Euro 2020

artanevilla

We don't know it's not true.

Gbear

eagle eye wrote: »

So in the heat of the moment you must remain calm and mannerly at all times?
Should a guy who goes into a challenge with intent to injure be sent home as well?
Or is it just words that concern you?

If he did something like that when not on the pitch I'd be all for serious repercussions but not for something that happens during a game when a lot of players are completely wound up finding any way possible to get an edge.

I dunno about you, but I don't start throwing around racial slurs when I'm angry.

eagle eye

Gbear wrote:

I dunno about you, but I don't start throwing around racial slurs when I'm angry.

I don't either because I always found other ways to get myself pumped but lots did, not necessarily racial slurs but insulting stuff.
I think we have to accept that people get wound up when playing. So long as they apologize when the game is over and make it clear they don't believe any if it then it's ok in my book.

eagle eye

eagle eye wrote: »

If he did something like that when not on the pitch I'd be all for serious repercussions but not for something that happens during a game when a lot of players are completely wound up finding any way possible to get an edge.

Being "completely wound up" is a defence to racist abuse?

It's an interesting theory. Not one I agree with, and frankly have never heard a footballer try the "it's fine because I was only being racist to get an edge", presumably as they know it's a nonsensical defence.

HalloweenJack

eagle eye wrote: »

So in the heat of the moment you must remain calm and mannerly at all times?
Should a guy who goes into a challenge with intent to injure be sent home as well?
Or is it just words that concern you?

If he did something like that when not on the pitch I'd be all for serious repercussions but not for something that happens during a game when a lot of players are completely wound up finding any way possible to get an edge.

If what's quoted in that article is true, it's just bizarre more than anything but it was definitely said with an intent to insult. It might not necesssrily be racist but it does have a nasty undertone.

It's one thing to say I ****ed your ma but to specify that it was your Albanian ma is something else. Given the history of that part of the world, it's a pretty awful thing to say. The guy's 32 ffs. He's been around long enough.

What do you imagine the reaction would be here if an NI or England player scored against the Republic and said to his marker I ****ed your Catholic ma?

elefant

eagle eye wrote: »

I don't either because I always found other ways to get myself pumped but lots did, not necessarily racial slurs but insulting stuff.
I think we have to accept that people get wound up when playing. So long as they apologize when the game is over and make it clear they don't believe any if it then it's ok in my book.

In fairness, you must realise with that point of view that you hold an unusually laid back position on players abusing each other players about their ethnicity or heritage.

A few things:

It's allegations.
The source is a Sun "informer". A paper well know for racial justice...

pjohnson

So this is how we fill up the lack of a 2pm game. Waving away racism :pac:

HalloweenJack

HalloweenJack wrote: »

It's one thing to say I ****ed your ma but to specify that it was your Albanian ma is something else. Given the history of that part of the world, it's a pretty awful thing to say. The guy's 32 ffs. He's been around long enough.

What do you imagine the reaction would be here if an NI or England player scored against the Republic and said to his marker I ****ed your Catholic ma?

There's also the issue that the Serbs are accused of raping thousands of Kosovo Albanian women during the wars.

If true, it's fairly disgusting.

HalloweenJack

HalloweenJack wrote: »

If what's quoted in that article is true, it's just bizarre more than anything but it was definitely said with an intent to insult. It might not necesssrily be racist but it does have a nasty undertone.

It's one thing to say I ****ed your ma but to specify that it was your Albanian ma is something else. Given the history of that part of the world, it's a pretty awful thing to say. The guy's 32 ffs. He's been around long enough.

What do you imagine the reaction would be here if an NI or England player scored against the Republic and said to his marker I ****ed your Catholic ma?

None I'd imagine, as we have moved on from that nonsense in the south.

Probably not the best example tbh.

HalloweenJack

6 wrote: »

None I'd imagine, as we have moved on from that nonsense in the south.

Probably not the best example tbh.

Frankly, I doubt it but here's another one just in case.

A Rangers player scores for Scotland on Friday evening and says to Rice/Grealish/Kane/any other English player of Irish descent while celebrating 'I ****ed your Irish ma'. What do you think the reaction would be there? Why the need to bring ethnicity into it in at all?

tastyt

Excuse my ignorance lads , I think some Swiss players got in trouble for anti Albania stuff last year , what’s the history between Austria , Switzerland and Albania ?? Is it really bitter ?

artanevilla

In the case of the Swiss boys, they fled to Switzerland during the wars of the 90s, in Arnautovic's case I'm not sure how his parent (father?) ended up there but he is of Serbian descent.

It's not so much to do with Switzerland and Austria, but the Balkan heritage of all involved.

Gbear

tastyt wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance lads , I think some Swiss players got in trouble for anti Albania stuff last year , what’s the history between Austria , Switzerland and Albania ?? Is it really bitter ?

Arnautovic, Shaqiri, the Xhaka brothers (although one actually plays for Albania), are either from the Balkans, or of Balkan descent.

