Now that the groups have been drawn, what do you think?
I stuck a fiver on England. Probably foolish - stranger things probably haven't happened - but you never know......
It may not be foolish, it depends entirely on what the bet is. Beating Tunisia isn't entirely beyond the realms of fantasy. Winning the competition is.
They actually have a fairly benign group and, assuming they get out of the group, will avoid the big teams in the first knockout game. After that it's just a couple of games from holding the cup aloft. Simple as that*.
*Except we looked typically mediocre and uninspiring in our recent friendlies.
Assuming you got 16/1 odds or thereabouts that feels about right. Not impossible just unlikely (especially when Spain, Brazil and Germany are 4/1 or 5/1. Think I'd rather have my money there).
I'd like to refer you to my overall assessment of England. I think I got it about right.
We were mediocre.
We beat poor teams and got beaten by good teams. That perfectly sums up "mediocre".
Our
"promising young players" were mediocre whilst the even younger French youngsters won it.
Never again will the stars line up like that for an England triumph. No Holland and almost all the major teams looked poor.
France totally deserved it, they drew once and won the rest.
We have some incredibly overrated players, like Raheem Sterling and Jordan Henderson.
I think the euphoria about getting to the Semi-finals needs to be tempered by looking at how we got there, who we beat to get there, and how close to not beating some quite average teams we were.
We can play "on the floor" in areas that don't matter but we revert to type, with long-balls to short players, when the going gets tough.
Harry Kane is a quality player, true World class in my eyes. Jordan Pickford did himself no harm at all, he looked commanding and capable, amazing given his age. From there I'd say Maguire looked promising but then I start to struggle. Stones possibly.
I was disappointed that Southgate stuck with Sterling and never gave Rashford a full game.
Overall the history books will show we were the 4th best team at the Tournament, Gareth will probably get an MBE, Raheem Sterling will probably get an extra few million quid a year but I was quite shocked at how typically England it got when things started to go against us. We still don't have good enough technique with the ball.
Ah well... you never know. We are very successful at youth level in tournaments now. If (and it's a huge IF) they get game-time with Premiership clubs* then the future is bright.
*This is at the root of the issue. Our promising youth don't play enough at the cutting edge in the premiership.