Yeah, they definitely seemed to lose focus in the 2nd half. I think the jury has to remain out on Italy. The played really well against Spain but that's more like a derby game so hard to judge form, and one decent half against Croatia. Marchisio looks impressive in midfield but they do seem to have trouble converting chances.

from what i see so far its going to be spain and germany in the final. it would be nice if it wasnt always so predictable.

That action summed the difference between the two teams.
No goal, but more damageable than Silva's goal against Ireland tonight.

Those Irish supporters...
They should qualify and win it...

[quote=Bertrand
Those Irish supporters...
They should qualify and win it...[/quote]

holy shit, was it them singing that sad sad fucking chant at the end of the game? it made the spaniards not want to score more goals i think. it was sad but awesome.

I'm a bit bemused about this whole cult of Martinez thing. He kept a team in the Prem by a whisker, arguably due more to Victor Moses hitting some form than anything he did. From speculation about being sacked from Wigan to being in the frame for jobs at Liverpool and Spurs, I'm not saying Martinez is a bad manager but his sudden in-demand status does seem a bit odd.

Probably, but it shouldn't distract from how awful Ireland were tonight. Even against a top side I was hoping for a bit more from them - especially when, despite what the scoreline might suggest, Spain really weren't that great (maybe because they quickly realised they didn't need to be). You know you're in trouble when even Torres is able to score twice against you.

haa haaa haaa

yeah i wasn't impressed by spain in spite of the 4 goals (4!).

he should be perfect for spurs then, they always under achieve and seem to believe they deserve something more when they are just average.

i hear that west ham will sack sam allerdice and bring in redknapp.

They're talking to AVB, apparently, and rumours that Levy's interested in Rafa Benitez and Jurgen Klinsmann (which would be doing the US national side a favour, at least) but I still think it'll be Moyes.


Where did you hear that? Haha. There are a million (very good) reasons why that would never happen.

And why does the English media persist in its weird belief that English people should actually care that Ireland have gone out? No disrespect to Ireland but I doubt there were many of their fans cheering for England when we played France, and I don't expect there'll be many cheering for us tonight, and I'll bet Eamon Dunphy doesn't get on his high horse insisting they should.

a reliable source.

Of course, all this talk of replacements, Spurs fans must know that at least one man has almost definitely sent his CV to White Heart Lane ...

Speaking of Spurs, one question comes to mind ..

which London teams' fans hate each other the most?

West Ham - Milwall?
West Ham - Tottenham?
Arsenal - Tottenham?

Without question.

i think spurs hate arsenal alot more than arsenal hate spurs.

and west ham hate milwall alot more than they hate spurs

everyone hates milwall

and palace hate charlton, but not as much as we hate brighton


so west ham milwall it is

rained suspended play!!!

i have the afternoon off work and everything!

gonna start again they said. in a couple of minutes

Fantastic header from Carroll!!

YES.

also-- i thought that france threw away scoring chances near the end. they'd kick the ball just for the hell of it! blam, to the fucking moon! i wanted a 3-0.

suprised to see benzema wake up as last game i thought he was a bit nowhere.

ribéry as usual AWESOME. and i don't understand why people don't like nasri-- okay, he wasn't as present as the last game but he's good and that free kick was pretty great even though he didn't score.

oh, teams coming back out.

That was torture!

England fell apart at the beginning of the second half and I thought they were buried when they went 2-1 down. Walcott and Welbeck's goals were both just freaky. Thought Glen Johnson and Gerrard were both superb. Ashley Young was awful, though, and, mpre surprisingly, Ashley Cole wasn't so great tonight, either.

This is all gonna cause major headaches for Hodgson's team selection, with Rooney back in play. He has to replace Young, surely. But lots of other big decisions to be made.

i still cant tell if welbeck meant that or if he just got lucky. at first i thought fluke but if you look at the replay he might have just played for that. in that case they will probably say that was the goal of the tournament.

best commentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk07M...eature=related

I'd say he meant it but was pretty lucky that it came off.

Bye Zlatan

There's something deeply unlikable about that man.

I had been led to believe the original edition of his book read "I, Zlatan" in Swedish/Italian, demonstrating Zlatan's world famous sense of perspective.

anyway, you get in Joe Harts face after taking the lead, you then end up losing. Nice one Zlatan

Yeah, I saw that but couldn't work it out at the time. I wasn't sure if Hart had bumped him or something. Seeing it again now, what a cunt.

Do svidanja, Andrei



Russia going out has to be the biggest upset so far, especially with Greece going through. Football, ah? Bloody hell.

He looks like a wind sock at the side of a remote Russian airport runway.

YEAH!

Although not very likely, I hope Boulahrouz will be guarding Ronaldo tonight. A good ol' kicking frenzy would be a fitting ending to Holland's Euro campaign.

i know there are not many fans of germany here and portugal-netherlands might be the source of much more entertainment, but i'm worried about boateng's suspension. fuckit, after yesterday's results, anything is possible.

That one, plus that one moment in the last 15 minutes where Huntelaar gestures "press forward". Sneijder looks over his shoulder to check if Heitinga takes over his man and Heitinga indeed steps forward (5 meter). Sneijder starts pressing with the other 3 forwards, but Germany can easily play around it because, when Sneijder looks over his shoulder again he sees Heitinga has ran 30 meters back all the way to the edge of his own box. The throw-away gesture said it all.




