Group G
Monday 18th
Belgium v Panama 16:00 BBC1
Tunisia v England 19:00 BBC1
Saturday 23rd, 13:00 BBC1
Belgium v Tunisia
Sunday 24th, 13:00 BBC1
England v Panama
Thursday 28th, 19:00 ITV & ITV4
England v Belgium
Panama v Tunisia
Group G
Monday 18th
Belgium v Panama 16:00 BBC1
Tunisia v England 19:00 BBC1
Saturday 23rd, 13:00 BBC1
Belgium v Tunisia
Sunday 24th, 13:00 BBC1
England v Panama
Thursday 28th, 19:00 ITV & ITV4
England v Belgium
Panama v Tunisia
Tunisia to qualify 5/1
I'm a twit
God if England toss this up it would be glorious.
The Optimism lads, believe in it.
Belgium
England
Tunisia
Panama
Belgium finishing top on goal difference. England to draw with Belgium and beat Tunisia and Panama by one or two goals in uninspiring fashion.
Tunisia first game has set piece 1-1 written all over it.
Suspect Panama will be baloney and that will see us through.
Mikel reckons we can win the World Cup. I need some of what he's on.
England are pretty decent. There's better teams, but any team above a certain level of quality (which England are) can get a good run on in the knockouts if they hit the right vein of form at the right time.
I was taking a long hard look at the Panama squad and I challenge you to find me a worse World Cup team in the past 20 years. The spine of their team is 36 (keeper), 32 and 37 (center backs), 34 (midfield), and 36 and 37 for the strikers. Rounding out those options, they played (in their last game) a dude in the Mexican 2nd division, in the Spanish 3rd league, and their 19 year old starlet who has 1 game for the reserve team of Ghent
They've got a couple guys who play regularly for average MLS teams and that's it
I'm a twit
I love that man.
Cheers.
I'm a twit
What the fuck?
Practicing their diving.
Its not like Januzai is good enough to make an impact anyway.
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I like how Kevin takes him out and just jogs off casually. Didnt give a fuck
England play tonight. 1am for me, which isn't great.
2-0 to The Three Lions (tm)
Oh, and Scotland. Have they qualified in the last 20 years though.
It Tunisia are anything like they used to be (and I imagine they still are) then tonight should be the perfect barometer of just how shit/good (rofl) we are.
I can't help but feel a turgid 0-0 on the horizon, but I'd love to be surprised.
A toiling 2-0 win and a rise in expectations.
If we score early, we win easily. If they see out the first half and it’s still 0-0, they’ll nick one in the second and we’ll be lol’d off the pitch.
A really scrappy 1-0 which will be deemed a GREAT RESULT WITH THE CUP ON ITS WAY HOME.
Harry Kane with the 77th minute winner.
England will be the first of the elite teams to win comfortably without conceding a goal. 4-0.
From the teams who could win the thing. Maybe elite is too generous.
They haven't got a chance of winning it.
Could win it? Have you run mad?
I like Southgate, he seems to have a plan which is an improvement on previous years.
Normal England form would be a scrappy 1-0 which can be explained away as 'just getting into their stride, look at other teams who've struggled' before a flattering result against Panama and a 'creditable' draw with Belgium ahead of at best a quarter final exit against the first decent side we come up against.
I'm actually feeling optimistic. I can't wait to feel like a fucking idiot later this evening.
We haven't had a decent tournament for 20 years so optimism might be a bit of a stretch. I'm interested to see how we do but I have zero expectations.
We really should be making the quarters purely on the draw.
Quarters would still be a good achievement. We have won one KO game since 1990, including Euros!
Don't we run into Brazil/Germany in the quarters? We certainly won't be getting past either of them.
It'd be a good achievement, but on the other hand, stinking our way out of the groups and losing in the last 16 definitely wouldn't be.
For me, it'll be how well we play, and when you go down that train of thought then (like Jim) we probably should get to the quarter-finals if we do.
Semi-Final minimums for England. The team isn't full of star players anymore. Becuase of this, I think they will do well.
It is wrong, I forgot the win over Ecuador in 06.
If Liverpool can get that close to winning the Champions League then England have an outside chance. If Kane is firing, Sterling brings his Man City form etc. Then you never know. It’s much, much more likely that we get knocked out by Iceland again, but there we are.
Club football is a completely different beast, and if you're going down that road you may as well go the whole hog and cite Leicester's league win as proof that anything can happen.
Kane might fire (he might), Sterling might bring his Man City form (he definitely won't), but there's a body of evidence that suggests they won't. Get England players in a team together and we generally display the creativity of a fish.
Which is why if Tunisia are an organised bore fest they should be a decent barometer of where we are.
One thing I'll say for Southgate though, I do like that he hasn't brought anyone who's actually injured.
It's nice that we can go out without all the 'we're going to win it' bullshit from the press. We have a good young squad we've more coming through the youths, they can just go out there and enjoy themselves for once. Then as confidence grows who knows