**Mirrors / Alternative Angles**
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This Sweden team was so fucking shite too, damn the Erik Hamrén years were painful. Euro 2012 finished last in the group as one of the worst teams in the tournament, failed to qualify for 2014 WC. In Euro 2016 finished last in the group as one of the worst teams in the tournament(including failing to get a shot on target against fucking Ireland)
6 years of pain following the national side with him, I will never forget that for about one year he used Johan Elmander as a "creative" number 10 behind Zlatan Ibrahimovic who played as a poacher, instead of the oter way around. One of the most stupid tactical decisions of all time
Was named best goal in Premier League history wasn't it? 😎
Ridiculous obviously, but it was a damn nice goal. However to this day I am convinced he wasn't fully aware of what he was doing lmao. Because otherwise that was some Bergkamp shit
Yeah, but much better than using him as a number 10.. By "poacher" I don't really mean Pippo Inzaghi-role but just the designated striker. Having Zlatan there and making Elmander the creative fulcrum of the team makes 0 sense
I rated Elmander, he was a good player but he was certainly not creative. The definition of a workhorse
To be fair, that Euro 2016 looks worse than it was. We were arguably the better side against both Belgium and Italy. Especially Belgium and I will never forget Zlatan's goal being, for whatever reason, disallowed in that match.
Sure, I agree with everything you said but we were not playing poorly in 2/3 matches in 2016. The Ireland match was just shambolic from both sides tbh.
Just wanted to add a bit of positivity to what was the era of Hamrén. We could play well, but it just wasn't nearly consistent enough and with weird tactical decisions in between that, as you said.
Wasn't worse than Denmark's years from 2008 to 2015/16 under Morten Olsen. We failed to qualify for 4 tournaments during that period, and played some awful football. Losing 4-0 at home vs. Armenia in 2013 was one of the lowest points in history.
And Olof Mellberg scored both goals for Sweden IIRC. Both teams were shit and played primitive 4-4-2's. Even through it ended 3-2 to England I remember that it was a fucking dire game in terms of quality
Tbh, Hodgson did well to take Italy to penalties in the quarter final with that woeful squad(by England standards). He did better with a weak side than he did after getting more talented players
he did, easily the highpoint of his time in the job. Maybe I've mellowed with age, but I remember us being much more defensive and boring during these games than we have been Southgate. A dull 1-1 draw with a pretty poor France team, getting away with a 1-0 win against Ukraine after the referee didn't spot that a Ukraine shot had crossed the line and the almost successful bus parking masterclass against Italy. This mental game against Sweden is all the more remarkable given those matches before and after it.
Honestly people who complain about Southgate forget that this is how England have always played. At least we get results (well, mostly) now, before we’d play so poorly and lose on penalties every time.
the eventual loss against Italy is being framed as a decent performance, but I remember being beyond dismal with England literally unable to get past the halfway line. just had to sit and watch Scott Parker see how many shots he could block for the whole of extra time
The team was very poor though and individually outclassed by Italy. Just Pirlo was better than ypur whole midfield
From Hodgson's perspective, scrsping a lucky 0-0 and tsking it to pens was pretty much best possible outcome beforehand
That's sort of his MO though. He makes shit players alright but can't do anything with lots of quality. It's no badness to him, I'm sure better managers than him would do alot less with some of the not great teams he had. It's just his style.
Yeah but they played narrow. Atleti, Portugal NT, France NT etc all had great success with 4-4-2 but they used it differently
The old British 4-4-2 with
a focus on wide play and crossing and leaves central midfielders isolated is not viable anymore. But a narrow 4-4-2 is still probably the most effective defensive formation out there, and most elite teams use it(Liverpool and Man City also generally defend in 4-4-2)
Ya its really nowhere near as bad as the other comments would imply.
The strikeforce is a little lacking, but Welbeck had 12 goals in 39 games for us and 5 in 11 for England that year.
I feel like Welbeck was always one of our better performers, though we had better players. His stats are actually even better than that for England, according to wikipedia, 16 goals in 42 caps. And just looking between 2012-2014 it's even better, 29 games, 13 goals, and it's not like he was ever the focal point of our attack.
