Are you saying you’ve got Georgia on your Mind… 
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I was out with Georgia all night last Sunday. I’ll leave it there!
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Absolutely.
You have to take into consideration that it is a month long tournament and teams with aspirations of winning are more likely to play within themselves more whereas teams whose highest aspirations are to qualify for the knockouts will go all out in the group stages.
That isn’t to say I think the turgid football Southgate’s England is all part of some cunning plan but no doubt he wanted to get through the group stages totally unscathed.
Ah ! That’s it then…
Trust Southgate.
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Expect games to get better now teams are playing sudden death cup football. Some teams were doing just that in the last round of games & it improved things I thought. The preliminary rounds are a bit of a chore really.
We’ve run a sweep in work for major tournaments for ages now. Points for getting the result right at 90 minutes; getting the number of goals scored by 1 or both teams correct and so on. Organiser also awards an extra point if they deem a game to be brilliant and you predicted that too. Entirely subjective but still. On looking back - we work with numbers so he’s obsessed - it’s quite an eye opener to see that with the exception of the semis; most knock out games in the big tournaments are dull as dishwater and a surprisingly high number go to extra time with little having happened prior to that. The most successful predicted score is 1-1. Generally there are 3 great games out of the next 8; 1 in the next 4 and 1 at the semis.
Generally the group stages are the better of the two in terms of entertainment. A wide variety of reasons for that but generally it’s because you can mess about in game 1 and get a draw with no consequence but that does mean that to guarantee qualification you have to deliver a win in one of the next two so it definitely ups the pressure to perform.
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Maybe the games seem better to me (a fan rather than a stistician) because there’s actually something at stake in sudden death? We shall see. As my old ma used to say ‘im as lives longest ill see’t most’.
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I suspect the drama at the end of extra time and then penalties can be confused with entertainment 
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Yep. Now comes the phase of boring 120 minute games, with teams frightened to take risks, ending with the mind-blowingly stupidity of penalty shootouts.
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I love penalty shoot outs without reservation. If you can’t score in 120 minutes and aren’t prepared to take even the teensiest risk to do so then it is absolutely the very least you deserve. Plus it tells you loads about players. Penalties are not complex but the psychology behind them overwhelms plenty who talk a good talk.
I always remember Phil Neal explaining that it was really simple. He only ever put the ball in one low corner or the other and did his own research on the keeper before every match. He never looked at the ref; the keeper or the crowd; made the left or right decision well before he kicked and never ever changed his mind.
If you want to dummy; delay; hop; skip or jump; take a stupidly straight, long or short run; don’t know what you’re going to do before you do it and can’t tune the crap out then why did you agree to take one.
I don;t agree with the terrible abuse of players who miss key penalties but it does always tell you something about them. Saka I guess is a good example. That same unpredictability which can win a game is exactly why his penalties cannot be relied upon. He is spontaneous and has no process (as he himself has said to be fair and probably to the horror of his coaches).
I struggle with Mullin’s penalties for us. He does all the tuning out stuff brilliantly and he mixes his pens. up brilliantly. Has a reputation for walloping them down the middle but actually it’s 50/50. The real question is whether he knows what he’s going to do before he does it. Suspect not.
Famously there is one EPL club with a poor record on pens. who practice them all the time in huge volumes. There is another who have a little session with their key takers in every session. The focus there isn’t about volume. It’s about a player announcing to a keeper and the coach what he’s going to do before hand and then simply doing it. That’s the biggest psychological barrier. Second approach has been more successful for about 4 years now although amusingly 1 season they were given next to no pens.
A rule of thumb suggests to me that, when in the knockout stages, an unfancied side meets a fancied one the outcome is often a good game as the underdogs have nothing to loose & the favourites will fancy their chances.
When two fancied sides meet, both are aware the other side is just as likely to win as they are & the result is often a boring stalemate, result in penalties.
Unless you are England of course when, all too often, we look frightened of anyone.
Just occasionally my ‘rule’ doesn’t seem to apply. Thinking particularly of World Cup 2014, Brazil 1 - Germany 7 & the last WC final.
Each to their own 
I hate 'em. In Saka’s defense (oh my God, did I say that…) I believe that footie is a spontaneous game and should be judged in such a manner.
It is also a team game. Scoring a penalty is only part of the rich tapestry that we call football.
My favourite penalty was (obviously) a Brighton one at the end of 22/23 season.
Very last seconds of the game and we get a penalty against Man U. Penalty award is followed by a very long session of arguing, and faffing, and crowding the penalty spot, and waving hands, and being annoyed, and standing on the penalty spot, and pushing people away from standing on the penalty spot . You know how it can be.
MacAllister was waiting to take the penalty, and tuned out all the noise by just playing Keepy Uppy at the edge of the penalty area. Seemed like a kid on the beach almost oblivious to it all. Finally strolled up to the spot , and buried it. Immense !
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On TV here (US), Spanish-speaking commentators often refer to him as Macca LEE ster. It’s fun to say, so I’ve adopted it too.
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The fact is that he has been as equally unsuccessful as all of the others I.e. he has won nothing. Inept and clueless.
Let’s hope it’s not Hotel Disappointment.
Kind of agree but come on. You’ve had 120 minutes plus to be spontaneous. After that, frankly, it serves you right.
Until recently mine were all the ones we scored at Wembley to beat Grimsby to the FA Trophy. As perfect a set as you’ll ever see until you realise that we all knew McKeown only dives one way for penalties the bizarre man.
More recently it has to be Mullin v Mansfield. From every angle you get a sense that if the keeper had got in the way he’d have lost a body part.
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