Good Monday morning, TSFers. I hope everyone had a nice weekend relaxing and watching football. It’s a weird, truncated week in the States because July 4th falls on Thursday — some people have off or are taking off Friday to give themselves the four-day weekend. Make sure you’re aware of when there will be large fireworks display in your area so that you and your pets aren’t caught off guard!
England squeezed by Slovakia 2-1 but needed a 95th minute, overhead kick equalizer from Jude Bellingham to force the match into extra time. Harry Kane put the Three Lions ahead in the 91st minute. Slovakia didn’t manage much in extra time after going behind. It’s weird how that works from an official scoring standpoint — Bellingham’s equalizer scored in 2nd half added time happened “after” Kane’s go-ahead goal scored in extra time. Obviously in real time, the 2nd goal happened after the 1st, but the scoresheet says otherwise.
Until the late goals, it was a toothless performance from England. They had all the possession and no shots on target to show for it. Gareth Southgate’s preferred setup just doesn’t work. The players want to play in the same spaces and their skills / tendencies don’t mesh well. For England to look like the side we believe they have the attacking talent to be, Southgate will have to drop one or more of the four he’s been starting up top.
I’ll note that England scored two goals almost immediately after Phil Foden came off and they played more direct football. Get the big lads forward, lump it into the mixer, and see what happens. It’s football ‘eritage. In all seriousness, if Southgate wants to keep Harry Kane on the pitch, he needs to play a true left winger who will stay wide and run in behind down that flank.
To pick on Manchester City a bit more, Kyle Walker was dreadful against Slovakia. That’s not tribalism on my part, either. That said, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to provide analysis or have a discussion about the England side because most club supporters see their rivals’ players as the problem and their players as the solution.
The Chelsea fans are particularly bad with Cole Palmer, who hasn’t shown much this tournament. To be fair to him, he’s really good at whipping the ball into the box for defenders to head away, not unlike Sead Kolasinac or Cedric. For some statistical context, Palmer has lost / given the ball away 11 times this tournament, more times than Bukayo Saka has done at the last two combined.
In other Euro action, Spain smashed Georgia 4-1. Georgia were fun to watch and countered as well as anybody, but they couldn’t find the killer touches at the right time. Today, France play Belgium at 12 pm and Portugal face Slovenia at 3 pm, both matches are on FOX.
The USMNT have a pivotal match against Uruguay in Copa America. The US need a result and could need a win against the 15-time champions, who just crushed Bolivia 5-0. The US match is at 9 pm on FS1. Bolivia vs. Panama is at the same time on FS2.