Just saw this post on X, and couldn't believe it. Bellingham can't even congratulate his teammate and lifelong friend without getting hate. I don't even think it's racism anymore, it's a mental illness.

Hello everyone,

Not sure if we’ve moved past the World Cup already but I’ve left a part of myself in Mexico City. Did all the locations with England but Mexico was an experience I’ll never get over.

Took a picture, I think this was just into the 2nd half maybe after some fireworks. The night sky and the residue smoke made it look moody as hell.

All the best!

They represent a very different idea of what sport itself is supposed to be, and that's why we can't stand them.

Viveza criolla: the belief that cleverness means finding every advantage, exploiting every weakness, and doing whatever it takes to win. In that mindset, deceiving officials, unsettling opponents, and pushing the boundaries are not seen as shameful, but as signs of intelligence and competitive instinct.

This isn't unique to Argentina, but they push it to the absolute limit in practice, and they go a step beyond:

"The result matters more than the legitimacy of the contest."

That is where our moral objection comes from. When an advantage comes from deceiving the game's authority rather than beating the opponent within the contest, the Argies celebrate it as a moral good.

Meanwhile the roots of modern British sport are completely antithetical to this. The Victorian ideal of sport was that it was a test of character as much as ability. The point wasn’t just about winning, it was about discipline, honour and self-control while competing. You were proving you were the better person as well as the better player. Winning through deception or unfair advantage was seen as making the victory less meaningful.

The World Cup final felt like the ultimate clash of those two ideas. After years of pushing the boundaries and benefiting from a certain amount of tolerance, Argentina finally found themselves punished for that style. And when the game turned against them, the violent scenes we saw after the final whistle exposed their principles to the world - victory is something to be achieved at all costs, and defeat is something to resist rather than accept.

It's an ugly philosophy, and one that preys on poor enforcement of the rules, and more importantly, lack of enforcement of the spirit of the rules. Sport is not merely a contest of outcomes. It is a contest conducted under a shared moral framework. Winning by exploiting weaknesses in that framework can be considered a failure to respect the purpose of the contest itself. To allow Argentina to continue to pursue their negative sporting philosophy at the world cup denigrates and destroys the very purpose of it.

We have the stadiums and the infrastructure. I remember the FIFA president saying back in 2014 that there are countries capable of hosting a World Cup with just two days' notice, and England was one of them. So why aren't we even trying to host one?

It's pathetic seeing countries who call it soccer getting World Cup so frequently , while England won't get one. Just give us one already.

Everyone was giving him shit for leaving Palmer, Foden and Gibbs-White at home. Well, England didnt struggle in attack during this tournament, so that decision didn’t seem to backfire at all…Gordon and Rogers made some key contributions actually. Madueke didn‘t, but he also didn‘t do anything wrong either.

Spence fully justified his selection and Burn did a great job in that Mexico game when he came on.

Tuchel made a horrible strategic choice in the semi, but he fully justified his squad selections overall.

Long story short, I lost a bet with my Spanish coworker, and my punishment was to rewatch the entire Euro 2024 final with him. As you can imagine, it was pretty painful, but I gained some new insights that are relevant today.

1. Spain never got out of second gear: It's honestly scary how good this Spain team has been over the last several years. The final stats from the match don't reflect how comprehensively they outplayed us. They were knocking the ball around us as if it were a training match and only showed a little weakness after Palmer equalized.
2. Different individuals, same problem: After the Argentina match, there's been a lot of noise in the media and among fans about certain technical players being left on the bench or at home. Well, the central midfield that started against Spain was Rice, Mainoo, and Foden. For some reason, Bellingham was shunted out to the left wing. You would imagine that, with Mainoo and Foden, we would have a better time controlling the ball, right? Nope. Spain dominated possession with 63%, and Foden had an absolute stinker (just as he did throughout the tournament). Meanwhile, Mainoo was largely ineffective.
3. Overreliance on Bellingham: I'm going to be frank: Bellingham did not have a great Euros by his standards. However, he was clearly England's best starter against Spain, and the match ratings back that up. His dribbling and movement are miles above everyone else's. I'm getting increasingly concerned about how reliant we are on him, even more so than on Kane now.
4. The players stopped attacking after the equalizer: Despite Spain being all over us, Palmer equalized in the 73rd minute. Over the next 5-10 minutes, we had all the momentum, and for the first time in the match, Spain started to falter a little. However, instead of capitalizing on that and pushing forward, we went back into our shell, just as we did against Argentina. The players stopped taking risks and became more and more passive. Spain regained their composure, and Oyarzabal scored the winner.

Based on these observations, it's clear that our problems go beyond the manager and debates about individual players (e.g., Mainoo vs. Anderson or leaving Foden at home). I believe there's something fundamentally wrong with the team's psyche.

This is ridiculous, we haven’t hosted since 1966.

Discuss...

I'm a neutral fan coming into this cup. My country NT is not good enough to qualify, but there are football fans paying attention to premier league, champions league throughout the year. And of course, the world cup is pretty huge.

In previous euros & world cup, england seemed just a team with 20~30 stars randomly selected together, so they were not that likeable. But as this world cup proceeds, it's fair to say that this england wins many neutral fans' heart in my country, especially after the great battle in azteca. The team has that "fight together as a team, as a family until the last moment" vibe. It is not the strongest team, but the players fight their heart and soul out, and not play dirty football. Even after the heartbreak semi-final, we still applaud the players who give it everything.

