World Cup Semis & Flaccid England

Everyone had been talking about France being the favourites.

They were looking great, weren't they? They were in second gear going through the tournament.

Spain were quietly impressing, organised, grinding out results, not conceding any goals.

I think they conceded one in the whole tournament, didn't they? They've extended their unbeaten run, if you don't count the penalty shootout in one competition, to I think it's 38 games now as a result of winning the World Cup.

I think that's right.

And they just made short work of France, didn't they? Talking about that game first, what did you make of that? Apart from the fact that it probably should have been the final, what did you make of it, chaps? Who wants to go first? Andy? I thought it was

utterly fascinating.

And I think when we were chatting about it, like in the WhatsApp group, I said, like, Spain were quite boring.

And I kind of stand by that.

But also they were like utterly brilliant.

I mean, I have just never seen a team just so poised and in control as this Spain team.

And they took on like the best attack, the best sort of front three in world football.

and just nullified them completely.

And that is really hard to do.

I mean, you know, Spain had been doing it against, you know, lesser opposition throughout the tournament and sort of like comfortably sort of trotted their way through the tournament.

And then coming up, then coming up against, you know, France's brilliant frontline and Spain were just awesome.

I mean, I didn't think it was that exciting, but I thought it was really impressive.

And I kind of appreciate that performance more after the game than I did when I was actually watching it.

They were magnificent.

And, you know, I backed them to win the whole thing from the outset.

And, you know, the way that France were playing, I was beginning to think, oh, you know what? I think I might have got this wrong.

And then...

My faith was restored in Spain.

They were just comfortably the best team in this tournament.

And it wasn't even close, quite frankly.