Harry Kane was delighted that England had won
Credit: England X
To misquote a famous football commentary ‘They thought it was all over’ but in fact England managed an undeserved win in their match against Slovakia.
This takes them through to the quarter final of Euro 2024 where they will play a very strong Swiss side who beat European Champions Italy 2-0 on Saturday June 29.
Missing the point
Returning to England, it might be fair to say that in 1996, Gareth Southgate missed the penalty (although it did make him money with the shameful Pizza Hut advert) and in 2024 he seems to have missed the point!
The England team is packed full of top class players, although when you study which teams they play for, quite a few come from the less successful Premier League clubs although the bench is also formidable.
Possibly the worst feature of the England team on June 30 is that they really can’t pass with accuracy and every time a long pass was intercepted by a Slovakia player, it gave the opponents a chance to score.
Slovakia having taken the lead, all of the pundits were crying out for a change of players at half time but Southgate took no notice.
Saved by Bellingham and Kane
It was in the last minute of extra time, with everyone expecting the English camp to pack their bags that Jude Bellingham scored an impressive equaliser to allow the match to run into 30 minutes of extra time.
Kane finally found the net as the match restarted and then Southgate could happily claim that his brilliant strategy meant that he kept two substitutes available for use in extra time saw England win.
Spain cruising through
Spain in the meantime and in contrast, took on and vanquished newcomers Georgia 4-1 whilst on the previous day, Germany knocked out Denmark.
At the time of writing, there are four more matches due, France v Belgium and Portugal v Slovenia on Monday July 1 with Romania v Netherlands and Austria v Turkey the following night.
There’s a myth in the theatre that if you have a bad dress rehearsal you will have a great opening show, so England fans must hope that the dress rehearsals are behind them and it will be all systems go against Switzerland on July 6.
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Married to Ophelia in Gibraltar in 1978, John has spent much of his life travelling on security print and minting business and visited every continent except Antarctica.
Having retired several years ago, the couple moved to their house in Estepona and John became a regular news writer for the EWN Media Group taking particular interest in Finance, Gibraltar and Costa del Sol Social Scene.
Currently he is acting as Editorial Consultant for the paper helping to shape its future development.
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