There's also the point of: Southgate deciding not to use his subs until the very last minute, helping guarantee penalties.
That's a truly shitty tactical decision, imo. Penalties are always a lottery, the only thing that would make this a wise decision is if you're subbing in some kind of penalty specialist with a long and storied career of making the penalty count, each time, every time (and even then - great, you've now secured one out of five penalties). Even disregarding how badly England historically does at penalties, he'd have done much better with those same players by giving them a chance to make a difference on the pitch and take the load off the players who'd played a whole 90 minutes already.
But I guess virtue signalling is such a strong call that merely winning an international cup simply isn't a good enough substitute.
the only thing that would make this a wise decision is if you're subbing in some kind of penalty specialist with a long and storied career of making the penalty count, each time, every time
Arguably, he was doing just that - they both have excellent PK records. Rashford in particular. ...But bringing them on so late in the game, they really had no chance to get 'in the zone', and they'd never taken PK's at anything like this level of a tournament before, with this much pressure on them. Rashford's fakeout was golden, but he fumbled the kick. The pressure got to him. 'Cause he's a young kid.
Analysts and pundits were skeptical about the decision the moment it was made, in cluding former England strike and captain Alan Shearer, who played alongside Southgate in Euro '96.
I can't say for certain that this was a deliberate virtue signal plan, but because of the kneeling, the rainbow armband, the 'this is the England team without immigrants' leftist propaganda, I can't trust that it wasn't.
There's also the point of: Southgate deciding not to use his subs until the very last minute, helping guarantee penalties.
That's a truly shitty tactical decision, imo. Penalties are always a lottery, the only thing that would make this a wise decision is if you're subbing in some kind of penalty specialist with a long and storied career of making the penalty count, each time, every time (and even then - great, you've now secured one out of five penalties). Even disregarding how badly England historically does at penalties, he'd have done much better with those same players by giving them a chance to make a difference on the pitch and take the load off the players who'd played a whole 90 minutes already.
But I guess virtue signalling is such a strong call that merely winning an international cup simply isn't a good enough substitute.
Arguably, he was doing just that - they both have excellent PK records. Rashford in particular. ...But bringing them on so late in the game, they really had no chance to get 'in the zone', and they'd never taken PK's at anything like this level of a tournament before, with this much pressure on them. Rashford's fakeout was golden, but he fumbled the kick. The pressure got to him. 'Cause he's a young kid.
Analysts and pundits were skeptical about the decision the moment it was made, in cluding former England strike and captain Alan Shearer, who played alongside Southgate in Euro '96.
I can't say for certain that this was a deliberate virtue signal plan, but because of the kneeling, the rainbow armband, the 'this is the England team without immigrants' leftist propaganda, I can't trust that it wasn't.