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  4. Anyone had news from SJKamal?
  5. What news would you like?
  6. How do you feel after "the best football day of your supporter life"?
    Bitter End but a tradition is a tradition
  7. Well ultimately, Italy deserved it. They were the better team on the night so congratulations to them. Having said that, it didn't really help that England didn't show up.

    On the day of the final, it was 3 years ago to the day when Croatia beat us in the World Cup semi final, and it's disappointing to say that we hadn't learnt our lesson from that game, and that we need to learn how to manage big games better. In fact, the final was literally a carbon copy of the World Cup semi final. When Luke Shaw scored I didn't really celebrate. I turned straight to my mate and said "we scored too early". The first thought that went through my head was Kieran Trippers free kick in Russia 2018, and throughout the whole game I kept on reminding my mates about the semi final in Russia.

    "In both the World Cup semi final and Final:

    England score within 5 minutes
    England control the next 15 minutes. If we score a second the game is most likely over.
    Opposition slowly gets a grip and grows with each passing minute.
    Opposition absolutely bossing the game by the time people are begging for half time.
    England come out slow, people start asking to at least tweak the shape for 10 minutes if nothing else.
    Opposition builds and builds, people start to wave their arms and ask for changes.
    Opposition pushes very hard, people start screaming for changes.
    England are 20 or so minutes away from winning the tournament (getting to the final in Russia 2018) but the opposition score an equaliser that could have been easily avoided.
    England make changes, momentum has already gone and the pendulum has swung, it’s now a case of holding on.
    England eventually lose a game they had control of and numerous opportunities to impact."

    In both cases we were literally 20 minutes away from winning the game but failed to hold on. It was a bit disappointing how Italy scored their equaliser, it so easily could have gone out or been cleared. Moreover, I don't think the substitutes made any real impact either.

    Regarding the penalties, I'm speechless. I have no idea how Pickford can save 2 penalties in a final and we still lose. I hate when the players stutter in their run ups (Rashford I'm looking at you), and the penalties from Sancho and Saka were bang average, although it doesn't help that Donnarumma is 6ft 5. I still believe that if Rashford scores his penalty (which was inches wide) then we would have gone on to win it. That was the deciding penalty for me.

    I don't think we'll ever get a better chance to win it, and a part of me thinks "if we didn't win it then, when will we?". We were at home, 60k of our fans in the ground and took an early lead. Everything was going our way. Even when Pickford made the first save in the shootout I would have backed us to win it.

    I was around the ground on Sunday and the atmosphere was great. I watched the game at Wembley Boxpark and because of that I have come down with the "Wembley Variant" of Covid so I've been battling that for a few days. It would have been worth it if England had won! Oh well, it's still coming home.
  8. Really happy to hear that you seem to go well after Covid!

    Before winning in 2018, we have lost a home final too...this year our players ran out of fuel.
    England should have push harder to score in the first half when Italy was a little bit KO, then italians took again the control and we know the end.
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  12. That's enough you two.