So disappointing. I really hoped Poland and Russia would be going through.

i think the whole planet was pretty much banking on that assumption.

I was pretty confident about Russia, Poland not so much... interesting though was Advocaat's press conference the day before. He looked pretty uncomfortable, commentator's even suggesting it was like he sensed something was wrong.


But Denmark will be missing Rommedahl, he's way more important for them than Boateng is for Germany... if anything, I'd be slightly worry about some German players not looking on their top form yet. So far they didn't need to be to win their games, but as the tournament progresses I wonder if it's just a matter of only taking it out when needed or if they are indeed really somewhat off form. Also, I'm not expecting much entertainment from Portugal-Netherlands... just more frustration and misery.

true i guess, i was hoping more from poland being hosts. and with their 3 dortmund players who just won the bundesliga , and lewandowski was supposedly going to move to manchester... but it looks like not:

http://www.click-manchester.com/spor...drid-talk.html

(good for dortmund i say).

but it takes more than 3 players to make a team. still, the czechs were expected to be utter shit!



oh cool, i wasn't aware of that! (sorry danes). hard to get good journalistic coverage here.


i really don't know. i think their midfield is superb, but the attack was lacking in finish-- yes, gomez scored, but podolski has been nowhere and mueller hasn't even shot on target yet if i recall well... still, as long as they make room for gomez and gomez can score, i'm more or less happy.

the thing is though that as much as holland and portugal may be in different levels of disarray, they have a lot of individually great players-- beating them isn't easy no matter how you slice it, so it may not be a case of being off form as just having tough opponents (much like the russian attack going limp against the greek defense.)

Podolski and Mueller were indeed whom I was mainly thinking of, but to a lesser extend even Schweinsteiger. Sure, he looked allright vs Holland but that was mainly due to the unbelievable amounts of space he was given by the Dutch. He's had a difficult end of the season with injuries and fitness problems and then there's the mental blow of that missed penalty vs Chelsea in the CL final.

Beating Portugal and Holland might not be an easy matter, but if you look at the results of the games that Portugal and especially Holland have played in the last year or so then you'll find many defeats and draws... Having said that, Spain haven't looked at 100% yet either, so it doesn't have to mean much.

OK, I'm off to mentally prepare myself for tonight's "Miracle of Kharkiv" (yeah right, there's no way Holland are going to beat Portugal tonight, let alone by two goals), meaning I'm getting a beer from the fridge.

Heitinga and Van Bommel not starting, that is good news.
Only it's a pity that I don't have much confidence in their replacements either, Vlaar and Van der Vaart. Huntelaar and Sneijder are going to have to do it tonight.

the space was given cuz they were chasing khedira and ozil as well (especially ozil). that's the thing about them, they are all great.

i think schweinsteiger is on the up & up. if it's not true i really hope so anyway. i like the way he fits into jogi's teams more than in bayern.


haaa haaa--- i've equipped myself with bratwurst, sauerkraut, and a pack of bavarian hefeweizen. i'm not joking!

The most disappointing thing about Holland going out for me is that, even with their lack of cohesion and rampant egos, I still think they had the quality to turn their tournament around. Not necessarily enough to win it but those missed opportunities in the first game put them on the back foot from the beginning, and to have to follow that with a game against Germany would always mean there'd be an air of desperation to the way they played tonight. And so it proved. I don't know if they'd have fared much better in any of the other groups but I can certainly think of two other teams that've already qualified that, even with Holland's problems, I'd still back them to beat on most days.

You can't make excuses, you have to beat the teams you're tied against, but nobody's gonna tell me Greece are a better team than Holland. Losing to Denmark in a game I still think they deserved to win was what ultimately ended Holland's tournament. I'm still not saying they weren't a disappointment but it's far easir covering over cracks (as I believe say Spain are) when you're facing a team like the Rep of Ireland than you are having to deal with the likes of Germany or Portugal.

probably not, but judging by results, the czech could be (!)

rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, paper beats rock, etc.


well, yes. hence the "group of death". who was head of group a, anyway, and why were they chosen? or how are these groups selected anyway?


this made me laugh because it reminded me of a team i used to support where the fans would often claim "moral victory" after getting creamed on the scoreboard.

i'm interested in hearing what you think about spain's failures though. is it the lack of a good striker or is it something else? cuz without villa barcelona couldn't finish, and now the same thing is happening to spain, and silva scored but only against easy rivals (china in the friendlies, ireland the other day).

and similarly, i see germany as a very strong team but i'm not convinced yet-- i mean today against tiny denmark they fucking struggled and ruined my beer drinking and gave me a headache. on paper they are great but then they try to play like barcelona, and watching them is an exercise in frustration-- it wasn't until schürrle came in that they started to loosen up in the front. podolski's goal was mueller's play but podolski was lucky to be standing right there.

fuck this tikitaka fad. i mean it's nice to a point but it's being abused now. i loved balotelli's shots from outside the area the other day. i hope he starts or fuels the worldwide reversal of the trend. (england's goals the other day btw, as much as you self-deprecatingly said were "pure luck", were really fucking nice goals in my eyes).