Another thing is the disgrace of the Argentina team. I don't hate messi and I'm not even interested in ronaldo & messi debate, but after qatar world cup, Argentina and messi fans dominate the football community in my country. They appear in every football topic even if it's unrelated to Messi and Argentina, trying to insert "Messi is GOAT". And because Argentina keep winning in 2021,2022,2024 and before this year's final, you just can't fight these fans back. It is satisfying they finally lose on and off the pitch and the noise can finally disappear.

Years later, the memories of this world cup may not be the match's win or loss, but will be the moments when england players and fans sing the wonderwall together in azteca, in Miami, will be England and France players huddling together after the 3rd place match. And of course, we will not forget the dirty, ugly and disgusting behavior from that argentina.

Finally I hope it can come home in Wembley two years later, and in 2030 you can have a better shot at the world cup.

You've got to wonder what on earth the FA and their lawyers were thinking. Their demands were such that, if we'd beaten Argentina, Iceland would have to take down these shows of support in the run-up to the final.

Respect to Iceland for giving them the old Arkell vs Pressdram response though.

Was just watching a Jude edit on YouTube from the England v Argentina semi final, and it is utterly baffling how many fouls Argentina committed. Why did the ref do nothing, repeatedly?

No less than 8+ times when Jude had the ball, masterfully dribbling it across the pitch, that the Argentinian mafia literally sandwich him and trip him, grip onto his jersey. They scramble madly at all costs to dispossess him of the ball. It’s absurd and I think Tuchel / Kane / the players who had multiple, egregious fouls committed on them should have kicked up a bigger fuss with the ref.

Just absolutely disgraceful to see. We admire and watch football for its artistry - Jude’s footwork and athleticism are really marvellous - so a game like this is really disjointing the name of football.

Seeing Jude get tripped by these gangsters time and again, with no yellow card or even free kick awarded to England, was so upsetting I couldn’t even finish watching the edit …

Importantly, the times where he was tackled were really critical moments as well, where he would have had a very high chance of scoring had they not unfairly tackled him. We see in the France game how good he is when both sides play fairly.

I really think this should be reviewed and a complaint lodged with FIFA - even if they don’t end up doing anything about it, England should stand on principle. I think many other countries’ teams would have something to say about Argentina’s dirty playing as well, so these fouls that went unpunished should be compiled and sent to FIFA, an official complaint on record. Just disgraceful

I truly believe that this factor is hugely overlooked.

I coached kids ages 5-11

The idea that we could be practicing tiki-taka all year round is laughable.

Our practice pitches were lumpy mud baths for at least two months of a season. Occasionally frost hardened. Matches regularly called off due to unplayable conditions.

So many people say “look at the Spain passing system - they all know how to pass the ball and move”

Obviously it’s very simple. But the mindset comes early. The best players in England have learned techniques to get around the fact that playing 20 neat flat passes is often impossible.

We can’t learn to pass like Spain because for 99% of kids that style of play does not work between December and February.

So Argentina have automatically qualified for the next World Cup and will get at least 1 game on home soil?

Just discovered this FIFA weirdness. Probably old news but, WTAF.

It's a bit like being at school and the teacher coming in and saying on sports day, in today's sack race Lil Lionel will be starting from 10 yards ahead and won't be racing in a sack. Just FO FIFA.

France scored shortly after so there was no in game replay.

Can you guys stop talking about Argentina and focus on Nations League and Euro 2028 now? Too many Argentina posts around.

Yamal was underwhelming at the World Cup,

I highly doubt Rodri has the widespread popularity to win the award two times.

With Rodri and Yamal splitting the votes, Harry Kane is in a prime position to take home the prize.

Although Kane's presence was somewhat eclipsed by Jude Bellingham during the World Cup tournament, his case for the Ballon d'Or remains undeniable.

Having 61 goals this season and successfully guiding England to the semi-finals, he is absolutely the frontrunner for the award.

The only concern, however, is Kane's lack of global PR compared to other international superstars.

Oof absolutely disgusting. Fifa do something.

In 2006, England and Spain were in virtually identical situations - neither had won a tournament since the 60s, and both had just the sole tournament victory to their name, both with a history of collapse and massive underachievement. This was also arguably the two biggest leagues in Europe at the time, and absolutely undoubtedly now La Liga and the PL are miles clear of anything else in the world. However since then, Spain have won two World Cups, three Euros and a Nations League. As I don’t need to remind you, we have won the square root of nothing. What did they do that we couldn’t to reverse the failure, and what can we learn from them?

Now the World Cup is over, of course feelings are still raw but I think we should start afresh and move on from the Argentina bashing (and I know I’ve been a part of that with my posts of late).

What are your thoughts on how we move forward and look to Euro 2028?

Hello! As the title reads, I’m looking to purchase tickets for the England VS Spain game at Wembley. I’m from the US, and I noticed that the England Supporters Travel Club have early access to tickets, so was wondering if that was worth it. Additionally, I saw a posting for tickets on the website LiveFootballTickets, which I wasn’t entirely sure if it was reliable/real, and was thinking about just buying tickets off there instead. If anyone has info about either, that would be awesome, thanks in advance!

Source: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbCR_DAuj4s/?igsh=YjhhdzN3eXQwcWRn

Of the players named, can you guess which of them have scored for the Three Lions at a World Cup?

Selecting three wrong answers will end the quiz prematurely.

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