England could, should have won Euro 2020!
In normal time (90 minutes).
Includes analysis and tactics beyond the realization of:
plus others, as will be seen.
OBSERVATION:
From watching Italy’s first two group games, ones they won comfortably by 3-0, it was clear, despite the level of the opposition, to which Roy Keane indicated ‘they can only play what’s in front of them’, that Italy were a force to be reckoned with.
That said, come the final, no one would have predicted they would have conceded a goal after less than 2 minutes (117 seconds), and, it has to be said, to a well-worked goal by a wing back.
So, what went wrong after that? Where was the hunger that saw England command an onslaught of Denmark’s goal in the semi-final and win by what was considered a soft penalty award, despite law 12?
Law 12, for those of you reading this who are not familiar with the rules governing football, lists all the infractions for which a direct free kick or penalty should be awarded (see the TRUTH’s exposé: ‘Sport: How some referees and VAR treat players with contempt!).
Incidentally, under law 12, England should have been awarded a penalty in the final.
ANALYSIS:
Having watched the semi-final, the highlights of which were cancelled by the BBC, the TRUTH posted the following Tweet on twitter:
The TRUTH's tweet reads:
If England or going to beat the stunning Italy, Jordan Pickford needs to control his wayward, too high up the field passes. Tom Brady, he ain't!
For those unfamiliar with American football, Tom Brady, now of Tampa Bay Buccaneers, formerly of New England Patriots, has appeared in and won more Super bowl’s than any other Quarterback.
His job, like that of the player with the ball, in this case Jordan Pickford, is to ‘pass’ the ball off to a player down the field of play or chose a ‘run’ move, whereby, he hands the ball off to a running back.
The key difference between American football and football using a round ball is, the play can be called dead when progress is made. If the necessary progress is achieved, it results in the chains being moved and a new set of downs being awarded.
The tweet relates to ‘pass’ plays. In American football, the ball can be thrown (not kicked) any distance, while the accuracy is helped by the spiral of the oval shaped ball. The terms used are ‘over’ when the ball is thrown so that it goes over the receiver’s shoulder, out of the reach of a following defender, and ‘under’ when the receiver has to generally turn to face the ball.
Pickford, however, was notably kicking the ball too long. In effect, an unintentional 12th man for both Denmark and Italy, gift wrapping the ball back to the opposition.
The TRUTH posts its own Tweets on Twitter. However, does Gary Lineker personally type out and post all of his tweets, or, as was suggested about Saka’s personnel letter posted on Twitter, are they sometimes ghost-written, typed up and posted by someone else on Gary’s behalf?
The reason the TRUTH makes that point, asks that question, is this. Gary Lineker presented the final live from Wembley stadium. Subsequently, a tweet, this one (see next), from Gary Lineker was posted on Twitter after Luke Shaw’s goal inside 2 minutes.
Incidentally, a ‘Hail Mary’ as it’s known in American football, is a long pass down field in the dying seconds of the 4th quarter’s game clock to try and score a Touchdown. ‘Rarely’ does it ever succeed!
When posting a comment, etc on Twitter, the text input box appears over the page being viewed. In this case, the home page:
That means, in order to submit/type a tweet, the person doing so, in this case (supposedly) Gary Lineker, would had to have noticed the TRUTH’s tweet about the England goalkeeper’s ‘overcooked’ (term for a pass thrown too long in American football) kicks, including those when he was under zero pressure compared to that of a ‘Blitz’ call by the opposition in American football (that’s when most everyone rushes the quarterback).
To understand the importance of this, under Chelsea’s first coaching by Mourinho, they were winning the Premier League for the first time and scoring up to and over 5 goals a game, mainly due to Petr Cech’s kicking and throwing accuracy.
Instead, Pickford kicked it long, hoping that Harry Kane, a lone striker, mostly, would be able to fight off the attention of the vast Italian defence (the phrase ‘drop in an ocean’ comes to mind) and score a second or more goals.
ENGLAND’S FORMATION:
Primarily, it was 3-4-3. When England either had a goal kick or un-pressured possession, Stones and Maguire were the centre backs and England’s only backs. That meant they had 8 outfield players ahead of them.
If that transpired, formation wise, as a 2-5-3, the midfield 5, as they now were, had a better chance of receiving the ball and to then push and pass forward with courage, something that Gary said was missing, and feed the 3 forwards.
As for the forwards. Where were they when England had penalty box possession?
One player in the box, as mentioned, is chancing to serious luck. Therefore, where was the skill?
The wingbacks were Shaw and Walker while the forwards (left to right) were Sterling, Kane and Trippier.
To utilise at least two of them, Sterling having scored and engineered more goals from open play than Kane, if the ball was on the left flank, Kane and Trippier should have been in the box, while from the right flank Sterling should have joined Kane in the box.
The only way to have had all three in the box was for the wing backs to take on the active role of getting the ball into Italy’s penalty box.
Okay, so on occasions, England lost possession from retreating at the goal line. What they should have done, in order to get more unchallenged passes into Italy’s penalty box, was to force more corners. It’s not cheating, so what’s the problem? Instead, like everything positive that’s been mentioned in this article, it’s a tactic, and the right tactics, coupled with the correct skills and use of the ball, are what win games.
Footnotes:
Going back to the TRUTH’s tweet above, If Gary Lineker does, in fact, personally post all of his tweets, then he contributed to England’s loss of the Euro 2020 final by ignoring the invaluable point the TRUTH made in the tweet and, therefore, failing to pass it onto the England manager/coach.
Similarly, the England manager/coach, who has appeared and been interviewed live on the BBC’s coverage of at least 1 of the previous Super bowls, should have noticed what the TRUTH observed about the England goalkeeper’s ‘overcooked’ passes up-field. Likewise, and as the Captain, Harry Kane could not have missed noticing the ball was being kicked too long, out of his reach during the semi-final. Therefore, why wasn’t the problem corrected during the three days that England had to prepare for the final, a final they could and should have won in regulation time?
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