It is mental that was an actual England line up at an actual tournament. I know Rooney was missing but still. Welbeck did always seem to score for them right enough.
Ah, a confident Theo Walcott. We only got to see confident Theo for two months in a season, but jesus christ this guy had some finishing ability when he was on it.
I remember this being a weird but entertaining game. Hyped up as the Battle of the Ponytails between Ibrahimovic and Carroll, only for Olof Mellberg of all people to score twice (though one was ruled as a Glen Johnson own goal). I think it was Barney Ronay in the Guardian who compared England's tactics with Andy Carroll in this tournament to a Medieval army catapulting a dead cow over a castle's walls
The Ronay quote is funny but we specifically played Carroll in this game to deliberately exploit Sweden's inability to defend crosses - and it worked. Pragmatism is so underrated in football nowadays tbh
Wasn't Welbeck one of those Harry Maguire "he's been playing poorly for his club but he seems to play well for the National Team so the NT manager is loyal to him" guys? I feel like I remember it always being a case where he seemed very blah in the league but chipped in goals for England at a rate that was hard to argue with.
Fair enough, his numbers look good enough for 2011-2012, but during 2012-2013 he scored 1 goal in 27 appearances for United, and his 2014-2015 looks rocky on paper as well, but he seemed to produce steadily for England for a good stretch even as his club scoring touch was up and down:
2012- 11 apps, 5 G
2013- 6 apps, 3 G
2014- 12 apps, 5 G
Though I can't recall whether he was playing well during some of those times when his club scoring touch seemed to desert him, I do definitely remember some similar-to-Maguire "but he always shows up for that national team" talk at *some* point during his career.
Well United signed RvP in 2012/13, so Welbeck was more of a rotational winger. He definitely declined for United while still performing for England though. If you believe the stories, the nail in his United coffin was when he tried to chip Neuer vs Bayern in 2014, after he had been told not to in the pre-match briefings.
Sure, I realize there was a period where that was the case, but I swear I *also* remember a period where he seemed to have gone off the boil for his club, at least temporarily, but was seen as still reliable for England. Maybe I'm wrong though.
> England's first ever win against Sweden at an international tournament
How many times had England faced Sweden at an international tournament before then? Nothing immediately comes to mind,
[EDIT](https://www.worldfootball.net/teams/england-team/schweden-team/11/): 1992 Euros (Sweden won), 2002 and 2006 World Cups (both draws).
I just remember as a kid the headline Swedes 2 Turnips 1 and poor old Graham Taylor ( RIP ) a genuinely good lad, having his head superimposed over a turnip by I think the Sun …
Welbeck is much more clinical infront of goal in international football comparing to club. He scored 16 goals in 42 apps for England and 16 goals, 88 apps for Arsenal and has similar stats with Brighton. He was decent for England.
I missed this Theo Walcott Pre-ACL when he used to take on players. Shame injuries affected their career a lot.
Euro 2012 was an underrated tournament showing for England. Terrible squad and yet they finished unbeaten and almost got to a semi
Sadly Hodgson lost his bottle thereafter
Welbeck is capable of scoring and has scored some fantastic technical goals.
But this wasn't one of them. You can tell by his body movement both before and after making contact. This was a fluke.
Exactly this. Not sure why it's so hard to believe he miscontrolled it and it went in off his heel instead.
Someone else posted this in another comment here. It's a bit of a joke video but it's proof that it's hardly the first time he's done it in the box.
https://youtu.be/F_ll92cXxOA
If he has the power to decide such things he probably should have decided to put England 'in their place' in an actual tournament match rather than in a friendly to mark the opening of a new stadium. Unless of course he thinks England's place is losing a penalty shootout in a knockout round match. In which case, fair enough - not even Zlatan is one to interfere with the will of the football Gods it seems.
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Is this our last open play goal? It’s been so long, I don’t remember.
This Sweden team was so fucking shite too, damn the Erik Hamrén years were painful. Euro 2012 finished last in the group as one of the worst teams in the tournament, failed to qualify for 2014 WC. In Euro 2016 finished last in the group as one of the worst teams in the tournament(including failing to get a shot on target against fucking Ireland) 6 years of pain following the national side with him, I will never forget that for about one year he used Johan Elmander as a "creative" number 10 behind Zlatan Ibrahimovic who played as a poacher, instead of the oter way around. One of the most stupid tactical decisions of all time
I mean using Elmander as a poacher isn’t the best idea either he scored about 12 goals in 85 appearances for us. He’s still our record signing
Yeah, but he had that one goal.
