Everything Euro 2012!

kitakyushu

swoody wrote: »

and that dutch left back....jetro williems, in the worst team

If Ward is 4.00 then Willems should have been about 3.50 on those three games.

steelcityblues

As bad as Given was, the Ukrainian goalie was worse.

swoody

steelcityblues wrote: »

As bad as Given was, the Ukrainian goalie was worse.

he was 4th choice.....and still managed to win a match!

darkman2

Jimmy Iovine

For anyone on Twitter, they've set a new page for the #euro2012 hashtag. Pretty class looking. Better than the normal hashtag pages.

Professional Griefer

Chinese fan dies after staying up 11 days without sleep to watch the games.

Link.

syngindub

has there been any penalties in this tournament yet?

greendom

Greece got 1 in their first and last matches

Aenaes

syngindub wrote: »

has there been any penalties in this tournament yet?

Penalty shoot-outs or a penalty in normal time?
There's been no 0-0 draws so no penalties shoot-outs.
There's been two penalties in normal time. The two of them were awarded to Greece. Versus Poland in the opening match and versus Germany last night.

darkman2

Merkel when Greece scored.



Platini looks impartial.

Jimmy Iovine

darkman2 wrote: »

Merkel when Greece scored.

Platini looks impartial.

What a **** night he must have had having to sit between Merkel and Samaras like that. One wrong joke or something like that and he could bring the whole Eurozone crashing down :pac:.

steelcityblues

What's the name of the bald headed chap in front of Merkel, again? He always does the draws for the big competitions these days.

fryup

the scheduling for the semi's is completely unfair...spain and england/italy get two less days rest than they're opponents..thats a big disadvantage i think

The_Kew_Tour

fryup wrote: »

the scheduling for the semi's is completely unfair...spain and england/italy get two less days rest than they're opponents..thats a big disadvantage i think

I was thinking the same thing.

Gives Germany and Portugal a advantage in that sense.

Had it gone to extra time last night I be really tempted to back Portugal to beat Spain. Still am I suppose, but little unsure now.

kitakyushu

People say that once you get 2-3 day break then you'll already be back to optimum fitness, but I don't think that's the point. Scheduling dictates that by having only one QF per day that there is always gonna be discrepancy, but I don't see how it makes any sense deliberately increasing that discrepancy by pairing teams who have played two days apart.

Since the quarter-final format expansion in 1996 SF teams have generally been paired with only a 1 day difference in time since their QF. The only exception was 2004, where the 1 and 3 were paired and the 2 and 4 were paired. On that occasion both semi-finals were won by the team who had the 6 day gap rather than the 4.

SantryRed

fryup wrote: »

the scheduling for the semi's is completely unfair...spain and england/italy get two less days rest than they're opponents..thats a big disadvantage i think

It's all to do with the two host countries. And making sure theyd always be playing in their country. It's ridiculous really.

steelcityblues

SantryRed wrote: »

It's all to do with the two host countries. And making sure theyd always be playing in their country. It's ridiculous really.

That's not entirely true. If Poland have had won the group, and got to the semis, they would have then played in Ukraine. Same with Ukraine, if they had made it that far.

Still, I would prefer the QF's over two days, an early evening one (local time), and a late evening one (local time again).

steelcityblues

Match ratings for the very disappointing quarter final stage:

Portugal v Czech 2.5
Germany v Greece 3.5
Spain v France 3
England v Italy 2.5

Shame a lot of the more negative teams got through the group stage, in hindsight.

dreamers75

steelcityblues wrote: »

What's the name of the bald headed chap in front of Merkel, again? He always does the draws for the big competitions these days.

His name is Gianni Infantino and he ****ing hates St Pats

dreamers75

All 4 semi finalists came from 2 groups.

Jimmy Iovine

This is incredible. Must have taken forever to do it. They even have the Pirlo penalty at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX-2dVgo0eY

greendom

steelcityblues wrote: »

Match ratings for the very disappointing quarter final stage:

Portugal v Czech 2.5
Germany v Greece 3.5
Spain v France 3
England v Italy 2.5

Shame a lot of the more negative teams got through the group stage, in hindsight.

Not sure how you can rate Spain vs France as being a better match than England v Italy ? The latter had exctiment and endeavour. The first was just an excercise in passing and boring the opposition (and the viewers) to death.

Morzadec

dreamers75 wrote: »

All 4 semi finalists came from 2 groups.

Yeah they were clearly the 2 strongest groups. Unfortunate that we had to fall in one of them, we might've got a point otherwise!

