Steve McLaren with the best TV moment of the year.
(Credit: @Hoopsterdell)pic.twitter.com/aj5tClMePE
— Football Vines (@FootballVines) June 27, 2016
Despite claims that England’s loss to Iceland is “one of the greatest shocks in the history of soccer,” anyone who has watched Iceland over the last couple years or England over the last 50 should have been able to predict the result of their Euro 2016 knockout-stage meeting.
Iceland beat England 2-1 in the Euro 2016 round of 16 in a match that is being hailed as one of the most shocking defeats in the history of English football. But is it really? Here are all of the perfectly reasonable explanations for this result:
A pair of underwhelming performances to start Euro 2016 earned Raheem Sterling a place on the bench and an excessive amount of criticism both from the press and social media. This has left the 21-year-old Man City player suffering a crisis of confidence. According to the Guardian, incoming City manager Pep Guardiola made a point to call Sterling in an effort to lift his spirits and reassure him in the midst of a difficult period. The following is a transcript of that conversation.
It turns out his racist abuse of fellow casino patrons isn’t the only “old school” thing about England hero Jamie Vardy. The Leicester City striker, who came off the bench to spark England’s comeback against Wales, has discussed his unhealthy practices after being pictured with a Red Bull and a tin of smokeless tobacco at England’s training base in France.
If England’s first match of Euro 2016 was very Spurs, their second was a little bit Leicester City. Gareth Bale put Wales up 1-0 just before halftime with his second goal from a free kick in this tournament and it looked like England were going down an all too familiar road of embarrassment.
It was going so well for England. They played a brilliant and uncharacteristically dynamic first half in their Euro 2016 opener and in the 73rd minute, Eric Dier shocked everyone with a tremendous free kick to break the deadlock.
0 – Eric Dier hasn’t attempted a single shot from a free-kick in his 65 Premier League games. Random.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) June 11, 2016
With Russia looking like the decidedly average side that they are, England looked set to begin their Euros campaign with a win for the first time ever. But— oh shit, is that Mick Jagger in the stands?
Our friends at Art of Football have a beautiful new collection called 50 Years of Hurt, chronicling the half century of pain that has been the England national team. One of the many cool things about this collection is that you can customize a shirt with images of five England players going back to the 1960s.
Here are all the options…
Harry Kane was nearly decapitated just before Euro 2016 when Portugal’s Bruno Alves proved that he does still have the flexibility to kick people in the head at the age of 34 during the final tune-up friendly at Wembley.
Friday, April 8 2016 was apparently the day of a global competition to see who could make the most absurd goalkeeping error. Mickael Roche, who you might remember as the sacrificial lamb in goal for Tahiti during their 10-0 loss to Spain the 2013 Confederations Cup, was an early front runner with his own goal that defies all logic in an Oceania Champions League match.
First things first, this was only a friendly. So you might want to recite that sentence after every single line of this post. That said, it’s only fitting that during a season in which Leicester City are on the verge of winning the Premier League title, England come back from 2-0 down to beat Germany at the Olympiastadion with total disregard for everything humankind knows to be true.