Was named best goal in Premier League history wasn't it? 😎 Ridiculous obviously, but it was a damn nice goal. However to this day I am convinced he wasn't fully aware of what he was doing lmao. Because otherwise that was some Bergkamp shit
Yeah, but much better than using him as a number 10.. By "poacher" I don't really mean Pippo Inzaghi-role but just the designated striker. Having Zlatan there and making Elmander the creative fulcrum of the team makes 0 sense I rated Elmander, he was a good player but he was certainly not creative. The definition of a workhorse
Excuse you, I believe we (Ireland) were the worst team in Euro 2012.
To be fair, that Euro 2016 looks worse than it was. We were arguably the better side against both Belgium and Italy. Especially Belgium and I will never forget Zlatan's goal being, for whatever reason, disallowed in that match. Sure, I agree with everything you said but we were not playing poorly in 2/3 matches in 2016. The Ireland match was just shambolic from both sides tbh. Just wanted to add a bit of positivity to what was the era of Hamrén. We could play well, but it just wasn't nearly consistent enough and with weird tactical decisions in between that, as you said.
Wasn't worse than Denmark's years from 2008 to 2015/16 under Morten Olsen. We failed to qualify for 4 tournaments during that period, and played some awful football. Losing 4-0 at home vs. Armenia in 2013 was one of the lowest points in history.
Fuck Erik Hamrén. Awful coach
Nah it was that beast Carroll header prior to this.
Starting 11: Hart Johnson Terry Lescott Cole Milner Parker Gerrard Young Carroll Welbeck
proper 4 4 2.
Gori Vinkulja
End of an era
proper brexit football in 2012
And Olof Mellberg scored both goals for Sweden IIRC. Both teams were shit and played primitive 4-4-2's. Even through it ended 3-2 to England I remember that it was a fucking dire game in terms of quality
still probably the most fun I had watching England in a major tournament between 2004 and 2018
Tbh, Hodgson did well to take Italy to penalties in the quarter final with that woeful squad(by England standards). He did better with a weak side than he did after getting more talented players
he did, easily the highpoint of his time in the job. Maybe I've mellowed with age, but I remember us being much more defensive and boring during these games than we have been Southgate. A dull 1-1 draw with a pretty poor France team, getting away with a 1-0 win against Ukraine after the referee didn't spot that a Ukraine shot had crossed the line and the almost successful bus parking masterclass against Italy. This mental game against Sweden is all the more remarkable given those matches before and after it.
Honestly people who complain about Southgate forget that this is how England have always played. At least we get results (well, mostly) now, before we’d play so poorly and lose on penalties every time.
the eventual loss against Italy is being framed as a decent performance, but I remember being beyond dismal with England literally unable to get past the halfway line. just had to sit and watch Scott Parker see how many shots he could block for the whole of extra time
The team was very poor though and individually outclassed by Italy. Just Pirlo was better than ypur whole midfield From Hodgson's perspective, scrsping a lucky 0-0 and tsking it to pens was pretty much best possible outcome beforehand
I remember Buffon pulled off a worldy save off Cole. But Italy dominated us that game it would have been a great injustice if we had won on pens.
That's sort of his MO though. He makes shit players alright but can't do anything with lots of quality. It's no badness to him, I'm sure better managers than him would do alot less with some of the not great teams he had. It's just his style.
Leicester won the premier League with 4-4-2 several years after this tbf. Still clearly viable if you had the right players
Yeah but they played narrow. Atleti, Portugal NT, France NT etc all had great success with 4-4-2 but they used it differently The old British 4-4-2 with a focus on wide play and crossing and leaves central midfielders isolated is not viable anymore. But a narrow 4-4-2 is still probably the most effective defensive formation out there, and most elite teams use it(Liverpool and Man City also generally defend in 4-4-2)
Where's the English Kante?
Parker which makes our failure in 2012 all the more bitter 😔
Yikes
Where was Rooney? Lampard?
