@WintaTheAngle Imagine if we also lasered opposite goalkeepers in the eyes, stomped on flags, booed national anthems, dived every single time we entered the penalty box, and even passed a semifinal with a penalty awarded that way. 🥴
@Elessar You’re talking about fans misbehaving, when your squad was pulling people to the ground by their shirt necks because they were frightened of failure. Big difference
@WintaTheAngle You have no idea about football. Do you? Fouls are a part of football. Defenders have to make fouls now and then to stop the opposition from creating chances or scoring. That's part of the game, and that's why we have yellow or red cards. They pay for it when they make a foul. Diving, booing other teams' nation anthems, beating away side's fans outside the stadium, and things like this are not part of the game. Some of you Brits should be ashamed of yourselves.
@LookingForTheSummer You obviously know little yourself. Fans getting beaten outside a stadium is not just an English problem, and is arguably worse on the continet. Diving is not an English problem - its Italy and some South American sides that have always had a reputation for such things. Worst of all, you can't differentiate between England and Brits.
@romper69 The point is, in yesterday's game it was the English diving, not the Italians. That's the context of this talk, yesterday's game, not the history of football (or there'd be plenty of other episodes about literally every team to bring on, and we'd take years to discuss them all).
And "having the reputation" means absolutely nothing, it's in no way different than having an opinion; we have a reputation for diving and you have a reputation for having an extremely toxic fanbase. Cool. But as you said both things are observed in pretty much every alignment - look at Sterling, contextually to dives.
@romper69 The OP is from Scotland, so obviously, you have some supporters in Britain. You do not need to teach me geography. Lol It is evident that England has one of the worst fanbases in the world. Are you going to deny that as well? Some of you guys are racist even towards your own players FFS. Lol
@Elessar If a striker is dribbling with the ball many do go down when any contact is made if it will result in a goal scoring opportunity. Most strikers, like Sterling, that take on players with close quarter dribbling do it. I personally don't like it. But it happens and it happens in every league and in every country. The decision on whether it is a foul is dependent on the ref and those in charge of VAR and still they are a matter of opinion. I've seen games when fouls have been given for less, and not given for more. Some call it clever (not me) some hate it...but many do it. On both sides
@LookingForTheSummer So what if the OP is Scottish. You criticise England and say the Brits should be ashamed. Well you have just insulted everyone from Scotland, Wales and Northern Irland.
No country has the worst fanbase. All have a hooligan element. England has a reputation because of some incidents in the 80s. Their teams were banned from Europe for a number of years. When they returned they became a target. Some, not all, incidents were instigated by other fans (I have witnessed this personally). But England get the coverage. Russia has a big problem. Italy is renouned for its Ultras and have some hooligans motivated in some cases by extreme right/left politics and racism as opposed to stupidity and drunkeness. Look at incidents in South America. Holland. Croatia. Turkey. It's not an English problem, its a worldwide problem. It was an English problem last night. And it was a minority of the fans.
As for some of the fans racist against their own players. Frankly those fuckwits are just racists looking for an excuse to be racist openly. Every team/nation has a racist element of idiots. Just a side note...1000 racist tweets towards those players were removed...it has been reported many came from users outside the UK.
@romper69 Yes, that's what I'm saying, contextually to the history of football pretty much every team has done what they accuse others of doing. I brought Sterling both as a counterexample for "it's Italians who dive and get away with it". Totally agreeing with you on the Ultras here being just as toxic (I knew they were politicized and afaik far-rightwing as well).
Contextually to yesterday's game, it wasn't us diving, and it was *some of* the English fans being more toxic. The ref has been permissive in regards to a lot of potential fouls, and to me it looked like both teams benefitted from it, not just Italy as the OP and some in this post are implying. Let alone the implications that we won only thanks to the ref.
@romper69 I said some of them. I don't know how you jumped to the conclusion that I meant all of them.
Yes, there are hooligans in almost every country. I never said hooligans only belong to England. But why whenever there is a football competition somewhere, the host is worried mostly about English fans? Of course, as long as you think England becomes a target and the rest of the world is unfair towards you guys, there is no point in continuing this conversation.
