Julius

These subs should've been made 10 minutes ago. Penalties in mind at least. Sweating over here.

My head is buried deep in my shirt right now. Come on lads. Push in 2's and 3's, Bonucci and Chiellini lack pace and I'm sure their eyesight is going. Please win it in this 15. I can't do penalties.

Grealish changing into a shirt? Good stuff. Also that Mrs Grealish 69 shirt, typically classy Chiellini is dragging Italy out of trouble time and time again here. That slide against Sterling was wonderful. You do feel for Verratti as he's had a great game, but how he's gone off the pitch without a booking is beyond me. Such a smart player.

That was balanced on a knife edge there, you just felt we could have had one more chance more and then Chiellini drags Saka down. A yellow all day long, but an insidious and game-saving one at that. Brilliant changes from Mancini, Italy weren't great at the start of that half but once the changes were made, they controlled it up until the last few minutes of stoppage time. It felt like we were hanging ok by a thread there. Bring Grealish on, he should've come on earlier. The difference is that we were chasing the ball a lot there, we're knackered, having a player who can win foul after foul in our favour would break up Italy's flow nicely. Just go for it. We don't want penalties, and it'll be tough to hold it against Southgate for going for it. I say Grealish on for Mount and, if we reach the second half of extra time, maybe even Philips off for Foden or Sancho. We have the talent on the bench that changes games, let's use it. Come on lads!

Chiesa shredding us to pieces there. But now he looks done. Verratti has had enough tactical fouls now, think he sees a yellow with the next one. He's had enough leeway now, any more and you feel he'd be able to get away with murder.

Switching to four at the back might stop our defensive spine from being so deep and inviting pressure, but there's so, so much space all of a sudden in our fullback positions.

Shame, pretty dreadful defending for a corner, way too much space in the middle. It's bouncing around when it should be hitting legs. It's been coming. I'm not even sure who at this point, been some great displays all over. Maybe Mount for Sancho, Foden, or Grealish? This will be where Southgate is tested. Not making changes might be what cost us three years ago, and I think he'll know that now.

Rough seeing Barella come off, he's hand a tremendous tournament but he went missing for much of the second half against Spain, and hasn't had a whiff of the ball tonight. The right move, think they're trying to outmuscle us - specifically Rice - in the middle. Immobile has scored this tournament, but he hasn't lit it up as you might have thought going into it. Sucks to see him hooked off, reckon we'll see a lot of Chiesa, Berardi and Insigne swapping places in the rest of the match. Pace and unpredictability of that might just stretch us at the back a bit.

Great first half from us. Shaw and Trippier have been immense, the decision by Gareth to go with three at the back has paid off enormously so far, Rice has controlled the middle of the park really well too. Things just haven't quite clicked going forward since that first move, but hopefully we can pounce on another opportunity. I'm a bit wary of this ref, he's let a lot go, and the England lads just need to keep their composure. Mount looks like he's getting a bit frustrated, surprisingly so considering how he typically is so calm, just need to call themselves a bit. Very strange to go with Kuipers after he didn't referee one of the semi-final matches, and especially after Felix Brych did a fantastic job in the Italy v Spain match. Some tackles could have easily been carded so far, hope it doesn't become a scrappy affair. The Italians grew into the match as we neared half-time. I was concerned early on that an early goal might mean we got overwhelmed, but we've kept out structure well and made sure we haven't been pushed around. Chiesa looks dangerous as ever though, I think if they're going to get something, it's coming through him, so they need to be sure to snuff him out. Come on lads. Another 45.

Really shaky start from Maguire, my head was down immediately after that poor pass, but once he hoofed it out and you saw how open that right side of the pitch was once the ball came to Harry Kane, you felt like it was on. Fantastic cross from Trippier, even better finish from Shaw. Hopefully that'll calm the nerves!

LETS GO

Wow, is this the quietest we've heard Il Canto this tournament? It certainly feels like it (and by some margin). Boys better come out belting it, give me some chills!

Sam Matterface on Wednesday trying to reason with viewers like "uhhhhh, football fans are suspicious. We won when you watched it with us, come watch with us again", completely forgetting that he's sitting next to the commentating joke that is Lee Dixon which all but ensures no-one will want to watch it there. Remember when Adrian Chiles was somehow given the reins by ITV for hosting the Champions League, back when they had it? They make some really weird choices over there, that's for sure

The BBC just casually sneaking on one of the best defenders in the world during my early childhood in Nesta, you love to see it, one of the reasons Milan was the team to pick back on PES was wondering who we'd see to speak about Italy other than Klinsmann!

BBC is doing one hell of a job with these recaps of our past failures of jinxing us tonight. I think if there's going to be a difference for us, it's going to be here. Italy have been the best team since the first day of the tournament, but they're not untouchable. They've made mistakes on the way, pretty glaring ones, which teams haven't capitalised on too well until now -- so, if we can take that chance whenever it comes - and I have a chance that it will - I think we might have a shot.

