England are in the final: The jubilant Mailbox

There is England analysis here but there is mostly joy. Read 16 Conclusions if you want more analysis and go here for a Mailbox dedicated to the bitterness…

Send your mails to theeditor@football365.com

 

Joy unconfined
YES! YES! YESSSSS!!!!!

Come on England. We f**king did it. My Fitbit is on 135. But we did it. Oh god yes you beautiful F365 people. Let’s have it for Sunday. YES!!!

I’m nearly in tears.
Jack, 27, London

 

…I am proud and drunk in equal measures.
Chris Hardy (love you guys)

 

…Up the Marxist Lions.

In all seriousness its just been nice too see this team be the representatives that people (unnecessarily) wanted them to be and for them to be more successful than any England team in my lifetime.

I wish this was the team we had when I cared about international football, treasure them even if Italy win. I know I will
Tyla Roxburgh, Liverpool

 

…Yessssss it’s mother f*cking coming home. Can we get excited now please? 2 minutes to go in extra time?!? Never seen an England team keep the ball like that IN MY LIFE.

BRING ON SUNDAY!
James EFC

 

…Yes it wasn’t a penalty. But also yes we were the better team by a long shot and deserved the win.

Also also yes, this tournament has been a success whatever happens – it hasn’t been the easy run that some dour people have claimed.

Also, we’ve had a lot of home games, but do we then discount any team who has won an international tournament on home soil?

No

Well done lads, we’re proud of you. It’s already home.
Chris, get the f*** in

 

…I refuse to even crack a smile if England aren’t going to win by three clear goals, while we are managed by a man who clearly does not know what he is doing (chuckles sarcastically).

Anyone who has anything other than pride and praise for this group of elite athletes and the management team around them, in the kindest way possible, f*** right off. Don’t watch the final, stay off social media and just leave the rest of us to enjoy football. Bloody football!!

Outstanding!
Tommy Vincent

 

…If there’s one team I didn’t want to knock out on the way to the final it’s Denmark, the last team I can remember who made such a stirring contribution to a tournament was, well, Denmark in 1992…

But what a bloody night, and what a team! 40 years as an England fan and at last a final to get carried away about. Win or lose on Sunday, this feels like a watershed moment, England is different now, and I couldn’t be happier.
Bill Handley, Gloucester

 

…I’m a 36 year old man who was in tears at the final whistle. I first went to watch The Arsenal at the age of 5, I’ve seen us win the league a few times and multiple FA Cups amongst others but supporting England over that time has been nothing but a misery. This changes everything. This is fucking awesome. This is everything I dreamt it would be. There’s still a final to play but we are watching England in that final.

F*** you if you want to dump on this. Get a life and tell your opinions to the nearest wall because we don’t care. England are in a final. This is football and I f***ing love it.
Lee AFC Bristol

 

…England had the easiest route to the final
England had home advantage
England only won because they cheated to win a pen
England will get beaten by the first decent team they meet

I can already hear the salty tears of naysayers both home and abroad

Come on!!! A final, and actual England final in my lifetime!

If you can’t get behind this England team because you are too proud to admit your stubbornness and see past your entrenched politics, then you’re not worthy of the time.
Mat, the ecstatic woke sandal-wearing yoghurt-knitter, Liverpool

 

…No words.

None.

OK a few…..

Who cares what anyone says about anything, England are in the final, and they deserve it.
And they did it the hard way tonight without failing ‘heroically’. Oh and beat some proper teams on the way……..

Bring on Sunday.
Dan, Hornchurch

 

Loving Southgate
That ‘Southgate Masterclass’ meme has gone from sarcastic to enthusiastic.

Impossible to check, but how does he compare to other major tournament managers in terms of bucking public expectations/Proper Football Man demands with team selection & management and always being right?

Was laughing with delight when Saka setup the equaliser- having replaced Sancho who was himself brilliant in the last game (the quarter final, his first start and long overdue according to most of us plebs).

WC 2018 4th place did feel like a bit of a fluke enabled by easy route, easy catharsis after 2016, and Southgate being a decent+smart bloke.

But this feels absolutely earned and that England would be in same place even if they’d wound up in the other ‘tough’ side of the draw.

Gareth is a smart, PR savvy, gutsy AF with team selections and dealing with elite players while clearly keeping the long view in mind.

Wouldn’t have expected any big clubs to go for him after 2018 but win or lose this final, he’ll have elite suitors. The FA should absolutely get their chequebook out.
Calum, Scotland

 

England were brilliant to a man
How often do you watch a game and every player has played well? I can’t remember a single one, until now. And so much more positive in the passing from the start of the game. A revelation!

Sterling was lightning, and again far better and far more dangerous on the right where his strong foot compliments his pace. His fitness was immense too. Just wish he’d be better at shooting. Always been his weakness. That’s the difference between strikers and everyone else.

Kane is back up to speed, whatever was ailing him seems to have passed. Very poor pen but that aside was generally alive and threatening.

Phillips, man he has an engine. Tidy, very aware, good passing and positioning, harrying and tracking back with the same energy (something you rarely see). Had a weak start but he grew and grew.

Selection of Saka still surprises me considering the other options but his pace earned that first goal. Would still rather he and Sterling switch sides, though. Or that it was Sterling and Sancho.

Mount was silk. So much better, fast turns, lovely dribbles. Not a huge output but knitted it all together.

Defenders were excellent as a unit. Shaw awesome again but they all were tbh.

Ok Pickford was a little scary sometimes – and someone needs to teach him to catch the ball instead of punching everything – but did nothing actually wrong.

All this is a distraction of course. We finally made a bloody final! Can we beat the Italians? Of course we can. They should be scared. We should fear no one.

Still can’t actually bring myself to praise Southgate but you can’t argue with the results.

