The great thing about tournaments is you can discuss them all night, and on that eminently discussable bombshell, I shall take my leave of you all. Thanks for your emails and attention. Have a good evening – there’s always the Outlaws or old episodes of Taskmaster to watch in the absence of football. Bye.
One last England email afore we go, from David Howell:
“... England’s men have won five quarter-finals at major tournaments. Two of them were at home, and the second of those would have been a defeat in the VAR era (Julio Salinas was onside). Another was a near-capitulation against Cameroon that was salvaged by two penalties. The other two were under Southgate.
You can say that he’s had a massive slice of fortune getting such beatable opponents, but England’s men (as opposed to their women) have literally never won a quarter-final without some kind of fortune on some level. This is their level; maybe his defensive instincts are Southgate betraying that he knows it.
(Still think Austria are honest-to-goodness favourites to make the final though. All that stands in their way are Italy, England, and five teams arguably even worse than Italy and England.)
I was sat in line with that Salinas effort at Wembley and it was indeed blatantly onside, though I’d give a bit more credit to England digging in against Cameroon, and the 4-0 against Ukraine in Rome (not Wembley) three years ago had a decent swagger to it. But you would indeed fancy Austria’s chances against anyone in their half of the draw (and I’ve got a cheeky each-way punt on them too).
