't talking about the truth and are lying to yourself.
I agree, buzz ahead. Did Keano call them ‘bottlers’?
English arrogance must be laughed at at every occasion, and there is normally plenty of it abound when the pundits are amassing the TV studios.
That's just weird man.
I'm a fan, not a Chief Executive. I don't have a "fall"
And there is no lying to yourself. Nobody can predict the future
Keane was on the money last night. England always get carried away. This "football's coming home" nonsense leaves the English open to ridicule. The arrogance, without basis, leaves England open to ridicule. As for Wright, he is a buffoon. He can barely string three sentences together.
The fall is hyping the team up and expecting them to do something they fail to do. Because they arent nearly as good as people are saying
Was it really "arrogance" though? It was a bit of fun, and for those involved, it was fun.
I'm certain the players weren't in the dressing room singing "it's coming home" and planning the trophy parade, but it doesn't mean the fans can't dream and get carried away.
This whole football thing, it's supposed to be fun. Why purposely make it unfun? Let the professionals be pragmatic and measured, and let the fans paint a St George's cross on their face and sing that fecking Lightning Seeds song if they want to.
I'm certain the players weren't in the dressing room singing "it's coming home" and planning the trophy parade, but it doesn't mean the fans can't dream and get carried away.
This whole football thing, it's supposed to be fun. Why purposely make it unfun? Let the professionals be pragmatic and measured, and let the fans paint a St George's cross on their face and sing that fecking Lightning Seeds song if they want to.
Essentially @LawCharltonBest the problem was you had hope. Next time don't even bother watching the game.
Pish.
If Croatia and England had a rematch in a week, England would win. They hardly got outclassed yesterday, it was just football doing its thing.
Haha. No way. Maybe 5 rematches.
No one expected England to reach the semi-finals. Its hardly a fall as you describe it.
Keane called out the English on what can only be described as mass hysteria. . . and they don't like it.
I don't like to politicise it but it reminds me of the madness of brexit.
Keane was completely right.
I don't like to politicise it but it reminds me of the madness of brexit.
Keane was completely right.
Absolutely. England had a very successful tournament. They were never going to be good enough to win it. . . . I mean how could you put that English team into the same sentence as past winners like Germany 2014, Spain 2010, Italy 2006 or Brazil 2002.
Keane was merely being Keane, he hates BS. I would imagine he wanted England to win as it was in England that he made his mark on the game. I think he was having a go at pundits looking beyond the semi-final like it was England's destiny to win it despite the fact they hadn't yet played Croatia.
Actually a lot of people were expecting them to get to the finals beating Croatia. I didnt see many people here expecting a Croatia win
Yeah yeah I'm sure fans of every team England beat said the same thing. Keep living in a bubble
Hope and dreaming are two different things.
You can hope Exeter might beat Real Madrid, but dreaming that they are going to is not facing reality.
Sounds actually quite similar in that scenario!
I know, coming from an englishman whose grammer is fecking shocking to say the least.
Or watched the qualifiers. Keane was a fecking beast that pulled us in to the World Cup.
What do you think his spelling is like?
He did score against him in the 1993 Charity shield.
Hundreds of millions worth of talent on that England team. Outside of Modric and Rakitic England had the superior players. They shit the bed in the 2nd half and in my opinion a few players had the final on their mind and not the next 45 minutes. I thought the ref was pretty shite too.
So is it a dream or a belief that you had that England would beat Croatia and get to the final? Make up your mind
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/dream?s=t
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/belief?s=t
Hope that helps
I bet he writes in his accent, ye know what i mean bruv, has to have the passion innit.