The players did that. I thought the ref was excellent at not buying in to all the flopping.
At the end, Neymar – king of the floppers – actually did some heroic work to press on through rough tackles, keeping his feet and forcing the attack. He can do it, he just chooses not to on most occasions.
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Stat of the day:
Well that fucking sucked. Pickford, who I assumed was the weak link, did his job.
So enjoyable to watch England lose. They basically played the equivalent of 10 seeds for 7 straight matches, at home.
And this
Bitter much? Are you going to similarly dismiss Italy’s World Cup final appearance in 1990? Or France’s World Cup win in 1998? Or Uruguay’s World Cup win in 1930? Or, of course, England’s World Cup win in 1966?
Someone has to host and the host is always in the tournament, so always has home field advantage. In this Euros, England won its group, along the way beating Croatia - who took Spain to extra time in the Ro16 - and the Czech Republic who lost to Denmark in the quarter-finals having beaten handily the Netherlands in the previous round. England took the winning route from its group through the bracket; had they not won the group, they would’ve been playing in different venues.
Still, the one game England played away from Wembley yielded the biggest win; 4-0 over Ukraine in Rome. They earned their way to the final. They conceded only 2 goals in 690 minutes of football, during which time they trailed for a total of only 9 minutes.
Losing on penalties to Italy carries no shame. Italy was the form team in the tournament and Chielsa was clearly the best player on the park yesterday. Still, it ended 1-1 and it took some agricultural tactics from Italy to survive extra time against England’s pressure - including a “tackle” by Chiellini on Saka that would be illegal in the NFL.
As for the fans, there are no excuses for those few idiots who behaved appallingly. I sincerely hope - and expect, given the volume of CCTV footage that will be available to the police - that they all get properly punished for it. But, if you cared to look beyond a short video clip, you would have seen a crowd that was integrated. 65,000 football fans mixing together and enjoying a marvelously tense and well-fought championship final.
But, sure, fling shit about the venue and a some idiots caught on camera being idiots. That says a lot more about you than it does about England, the English or its football team.
Italy was the better side and Chielsa was the stand-out player of the game. They were hanging on (literally) in extra time but, notably, that was after Chielsa hobbled off. Penalties is penalties. 
There was a lot of talk before the game about Southgate’s decision to sacrifice a midfielder in favor of playing two wingbacks. Apart from the first 20 minutes or so, Italy dominated possession and England ceded about 2/3rds of the field to them. It was uncomfortable, for sure. But it still took a stroke of luck for Italy to score while England’s wingbacks combined for a sublime strike for the opening goal. A move that was started and ended by Shaw.
Is there any discussion of Southgate’s decision to put the 19-year-old in the 5th spot for PKs? Maybe he hoped it wouldn’t come down to the 5th kick?
Southgate said that he picked the penalty takers, so presumably Saka was slated in advance for the 5th spot, which is a bit of a head-scratcher. The order had been decided after practice on the training ground, but there is no way to replicate the pressure of the actual situation.
It clearly impacted the younger players who were trying to be too clever, too precise. Notably, the more experienced Kane and Maguire hammered their kicks into the side and roof netting respectively. Also, Donnarumma is a man-mountain who makes the goal look tiny, which adds to the pressure to try to make the “perfect” penalty.
They missed 2, we missed 3, they win. That’s penalties.
ETA: One thing I’ve read is that Germany - who has had more than its fair share of success in shoot-outs - not only picks the takers, but also the kick they will take. They watch them to see which variety of kick they are most competent at executing, and instruct them to take that kick. I like this idea because it takes second-guessing out of the mind of the player. They put the ball down knowing exactly the kick they’re going to make.
While we’re focusing on the behavior of small numbers of English fans…
Disgusting. That kid has school the next day.
That gives me a new perspective on Grealish. Good for him.
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This generation of players has broken the stereotype of greedy, out of touch, prima donnas.
This makes all kinds of good sense.
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