Hard to argue against the 4 semi-finalists being the 4 best teams of the competition, and that should hopefully make for a great final 3 matches.

kitakyushu

Incidentally the two finalist in 1988, 1996 and 2004 both came from the same group. Now we have a 50/50 chance of it happening once again yet another 8 years on.

Jimmy Iovine

kitakyushu wrote: »

Incidentally the two finalist in 1988, 1996 and 2004 both came from the same group. Now we have a 50/50 chance of it happening once again yet another 8 years on.

And of those finals 2 of the winners also won their group game. It might not mean much but it may give you a psychological advantage going into the final.

1988 - reverse 1-0 to the Soviet Union
1996 - same 2-0 to Germany
2004 - same 2-1 to Greece

Of course this all means nothing if Italy and Spain play each other after their draw.

darkman2

The efforts some will go to...desperate England fan alert!

MOD EDIT: NSFW:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/269320_413948851981358_516153005_n.jpg


Also who peed in Mario's drink?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwzcDemswNk

ArmaniJeanss

kitakyushu wrote: »

Incidentally the two finalist in 1988, 1996 and 2004 both came from the same group. Now we have a 50/50 chance of it happening once again yet another 8 years on.

And interestingly in one of the years it didn't happen, 2008, the draw was structured in such a way that it wasn't possible for it to happen anyway. (Under 2008 structure this years semis would be Spain v Italy and Germany v Portugal)

kryogen

Are the Germans actually the worst behaved fans at the tournament?

They have received a 20k fine now for supporters displaying a neo nazi flag after the win v Denmark, that makes it all 3 group games they have faced sanctions after!

Dempsey

The Croats have been fined a few times AFAIK

swoody

kryogen wrote: »

Are the Germans actually the worst behaved fans at the tournament?

They have received a 20k fine now for supporters displaying a neo nazi flag after the win v Denmark, that makes it all 3 group games they have faced sanctions after!

emmmmm.....

Russia where fined €185.00 over its fans conduct at all three of its group-stage matches in Poland and also threatened Russia with a six-point deduction in its 2016 European Championship qualifying group after some of its fans attacked stadium stewards in Wroclaw following the Czech match. i think they take the biscuit!

Fight_Night

Considering the huge deal made by the media prior to the tournament, would it be fair to say that the behaviour of fans has been fairly typical and no worse than other tournaments? Genuine question as I was away for all of the group stages so didn't have access to any news at the time.

tolosenc

I think it would have been worse than usual, but barring the Russian fans, not substantially. Russia should have been thrown out of the tournament.

recylingbin

Fight_Night wrote: »

Considering the huge deal made by the media prior to the tournament, would it be fair to say that the behaviour of fans has been fairly typical and no worse than other tournaments? Genuine question as I was away for all of the group stages so didn't have access to any news at the time.

There's always been fans chanting 'indecently' and racist chanting between big rivals and banners proclaiming this and that. However, alot has been made of it at this tournament and UEFA have decided to hold each country's FA responsible for the behaviour of its fans. It's no worse than normal.

Outside the stadia seems to be much improved with only a few incidents of any import.
Haven't seen any footage of water cannons keeping rival fans apart and the pitched battles between fans were almost non existent. Compare this with the tournament co-hosted by Belgium and Holland or the wc in France.

The_Kew_Tour

Bar the Russia games, there really has been very little fighting.

Neeson

What the RTÉ lads thought of England during the group stages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvxoBYs2EwY

steelcityblues

greendom wrote: »

Not sure how you can rate Spain vs France as being a better match than England v Italy ? The latter had exctiment and endeavour. The first was just an excercise in passing and boring the opposition (and the viewers) to death.

If there was excitement and endeavour it certainly didn't come from England, like most of their matches in the tournament.

I thought the first half of Spain-France was decent, which is why I gave it the slightly higher rating. 30 mins less boredom helped too.

Didn't want to say this, but I am glad this tournament is almost over.

Beefy78

There was no shortage of endeavour from England.

There was certainly a shortage of excitement though.

klose

Blanc has stepped down as the french coach, too many chiefs in the squad??

Big Pussy Bonpensiero

http://thescore.thejournal.ie/uefa-ireland-fans-award-505198-Jun2012/

Ireland to be given a special award from UEFA for our fans. Unsure how to feel about this, it's a great advert for our country and supporters I guess, but it's like the 'best attendance' or 'most improved' award clubs give to players that try the hardest but are ultimately shíte.

Daemos

It's a whole lot better than the Fair Play award we were offered after the play-off with France

recyclebin

It might help with the bid for Euro 2020 if Platini doesn't decide to have it all in 12 cities. At least they now know that if Ireland were to host a few games that the atmosphere would be incredible.