It was an ignominious way for England to lose and a reminder, perhaps, that no matter the scale of improvement under Gareth Southgate it is still easy sometimes to slip into bad old habits – in this case a valiant attempt to be recognised as international football’s Slapstick XI once the game had gone into extra time.
If that sounds slightly harsh, how else could that traumatic half an hour be analysed when two of the goals scored by the Netherlands came from the kind of defensive howlers that show Southgate’s team are still getting to grips with the modern era of knocking the ball around their own penalty area?
Written by Daniel Taylor at Estádio D Afonso Henriques, Guimarães
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jun/06/netherlands-england-nations-league-semi-final-match-report under the title “England extra-time misery after John Stones’ blunder lets in Netherlands”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
