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It's no doubt Southgate cost them the chance of winning the final. He flogged his best players too death. 7 of the English starting 11 played nearly 3 hours more football than the Spanish team.
The England team played 30 minutes more than Spain to reach the final. On the way to the final Spain used every outfield player. England didn't use 3 of their outfield players and one came on for one minute. It was poor squad management, England looked knackered in the final.
No. When the Netherlands team sat off them in the first half of the semi, England had space to play and looked much fresher than they had done earlier in the tournament.
Spain are masters at retaining possession and winning the ball back quickly if they lose it. It proved to much for Croatia, Italy, Germany, France and most definitely for England.
Some interesting analysis here of how England handed the initiative back to Spain when they could have had a bit of momentum after equalising.
https://www.theguardian.com/football...24-final-spain
Very good article. Something to be said for the psychology of momentum in football, or why paying sports psychologists so much money seemed to be the fad a few years ago.
Certainly far too often Southgate's England seemed to have sat back when they have had the game for the taking or at least some momentum, and it's hard to believe when many of these players don't play like that for their clubs it's not the way he's telling them to play or at least not to not play.
It's very telling that reference is made to Walker not often having to face teams that are technically superior to his own. For Walker read Foden, Bellingham, Rice, Kane, Stones and a few others possibly and you begin to understand why the players we are used to seeing performing well in the Premier League and other top European Leagues are unrecognisable when they pull on an England shirt.
I saw an interesting comment from Trippier this morning as well, which was to the effect that the young players like Mainoo and Palmer would have learned a lot for the next tournament, and especially while Lamal and Williams were out there winning the tournament for Spain with a combined age of 37 it seems like a very English sentiment.
England have had golden generations for the last 20 years and have been saying the next one will be their time, at some point the best and most ready players have to be on the pitch and if you are specifically saying that your veterans were out of shape at the end of a long season why the hell didnt he rotate and play the youngsters more? Anything can happen in the next 2-4 years. Odd.
Southgate’s now resigned
Spanish starting 11 total minutes played minus goalie compared to England
Spain. England
431. 690
443. 690
454. 453
471. 690
494. 134
507. 635
521. 622
525. 671
542. 605
546. 177
Looks like the Spanish manager was more astute at player management than Southgate.