Come on England!
BadWolf (waving my flag with no shame)

 

…Well, well, well. That was intense yet I still felt confident that this team could pull it off – and they did. They really had Denmark on the ropes for large portions of the game. The whole team were great – well, except for a couple of Pickford brain farts – with Sterling and Saka being excellent.

Just wondering what our friend Shappo feels having written in saying Southgate should drop Sterling for the rest of the tournament? He was immense in both the quarter and semi finals.

Bit of luck for sure. But England made that luck by constantly getting around the back of the great Danes.

I thought vestergaard, for being such a big galoot, loved pulling off the ‘oh, he hit me’, dropping down like a ton of bricks. So the penalty was Karma.

Had a stage in the first half when they lost the ball too easily. The free-kick was soft, but well taken. And after hearing all the “let’s see how they respond to going behind”, this team slayed another bogie man and responded superbly – pulled it together and took complete control for the rest of the game.

Looking forward to the final. Yup, going to be intensely tense, but will still feel confidence in this bunch of lads.

Forza Southgate, Forza Sterling, Forza Infhilterra
Paul McDevitt

 

Kyle Walker though…
Can some youtuber please make a compilation video of Kyle Walker’s exceptional body work from this tournament? So often he has got his body in the right place at the right time, chesting the ball back, cutting off runs etc, if ever there was an under-estimated element to this run, it’s Walkers body strength!

(Everyone else will cover the rest, so have at it, roll on Sunday though!)
Jerome, Bristol Spur

 

They were brilliant but…
We did it! Best team won, I’m over the moon but my nerves are in tatters.

We could have done it much easier, some thoughts:

– why did we keep crossing high when playing against giants? (Be a good tactic against Italy tho)
– are Harry Kane and Wayne Rooney related, almost every attack when we try and find our number nine and he’s somewhere near the half way line chasing shadows. That’s not your job man
– when the Danish did a triple sub that was where we should have taken the game to them. Grealish should have replaced Mount, and been full #10 Saka should have been replaced by either Sancho or Foden at the same time.

If we switched tactics right there their subs would have been wasted and we would not have needed extra time.

God I’m a whinging bastard. I’m actually over the moon believe it or not. I just read this back and nearly deleted it all, thought may as well send it if it gets published you can have a laugh at my expense.
Simon Manchester (It’s coming home)

 

The Danes worried us
Made up, what a joy. How lovely to see Denmark spend the last 30 minutes of the match playing for pens to see them complain about England timewasting in the second half of extra time. Was that based on Schmichael playing amazingly and Pickford playing like he does for us?

I cannot understand why Denmark took off Dolberg and Damsgaard – it took away their threat and allowed England to dominate and take more chances and then allowed Southgate to make more attacking subs.

Who cares, we are in to the final. I’d love to spend more time analysing England but will leave that to others.

Though I do suspect how Dolberg, Damsgaard and Braithwaite gave us problems will mean a return to the 343 versus Italy cos their front three has a lot more pedigree…

Cheers
Matt, EFC, London (Dixon was awful, wish I was back listening to foreign comms)

 

Worried about Pickford
England made it to the final in the end, so it might get lost in the wash as a result, but that was a completely honking performance from Pickford.

He was an absolute bomb-scare at the back, causing the England team to retreat after a fine start and providing Denmark with plenty of impetus to get back into the game with his mistakes.

First he threw the ball straight to a Denmark player on the edge of his own box, then he started hoofing aimless balls forward with abandon, at times almost with total panic, completely ignoring his teammates instructions to look for a pass. At one point I thought Maguire might actually deck him.

Clearly Southgate has asked his England side to be comfortable keeping possession and using their keeper as an out ball, but they will not get away with another performance as poor as that from Pickford.

Has to be blamed for the free kick goal as well which was practically in the middle of his goal.

I hate to say it but I worry that he will be the reason why England don’t win it on Sunday, he looks too on edge and the occasion may just get the better of him.

Hopefully Southgate will sit him down with a video of all the times he cost England possession (to be fair he could just make him watch the whole match again it was so often) and work on his composure for the final, because if we give Italy the ball as often as that they will do damage with it.
Aidan MUFC

 

No JWP?
A pleasing performance from England tonight and a deserved win, despite it never being a penalty. But what I find most remarkable is that we’ve made the final without James Ward-Prowse is the squad. Who would have thought?
Everton Bez, Ackworth

 

From Germany…
Congrats! And now its definitely coming Home/Rome.
A couple of quick post match throughts:

1. Denmark looked knackered. always a step behind England. There was only going to be one winner after the 1-1 in my opinion.
2. On the bench: Foden, Grealish, Rashford, Sancho. Terrifying…
3. In my humble opinion, never a pen. Sterling received more contact directly prior to the actual ‘foul’ and did not go down. I was 100% sure that would be overturned.
4. The goal was definitely coming though. I think Schmeichel saved 4 shots during the first half of extra time. Goal deserved, not like that though.

Better team went through, Italy will be a different sort of beast methinks.
Nik (nothing clever to say), Munich

 

We all love Al’s wife
I shall start this by stating I love my wife – because she now knows about Football365 and my occasional emails being published and may see this.

She pops in to watch the Kane’s penalty (she didn’t want to watch the match due to having not watched the others and she didn’t want to jinx in).

Penalty saved and Kane puts the rebound in.

I erupt, my wife quite calmly states “ohhhhhhh would you look at how good that grass is.”

That will be my memory of the semi-final and how England reach the final – she is amazing.
Al

 

What’s the Matter, you?
Well done England, we can dream for a few more days.

I only have one conclusion – whoever decided Sam Matterface and Lee Dixon should commentate should be removed from their post without pay immediately

For me, Ally is the the Uncle I wish I had… Clive
Stewart McNorton