Here are the files included in this episode:

England Key Passes

Netherlands Key Passes

Slovakia Passes

Tom's England Team V Slovakia

David's England Team v Slovakia

England have squeaked through to the last 16 at the 2024 European Football Championships, and they're scheduled to play Slovakia on Sunday 30th June at 17:00.

However, we expected to be playing the Netherlands as Portugal were massive favourites to avoid defeat V Georgia....... but that's what makes sport so fantastic, it's not played on paper! An outstanding performance by Georgia resulted in a 2-0 win, and David tearing his hair out as he'd already completed all the research for the Netherlands! (LOL!) Back to the drawing board, but that research was still interesting to compare Englands expected opponent (Netherlands), against their actual opponent (Slovakia).

England have advanced as group winners, and Slovakia have advanced as a third place finisher from a tough and competitive group containing Belgium (who they defeated 1-0 on match day 1), Romania and Ukraine.

England are currently ranked 5th, and Slovakia are ranked 45th in the current FIFA World Rankings. Therefore, on paper, it would seem that England are strong favourites to progress to play either Italy or Switzerland in the next round.

However, if you've listened to our podcast before you'll know that we look beneath the surface in order to find more detail to their underlying performance.

One of the key attacking metrics in a short tournament like the European Championships are the number of 'Key Passes' that are created by a team.

Therefore, we looked at each of the key passes completed by the England team over the three group games. A key pass remember is a pass that leads to a goal scoring chance. England have clocked up 4 key passes in 3 matches....... and zero key passes against 57th in the world Slovenia.

But how does that stack up against 7th in the world Netherlands team? The Netherlands have completed 12 key passes even though they have arguably competed in a very strong group containing France, Austria and Poland.

Slovakia have only scored 3 goals in three games....... one more than England by the way. Even though they've only scored 3 goals they've completed 8 key passes, double that of England.

This confirms to us that England are clearly under performing in the attacking department. Yes, they've only conceded one goal, however, if England are to progress deep into the competition we feel the balance and mentality of the team needs to change in order to get the most out of the attacking talent the squad no doubt has in it's locker.

David and Tom pick their England team to play Slovakia. Will there be changes? What would you do? At the time of recording Phil Foden wasn't due to rejoin the England squad until match day, however, he's now returned to the team. Tom would prefer Foden in the 10 role ahead of Bellingham as Jude has looked frustrated and jaded. He's a young lad and perhaps bringing him on later in the game would provide the impact required.

David and Tom predict the result of the game based upon their preferred team selection.... both are positive IF these changes happen...... but they're not confident Gareth will now make any changes at all now that Phil Foden has returned to the squad. Hopefully we're wrong.

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