TimRam

Yes. The country, nay the world, is in upheaval, and for days the main news item is a football tournament. Not even a world event. 
How much attention does the European athletics tournament get for example compared to the Olympics? 
Even now it's over it still gets greater prominence than plans to come out of the most serious pandemic we have ever experienced. 
It's a tournament which has brought out the best and worst of behaviours. 
One minute we are all being cautious to protect others, the next everyone is hammered and people are being stampeded in a bid to storm Wembley. 
Be sensible is replaced by let's all go mental and have Monday off. 
England gets a bad reputation because it goes so far over the top when its sporting heroes come good. 
Most of the excitement is adopted by those who don't even like football, they just want to party and shout Ingerlund. 
Anyone who is not 'them' gets abuse, including national anthems. 

Too soon?
 

And to think at approximately 20:03 last night the country was a wonderful place and it felt like anything was possible.  Then by midnight it a complete an utter poo hole full of disgusting racists & nutjobs who only seem to follow the national team as an excuse to be a dick head for a few days a year.
I wanted us to win more than anything because I know what it's going to be like for the three lads to fluffed their penos.  Yes they were crap, but there's no need to spew the racist bile that a lot of these gammon heads have subjected them to already.  Bar the Scotland match the whole team performed admirably and shouldn't feel any way ashamed of their achievements this summer.
Personally if I were Southgate I wouldn't have sat back in the 2nd half as much as we did, but you have to give the Italians some credit in sorting themselves out at half time and pressing us a lot more effectively.  Unfortunately once their goal went in you could only see one winner

I was a bit pissed off at full time with some of Southgates decisions, & I do wonder if he wishes he’d never made those last two subs... but hey what the duck do I know about top level football management...nowt...& it’s the first time in my 50 odd years that I’ve had the excitement, hope, & alas ultimately heartbreak of seeing England in a major final.
A huge, huge opportunity missed...yes definitely ... but what a journey, I loved every minute of it (well almost every minute lol).. but hey it’s just a game, the sheep are still grazing on the tops & life’s rich tapestry continues to unfold. 
The best team won... it would of been worse if we’d of been the better team & lost, but quite clearly we wasn’t. 
 

Too soon?
 

Too soon?
 

Too soon?
 

Too soon?
 

I watched most of the games in the tournament, maybe only missed 3 or 4 group games.
My excitement actually decreased as it went on and I can't say exactly why. I think it must be because we we awful to watch apart from one game and although I'm disappointed we lost, I'm not one bit "gutted".
The penalties we missed sum it up for me, they were half-arsed, just put your laces through the fecker.
Pickford must be distraught!

Too soon?
 

Too soon?
 

All 1966 players. They won the World Cup. 
Modern crop can't say that. 
 

Scotland. ?

It's been 55 years since we've been to a final and we've only ever reached one semi final before in a European championship. The English team are literally making history, it's not a regular occurrence (literally once in a lifetime for most of us) but yet the broadcasters and us are making too much of it? yes, the coverage has been overly sentimental but you're writing as if you're alien to the world of football- the entire emotional dynamic of football (all sport really) is centered around sentimentality creating an emotional resonance that is by definition overindulgent and simultaneously fleeting. 

Combined with this is the easing of lockdown after a very long year and a half it's creating the perfect storm for a festival of 'cringeworthy joy' in your head I'm sure but for many of us it's an outburst of joy and sentimentality that football does bring in that 90 minutes (and for a few hours afterwards). Yes sweet caroline is an anodyne song on its own but when you have 70,000 people singing it at wembley or 200 in a crowded pub or 1,500 in a town centre at midnight it is not the song but the unity and collective joy that  it's emphasising and expressing giving it its power. 

 Have you not seen the tv viewing figures for all the games since the knockout rounds? The semi final was literally the most watched live event in UK tv history- pretty much the entire country was watching as the audience share was creeping around the 90% figure and I don't believe that even counts the pubs. I mean even newsnight were covering it for a good portion of their show. So, the 'insinuation' that the vast majority of the country were watching and invested was just stating the truth that we were. 

