Next up is an even bigger challenge – host nation France on Sunday – but nothing may top beating England, a team Iceland always used to support in major tournaments.
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“I’m very fragile today”.
“My emotions are obvious”. I am really disappointed.
“He told us after the game, he went round all the players and as a group of players we appreciate what he’s done, he gave a lot of these players their debut and you can’t forget that”.
“Unfortunately, they are one-off events”. “If the players play with the same attitude, we can beat anyone”.
“I am still recovering from that”. “What if we don’t get back into this?”
“That I think is a brief, but we want to work that through, but it is an inspirational manager and management team to get the best out of a squad which has got high potential”. “We go home as losers and we retain that wretched record of losing a tournament in the knock-out stages”. “Has Arsène got a fantastic understanding of the Premier League, of English players, of the English media, of the expectations of England? We had absolute faith in the build-up and throughout the tournament”.
Yeah, this press conference probably wasn’t the best plan.
“Because, clearly among other things, there’s a psychological problem with our players, where they seem to get to a stage with global football where they just can’t cope, and that’s manifest time and time again, year after year, in individual errors which you just wouldn’t expect from players”.
The FA is keen to appoint a new manager by the time England begin their World Cup qualifying against Slovakia on September 4.
He quit in the wake of Monday night’s shambolic defeat to Iceland in Nice that saw England exit Euro 2016.
“I think in the three [group] games we played, we didn’t take out chances well enough, we weren’t ruthless enough in front of goal”, he said.
“Having been a fan before doing this job, having mingled with fans on Monday night once I took off my FA jacket and tie, I get it”. Iceland are a doughty opponent but we didn’t punch our weight.
Adding to the sense of incomprehension is the fact that England’s youth-level teams do not seem as prone to collapse as the senior side, as shown by the Under-20 team’s success at this year’s Toulon Tournament. It’s a much stronger team, it’s a much stronger set-up. Roy, Iceland is not your legacy.
“We need to understand why that is”.
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Hodgson’s legacy with the national team will be his two major failures at global tournaments – the 2014 World Cup and now Euro 2016 – but also how he brought many young players into the squad.
