England are a mid-table international side
The Game
The Times
3.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2018
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Natalie Sawyer presents the penultimate podcast of this World Cup. England are well beaten by Belgium in a slightly sobering third place play-off. Matt Dickinson joins us from St Petersburg to assess exactly where England are in the footballing pyramid right now and where upgrades need to be made. Should Ruben Loftus-Cheek have played more during this tournament? And did Harry Kane play well this summer?
Football may not have come home but Alyson Rudd has. She’s in the studio to preview the World Cup Final along with Henry Winter. It’s France versus Croatia. Deschamps versus Dalic. But is the match-up in Moscow made for Mbappe or Modric?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the game World Cup daily from The Times. I'm Natalie Sawyer and |
| 0:14.2 | thank you for joining us. We have been here every match day of the World Cup |
| 0:17.9 | podcasting after 10 o'clock UK time every night. She's been our correspondent in Kazan but I'm delighted to say that |
| 0:24.3 | Allison Rudd is here with me in this studio. She's come home, Allison, hello. |
| 0:28.4 | And in the St. Petersburg not home just yet, it's Matt Dickinson. Hi Matt. |
| 0:34.3 | Hello. |
| 0:35.3 | Speak to you in a moment. |
| 0:36.3 | Later on Henry Winter will be joining us as we look ahead to the World Cup Final France |
| 0:40.0 | versus Croatia, but first England's campaign is officially over. |
| 0:44.8 | Garris South Gateside losing to Belgium for the second time in this tournament, |
| 0:48.8 | this time by two goals to nil. |
| 0:51.1 | Belgium finished third then, that is their best ever World Cup finish. |
| 0:55.6 | England and the tournament in fourth place. It wasn't quite the B teams in action again. |
| 1:00.7 | Belgium made two changes England made five. Matt you were there, the |
| 1:04.7 | best team won didn't they? Yes I don't think there's any doubt about that. It was |
| 1:09.6 | I mean Belgium I was at the Martinez first Commers after the semi-final and he was quite explicit that he wanted to win because as you say be Belgian's best |
| 1:19.8 | performers out of World Cup and I think you know he felt that was a sort of a stamp of success on it |
| 1:28.0 | So they put they could have a their best team more or less and you know not surprisingly as |
| 1:34.6 | and the brine are the best players on the pitch and was it not for some pretty |
| 1:39.2 | clunky finishing from Lucille a couple of terrible touches they could have won with a bit of |
| 1:45.4 | therapy. Allison England finishing fourth then as I've already mentioned that |
| 1:49.6 | surpasses most fans expectations done it before the ball was even kicked out in Russia. |
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