I feel the way I normally feel before having to give a presentation or speak up. Butterflies, shaky jaw, et al. I'm absolutely bricking it

I'm not too sure if it's only mods that can add tags, as I went through a couple of weeks where I would add them when starting a new game thread (I eventually gave up as the mess of next-gen arrived). Such as the 'PS5' tag I added for the Final Fantasy XVI thread:

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is taking him up 50 miles today in Unity at 14:00 BST, a feat that if attained will make him and those aboard recognised astronauts, and the company the first to complete a commercial spaceflight. This is after they moved their schedule up upon the announcement that Blue Origin were making their first commercial flight this month back in May. Meanwhile, next Tuesday on July 20th, Bezos, his brother, Wally Funk, and an unknown individual - who paid $28 million for the privilege - will be making their trip up some 62 miles to sail by the Kármán Line with Bezos' Blue Origin aboard New Shepard. This will be the first commercial spaceflight with a paying customer. Nice to see that billionaires' companies egos and need to flex extends to space: The Wall Street Journal put up a good video on how the flights will differ: The future is now?

For anyone that missed it: [free agent] Lionel Messi finally won his first major international trophy with Argentina earlier against Brazil, also winning the awards for Player of the Tournament and Top Goalscorer (with 4). He also had a chance to seal the victory towards the end but slipped and fluffed his lines -- it was nice for a change to see this Argentina carrying Messi rather than Messi carrying them. And here's a pretty insane stat: this Argentina is the first side to defeat Brazil in a competitive match at the Maracaná since 1950. That defeat in 1950 to Uruguay, by the way, was so traumatic that Brazil eventually changed their home kit from white to the yellow we see today. Pretty nuts. Black next? As if the Messi vs Ronaldo debate couldn't get any more heated. Great for Messi to finally have his first major international team trophy, you can't say he hasn't deserved it.

We finally got a small update on this from XIV's live letter: So basically, they're aiming to show something at the end of September during TGS, but they're not sure how realistic that is. It seems to me like it could get its own State of Play in October or November, as Yoshi-P also mentioned wanting to dive into the battle system next time they show it. If we are still going to get news for it in 2021...then maybe it will turn out to be a release in the first half of 2022, just based on what Yoshi-P said about not wanting to keep people waiting much longer after they next show the game? Though, I could also see them releasing a demo too. Either way, I appreciate them staying quiet if it's still a ways off, but it sounds like development is going pretty smoothly.

I might come back with a better answer (I now find myself looking up the start of some walkthroughs to hear what's playing when you first gain control in some of my favourite games ), but what immediately came to mind was: Immediately gets you in the mood for raiding Palaces and some Phantom Thievery!

Probably one of my favourite episodes of The Bad Batch so far this week. Look forward to next week's!

And so the CDPR PR rebuild begins...

Hands-on previews are up, and GameSpot is the only one with a video up...probably because there seems to be some weird embargo where we can't even see the console in their hands. IGN's preview is here and The Verge's here. They seem like positive impressions. All I really learned was that IGN has this annoying habit of linking to their own articles from 15+ years ago with no real reason to do (they link to a GBA SP article in their Switch OLED preview).

Yeah, I think they're going to phase the original out and replace it with OLED version too. I think the biggest hint of this is the fact that the OLED version will also have a neon blue/red colourway -- there's no way they'd risk the potential confusion this could cause on store shelves unless it's a short-term situation. The fact that their advertising goes in hard on the new white colourway makes me think this too: you don't even see the neon blue/red variant of the OLED version in the trailer, we didn't see it until the website press release went up and it was eventually tweeted out, and the fact that they're utilising the neon colourway to represent the original Switch for now. In fact, I reckon there's a good chance that you'll get a 70/30 or 80/20 split for the first few months between the white and neon colourways just to help avoid that confusion (and also because white Joy-Cons are the new thing and they'll continue pushing that as a big differentiator). I think they'd have a very tough time marketing the original and OLED versions alongside each other unless they absolutely need to. I think it makes sense that they haven't outright said "this is replacing the original mode" at the moment, though, firstly because they will already have a pretty sizeable amount of original Switch models to sell in this next quarter, and don't want to get in the way of that. Parts shortages continue to get in the way of big electronics launches too, and so I wouldn't be surprised if they had both production lines going until they're positive that they can produce enough of the OLED model to keep up with demand. Assuming production goes smoothly, I think we'll start to get the sense that it's being phased out by the end of this financial year (next March). However, if not - due to potential production issues - they've given themselves enough space to potentially pivot, if they really need to, and could always slash the price on the original model like @Ronnie suggested. Not that they need to, though, and they could just as well go the other way and stick with it at its current price until it's gone, just to make the OLED version look all the more appealing to new Switch owners.