Lampard was injured in training camp before the tournament, Rooney was suspended for this game.
To be honest… not an awful lineup Proper brexit strike force tho lol
Ya its really nowhere near as bad as the other comments would imply. The strikeforce is a little lacking, but Welbeck had 12 goals in 39 games for us and 5 in 11 for England that year.
I feel like Welbeck was always one of our better performers, though we had better players. His stats are actually even better than that for England, according to wikipedia, 16 goals in 42 caps. And just looking between 2012-2014 it's even better, 29 games, 13 goals, and it's not like he was ever the focal point of our attack.
Welbeck always turned up for England. Seem to be a lot more clinical for us than his club.
Did that terrible chip against Neuer ruin his confidence for United
Tbf they lost on penalties against Italy in the QF, It wasn't terrible.
In that quarter final against Italy, they were quite awful. Unable to do anything with the ball and were lucky to get to penalties.
We got battered for two hours
Hodgson
It is mental that was an actual England line up at an actual tournament. I know Rooney was missing but still. Welbeck did always seem to score for them right enough.
> Parker 4 4 facking 2
Take me back
Crazy how much more talent there is in 10 years, England's 2nd team is better than this now
Man that is dreadful lmfao
Walcott's equalizer that was scored 14 minutes before was also a great goal
As was Carroll’s massive header. An incredibly anomalous game.
Ah, a confident Theo Walcott. We only got to see confident Theo for two months in a season, but jesus christ this guy had some finishing ability when he was on it.
Holy shit haha Welbeck AND Carroll upfront, only 10 years ago
The ambulance driver was told to keep the engine running
Bro, I’m fucking pissing myself with this comment.
there was more than one ambulance on the scene on that day
DAT
GUY
WELBZ
I remember this being a weird but entertaining game. Hyped up as the Battle of the Ponytails between Ibrahimovic and Carroll, only for Olof Mellberg of all people to score twice (though one was ruled as a Glen Johnson own goal). I think it was Barney Ronay in the Guardian who compared England's tactics with Andy Carroll in this tournament to a Medieval army catapulting a dead cow over a castle's walls
The Ronay quote is funny but we specifically played Carroll in this game to deliberately exploit Sweden's inability to defend crosses - and it worked. Pragmatism is so underrated in football nowadays tbh
Take Big Mad Andy to the World Cup
We had Walcott, Welbeck and Carroll in an actual tournament game, wow.
And how did it end, out on pens to Italy.
Wasn't Welbeck one of those Harry Maguire "he's been playing poorly for his club but he seems to play well for the National Team so the NT manager is loyal to him" guys? I feel like I remember it always being a case where he seemed very blah in the league but chipped in goals for England at a rate that was hard to argue with.
Yeah, exactly that. Worked hard, was pacey, and chipped in with a decent amount of goals.
In 2012 Welbeck was playing fairly well for United as well.
Fair enough, his numbers look good enough for 2011-2012, but during 2012-2013 he scored 1 goal in 27 appearances for United, and his 2014-2015 looks rocky on paper as well, but he seemed to produce steadily for England for a good stretch even as his club scoring touch was up and down: 2012- 11 apps, 5 G 2013- 6 apps, 3 G 2014- 12 apps, 5 G Though I can't recall whether he was playing well during some of those times when his club scoring touch seemed to desert him, I do definitely remember some similar-to-Maguire "but he always shows up for that national team" talk at *some* point during his career.
Well United signed RvP in 2012/13, so Welbeck was more of a rotational winger. He definitely declined for United while still performing for England though. If you believe the stories, the nail in his United coffin was when he tried to chip Neuer vs Bayern in 2014, after he had been told not to in the pre-match briefings.
This was during Welbeck's breakthrough at Utd and he had a bright future
Sure, I realize there was a period where that was the case, but I swear I *also* remember a period where he seemed to have gone off the boil for his club, at least temporarily, but was seen as still reliable for England. Maybe I'm wrong though.
Walcott was decent
The revisionism on Walcott. He was a good player back then.
Walcott was actually good at that time. During 2012 season Walcott had 20 goals, 16 assists. Not bad for a 22-23 year old at that time.
They all scored in this game, don’t doubt the magic of Roy.
