At 2.45 I was driving home with the intention of watching it. Made myself a sandwich and cold drink and started watching summat else and totally forgot about it until half time. Bit of a waste of time. No one will remember or even care who came third, so all its doing is prolonging the agony for one set of fans and providing a hollow victory for the others. What happens if it goes to pens? Do the winning players rush from the halfway line to pile on the keeper or just clap politely?
Totally different. We haven't come third in a race. We were knocked out of the competition on Wednesday evening. This is just dragging out the agony. Don't get me wrong. I think England have done well to get to the semis, but this isn't for me.
It's the same as bronze medal contests at the Olympics in events such as hockey, football, judo and boxing. The rules have been the same for the last 88 years.
Sorry. Still don't feel any less flat. I can't remember anyone on Wednesday saying "ah well, we're knocked out, but there's still the bronze medal up for grabs"
I agree with the OP. There’s bronze medal for tennis at the Olympics yet you’ll not see a third place play off at Wimbledon. In the records it’ll say we finished fourth at this World Cup but whether we’d have won this game or lost it (as we have) I would’ve still said “we got to the semis” either way.
We have been done twice to a country of 11 million. 1-0 to their reserves and 2-0 to their first team. This after losing to a small four million country. The tournament has ended flat for us.
What the **** has population to do with it. We simply lost to 2 better teams. It may have ended flat for you but reaching the semifinals was beyond what the vast majority of us thought. Overall,, it’s been a good tournament, a great platform to build from. By the way we had as many changes as Belgium in the first game.
They should be doing better to be honest. Bigger population should mean more talent to pick from. Like why China always top the medals table at the Olympics and why it's an incredible achievement for New Zealand to dominate Rugby Union so consistantly.
China are trying to improve their national game with large infastructure investments , but it's going to take 20/30 years before that bears any fruit . New zealand is a perfect example that size does not matter when considering who should win who within sporting encounters .
China didnt top the medals table at Rio, USA did... and we got more golds than China and a similar medal tally. Its not about population, its about infrastructure and other competing national sports etc. Football has never been huge in China until the money was pumped into the league. When i taught out there all the kids played basketball.