Knockout Stage - Final | Vive la France

To clarify:

The thing that annoys people about the Coming Home stuff is not just the arrogance of it, it's just so very boring. It's a song from the 90s that wasn't interesting at the time, and isn't interesting now.

You also can't tell me that a song saying the home of football is in England has no arrogance, surely?

No other nation would sing such lyrics.

I know most English guys are all good etc, 'some of my best friends' etc'. But also I've only been physically threatened by England football fans when watching a football game minding my own business. There's no denying the violence of English football fans as much as you may like to deny it. 

They shoulda tried 'we're England! We're guna score one more than you...'

I think more than intent, the perception is the problem here. While intended as self deprecating and silly by certainly the vast majority it only takes a few dickheads to ruin it for everyone - and lets be clear that is certainly ratio here, it's a minority that have made it grating.

I personally watched England fans harass and threaten tourists on Courtney Place because they wouldn't answer when asked "is it coming home". The tourists had no clue what was going on and barely spoke English. By the time I was there the police had already been called by bystanders because it was so horrible. I guarantee the lady in tears found nothing about that experience to be "banter" as many seem to claim under similar circumstances.

Many non-English supporters when they hear that song/chant are not in fact reminded of a humorous little ditty but it conjures images of fans trashing Ikeas, jumping on ambulances or some personal run in they have had with a fan being a dickhead about it. And trust me those experiences and perceptions stick in the mind much stronger than the good natured ones.

The same way a few dickheads give league fans or All Blacks fans a very bad rep in some quarters, a few English expats spread around the globe egging each other on have given a certain impression and vibe to that chant and I for one totally understand why a big number of people find it arrogant and smug to listen to - having lost all it's intended meaning.

things that make you go hmm:

Phil Jones 

That incident C Place sounds pretty shark. Reminds me of Viz the English cartoon magazine (popular in my youth) and a Geordie character called Sid the Sexist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_the_Sexist

One time time Sid goes to the south of Spain, and overhears some German speaking tourists talking, and starts chanting "1 world cup, 2 world wars".

The tourists tried to explain to Sid they were Swiss German, and didn't understand why he was yelling at them!

But really problems like this are always caused by a stupid minority. Were these English fans in Wellington, young males and drunk? No excuse of course, but if so - always a bad combination. On my 1997 van trip OE around Europe, I saw plenty of fellow Kiwis do some really dumb acts, abusing locals etc that could be disgusting, and totally embarrassing/cringe worthy.

I have also a friend who is rugby writer for one of the major NZ newspapers. He basically hates NZ rugby fans. One time in Brisbane, having a quiet beer, he hid behind a pole, to avoid his own black clad brother (who had travelled over from NZ with a bunch of his mates for a Bledisloe game) spotting him - such is his contempt for the tiresome 'pack male rugby culture'.

So these sort of incidents are hardly a unique English football fan problem.

Yeah it was pretty horrible. People can be the worst sometimes. Sadly they were older/middle aged - which when combined with drunk can often be worse I think.

Completely agree re NZ rugby fans. People here seem to believe they are well loved but as I said in my post they certainly have a very bad reputation in some places because of exactly this same perception problem. A few eggs really can ruin somethings for everyone.

Belgium 2:0 England

(Back to the football)

Really looking forward to this final. Tipped them to be in the final once the knockout stages were underway, think they both deserve to be there. Think France will win it, hopefully in an open and entertaining game.

France bi Tooo

that is that done and dusted, many talking points but 6 goals in a final is well worth getting up to watch.

Can't help but think that a fully fit Subasic would have meant a much closer game in terms of scoreline. That, and less diving from Griezmann.

Also can't be often that the final is a better specticle than the 3/4th playoff

That first goal blody annoyed me, Greizman getting a free kick for minimal contact. From there I wanted Croatia to win.

Initially I felt that "Croatia was robbed" but then I thought - this probably was not any worse than happened in other games.

Goals from Pogba and Mbape really made it all rather academic, shame Subasic hesitated and almost went the wrong way each time.

Because Subasic was only one one leg?  Should they have used a keeper with two hamstrings?

Yeah I feel the next step for VAR is for non-red card offences and direct free kicks like Griezmann’s. Can be done in the background of course, with not much attention being paid to it by broadcasters or the like, and shouldn’t take long to decide. But it will put to rest dives like this. Can’t help but wonder what the outcome of the game would have been then, Croatia outplayed them that first half

Haven't had a chance to have a close look at it on replay, but I thought Pogba looked offside in that first goal.

Yep.

I see that riot have become the thing late in the night in Paris

Now if that had been London, the doom sayers would have been all over this like a rash

Ignoring that they shouldn't have got the freekick, apparently it was not offside.

https://twitter.com/richard_conway/status/10185790...

Still taken from VAR 

This comment has already aged quite well. As well as Croatia did, both France and Belgium played to a higher standard throughout, and there was definitely more quality from 1-11 (so to speak) in their semi final than in the final. But as several on here have mentioned, this was always a possibility when the draw was as lopsided as it was.

Still found it to be a fairly entertaining game, particularly for a World Cup final. But the 6 goals belie the fact that only one (maybe two) were of real quality, and Croatia were all but done by the hour mark.

Croatia were done when they lost 3 wounded earlier on and had to patch them up to keep going.

wasn't so much the possible offside, more why didn't Croatia even have a two man wall set up to defend this free kick?

Surely if there had been a wall it would have it both harder to shoot and easier to pick someone out with a cross, so Griezmann would have done the same thing with an even higher chance of success?

but with 3-4 players in a wall, the other Croatian defenders would have been further forward and had more chance of the French being offside

also a line of sight thing, put a wall in front of him and he is likely to lift the ball higher

Maybe they didn't have players to spare for a wall? The French had all their outfielders apart from Kante (and of course Griezmann) in front of the kick taker in attacking positions.

Croatia defended freekicks such as this one relatively deep all tournament.

My theory is because their keeper is fairly average.

a few Englishmen in Ikea is  pretty insignificant

Yeah laughable. But as everybody knows, England fans=disgusting neanderthals, French fans=wildly exuberant or deliriously happy

It runs in the family.

A real family man would have offered him his hamstrings.  Selfish.

Definitely top 10 in the world, was very good the rest of the tournament and helped Monaco win Ligue 1 the season before last. Wasn't at his best in the final but he's far far far from average

I could name 10 keepers ahead of him. For starters the best keeper in the world was not even at the tournament.

I got Neuer, De Gea, Oblak, Courtois, ter Stegen, Lloris, Navas, Alisson, Subasic and Handanovic. Past the top 5 it's debatable but he's in my top 10 for sure. Anyway all that matters is he's good lol