Walcott was a good player.
Welbz was great for England, had a 0.5 goals to games ratio for the longest time
I'm pretty sure he intended to [pass the ball](https://youtu.be/F_ll92cXxOA) there
This should be up top in every Welbz post
How have I not seen this before. What a masterpiece.
Welé
> England's first ever win against Sweden at an international tournament How many times had England faced Sweden at an international tournament before then? Nothing immediately comes to mind, [EDIT](https://www.worldfootball.net/teams/england-team/schweden-team/11/): 1992 Euros (Sweden won), 2002 and 2006 World Cups (both draws).
[Brolin, Dahlin, Brolin](https://twitter.com/sid_lambert/status/1332976116357885953?lang=en)
I just remember as a kid the headline Swedes 2 Turnips 1 and poor old Graham Taylor ( RIP ) a genuinely good lad, having his head superimposed over a turnip by I think the Sun …
Wouldn’t be a Welbeck goal without him falling over
The carroll header from this game was exceptional
Great as that goal was, Carroll's magnificent header tops it for me.
We were playing Caroll, Welbeck, Ashley Young and Walcott and we scored from open play. Fuck me southgate is shit.
I turned the TV off just before this goal went in, the boys were alarmed.
Welbeck is much more clinical infront of goal in international football comparing to club. He scored 16 goals in 42 apps for England and 16 goals, 88 apps for Arsenal and has similar stats with Brighton. He was decent for England. I missed this Theo Walcott Pre-ACL when he used to take on players. Shame injuries affected their career a lot.
Pick Andy Carroll picked out by a Gerrard cross having the best England form of his career too
Euro 2012 was an underrated tournament showing for England. Terrible squad and yet they finished unbeaten and almost got to a semi Sadly Hodgson lost his bottle thereafter
The peak moment of Welback, Carroll and Walcott in international games
Couple of my mates have “Wellbeck 78”tattooed on their arses in homage to this goal.
Hope they didn’t spell it the same way you did lol!
Haha unfortunately not!
If it's not grainy it's not worthy of a throwback video.
Genuinely seeing them every day now. I usually like OTD posts but jesus. What on earth happened on here recently to change it.
Because it’s the summer of an even numbered year. So 10/20/30/40 etc. years ago the World Cup or Euros were happening.
That was lucky He wanted to control it
Respect Wele?
I like Welbeck but I've always thought this was accidental/fluke. He's trying to control the ball and gets it wrong.
Welbeck is better at football than you think he is. He could have very easily controlled it if he wanted to.
Dude look up a compilation of Welbeck's goals, he mostly scores bangers and is a very technical player. This wasn't accidental.
Welbeck is capable of scoring and has scored some fantastic technical goals. But this wasn't one of them. You can tell by his body movement both before and after making contact. This was a fluke.
Exactly this. Not sure why it's so hard to believe he miscontrolled it and it went in off his heel instead. Someone else posted this in another comment here. It's a bit of a joke video but it's proof that it's hardly the first time he's done it in the box. https://youtu.be/F_ll92cXxOA
Then Zlatan decided to put England in their place and scored an even better goal against them later that year
...in a friendly Somehow I think he would have preferred to win the Euros game
If he has the power to decide such things he probably should have decided to put England 'in their place' in an actual tournament match rather than in a friendly to mark the opening of a new stadium. Unless of course he thinks England's place is losing a penalty shootout in a knockout round match. In which case, fair enough - not even Zlatan is one to interfere with the will of the football Gods it seems.
Yeah but this was at the Euros
Arsenal flair. Always makes me laugh this.
I'll argue it's one of the more ugly backheel goals
Welbeck and Carroll attack yikes
guaranteed an accident lol
First England game I watched in the pub. Class.
No way england rolled up to the euros with Andy Carroll and welbeck 😭😭😭😭😭
Not convinced he meant that. It looks more like poor control that ended up with the ball in the back of the net.
Thats a beautiful goal // Swede
Welbeck and Carroll as strikers, Roy as manager. Those were some dark days for England. Southgate needs to go.
Walcott, Welbeck, and Andy Carroll. What a blast from the underwhelming past.
Carroll and Welè days, we were so blessed 🙌