If you don't want to watch that's of course up to you and if you find the entire atmosphere cringe inducing then that's your opinion. Yes, people overstate the ability of football to bring people together (world cup 2018 for example) and yes it is overly sentimental that can be deemed as off putting akin to forced enjoyment. But when the vast majority of the country is watching and celebrating it's not unfair to point that fact out. Personally, I love tournament football precisely for moments like these where people generally let go of big differences for small periods of time, stop thinking about the more important stuff have some fun and enjoy one another's company. Actually, it's why I love football full stop! 

Typical England... same old same old England.
"We got to a final" - yes, we did... but look at how Italy got to the final, beating Spain and Belgium, and then look at how we did it. Credit where it's due, we beat Ukraine and Denmark and managed to play out a goalless draw with a pub side from Scotland, and beat one of the worst Germany sides you've seen in years... so, credit for that England, sure. But really Italy deserve this FAR more than we do, and honestly if we'd have won the tournament tonight on penalties I think we'd have absolutely robbed them.
Once again, as soon as we come up against anybody half decent - we lose. The nation gets a massive boner over the team because "we're in a final" or "we're in a semi final", but we've got there really by getting lucky and being drawn against a bunch of far inferior teams which allows us to basically walk our way in to the latter stages, allows us to flatter to deceive, makes us look better than we actually are. It happened in the world cup and it happened again here. If we'd have played Italy, Belgium, Spain or France in the round of 16 we'd have been out ages ago.
On to the game itself... we had TWO shots on target. TWO. One of those came from our LEFT BACK.. our LEFT ducking BACK. A wealth of attacking talent, all millionaires, all star names for their clubs, and it's our left back who's getting the goal. Can anybody tell me who got our other shot on target, without googling it? I actually have no idea. It was probably a header from a corner. That's the way this England team plays... defend as though you believe the other team is better than you are, as if you're scared of them, despite the fact that any one of your players could walk in to the Danish side (for example), and then hope to grab a cheeky goal from a corner or an own goal or a penalty. It's ducking boring, it's ducking embarrassing, and it's ducking cowardly.
WHY ON EARTH was Saka expected to take that final penalty when there's seasoned and senior pros in the side who could have volunteered ahead of him? Where's our apparent golden boy Raheem Sterling? Didn't he fancy it?
Our supposed messiah of a manager made 2 substitutions with about 30 seconds to go, which I can only assume was so that those players could take a penalty... and they both missed. Bravo, Gareth. Bravo. I honestly feel really sorry for Jordan Pickford.
Anyone else notice that all 3 players who missed, and one for Italy in Jorginho, all took some elaborate run-up? Just run up to the ball and put your ducking laces through it for ducks sake.
It's boring! Can we not play like we want to win for once, rather than like we're just trying not to lose? Can we not HAVE A ducking GO?!
Please, somebody, tell me why I should believe that this England team are anything other than lucky to get this far in the first place, and why I should believe that we have any hope of doing well, or even playing anything remotely resembling entertaining football, at next years World Cup.

If Rashford and Sako were good enough that the manager thought that they could convert high pressure one on ones then why were they brought on with about 2 minutes to go.

There was a reason Saka was taken off v Denmark. Grealish should have been on sooner. There, I've saved everyone a post (or not read any of the previous ones!).
Rant over, well done England. Thought Italy just about were the better team specially in 2nd half. Shows we can go toe-to-toe with best European team.

Can’t help thinking we scored that goal too early. We didn’t seem to wake up until they equalised. Italy deserved to win it overall though. 

Don’t get the choice of Saka for the final penalty - where were Sterling?, Grealish? Shaw?

Wtf is all that weird stutter running for penalties!!? Just pick your spot and hit it. Bizarre 

Saka was poo since he came on. South Gate should have seen that

Grealish not on HT crazy. Ah well here we go 

No changes ?

It’s almost like we let a 19 year old kid take the most important penalty in 55 years ?