Shaqiri and Xhaka did an Albanian Eagle celebration when IIRC, they scored against Serbia. There's a lot of err, tension, between those countries. Arnautovic's dad is Serbian. North Macedonia borders Albania, and I assume there's some shared ethnicity.

HalloweenJack

tastyt wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance lads , I think some Swiss players got in trouble for anti Albania stuff last year , what’s the history between Austria , Switzerland and Albania ?? Is it really bitter ?

Iirc, Shaqiri and Xhaka, both of Albanian descent, celebrated when they beat Serbia in the World Cup with a gesture that was like the double-headed eagle on the Albanian flag.

There's also been trouble with Croat players. Can't remember the exact details of that one but Josip Simunic got a lengthy ban.

Lots of players of Serb, Croat, Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Montenegrin and Kosovar descent in Switzerlnad, Germany and Austria hence how these things tend to spill over. A lot of them ended up there as refugees because of the wars.in the early 90s so its a conflict that affectdd a lot of them and is still quite raw for some.

Given what was happening in Ireland around the same time, I struggle to understand how people on an Irish website think it isn't something to get offended by.

HalloweenJack

HalloweenJack wrote: »

Frankly, I doubt it but here's another one just in case.

A Rangers player scores for Scotland on Friday evening and says to Rice/Grealish/Kane/any other English player of Irish descent while celebrating 'I ****ed your Irish ma'. What do you think the reaction would be there? Why the need to bring ethnicity into it in at all?

That's a better example. No need to bring it into it tbh.

I guess confirming what he said first from the victim might help. I wouldn't hang my hat on a 'source' from that newspaper alone

fyfe79

tastyt wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance lads , I think some Swiss players got in trouble for anti Albania stuff last year , what’s the history between Austria , Switzerland and Albania ?? Is it really bitter ?

Nothing to do with Austria and Switzerland, more the fact that Arnautovic is of Serbian descent. The Swiss have a few lads with Albanian descent in their squad (Shaqiri, for example), as do Macedonia, so it goes back to the war and break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's.

HalloweenJack

HalloweenJack wrote: »

Iirc, Shaqiri and Xhaka, both of Albanian descent, celebrated when they beat Serbia in the World Cup with a gesture that was like the double-headed eagle on the Albanian flag.

And that was outrageous too

Not as bad as the allegations against Arnautovic, but overtly political and provocative. They only got a fine afair.

HalloweenJack

6 wrote: »

I guess confirming what he said first from the victim might help. I wouldn't hang my hat on a 'source' from that newspaper alone

Of course but the fact that he himself posted an apology on Instagram to Albanians and North Macedonians would suggest that something specific was said. His apology was for 'heated words in the emotion of the game'. He didn't deny that he said what was reported.

If he hadn't said it, he could have just said: 'I never mentioned anything about ethnicity' or 'I didn't say what people claim I said'.

HalloweenJack

HalloweenJack wrote: »

Of course but the fact that he himself posted an apology on Instagram to Albanians and North Macedonians would suggest that something specific was said. His apology was for 'heated words in the emotion of the game'. He didn't deny that he said what was reported.

If he hadn't said it, he could have just said: 'I never mentioned anything about ethnicity' or 'I didn't say what people claim I said'.

Alaba trying to clamp his mouth shut too.

He is entitled to defend any allegations, and a tabloid is no great source...but it certainly seems he should be asked some very hard questions about what he said and why.

Loafing Oaf

HalloweenJack wrote: »

It's one thing to say I ****ed your ma

Although something like that was enough in itself to set Zidane off...

HalloweenJack

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Although something like that was enough in itself to set Zidane off...

Exactly. So why need to bring ethnicity into it? What's so bad about having an Albanian mother?

And then given that the person saying it is of Serbian descent and there are reports of Albanian women being raped by Serbs during the wars in the 90s, it has a lot of potential to offend.

At best, Arnautovic genuinely hadn't a clue about the context of what he was saying. At worst, if he was aware, then the alleged actions were particularly nasty. There are a lot of factors that would make what he allegedly said far more upsetting than a "simple" 'I shagged your ma'.

And I don't believe that it can be dismissed as being said in the heat of the moment.

DM_7

Mod: As per charter please don't post derogatory remarks even where you feel a persons actions or alleged actions justify it.

The_Kew_Tour

Ireland don't deserve to be at Euros but got to say after watching Poland and Sweden I don't think we have fared as bad as I thought we would based on last night.

We should have beaten Slovakia although to be fair to Slovakia I feel they upped it a little since we played them too.

Hopefully both matches today will be decent.

breezy1985

HalloweenJack wrote: »

If what's quoted in that article is true, it's just bizarre more than anything but it was definitely said with an intent to insult. It might not necesssrily be racist but it does have a nasty undertone.

It's one thing to say I ****ed your ma but to specify that it was your Albanian ma is something else. Given the history of that part of the world, it's a pretty awful thing to say. The guy's 32 ffs. He's been around long enough.

What do you imagine the reaction would be here if an NI or England player scored against the Republic and said to his marker I ****ed your Catholic ma?

Or if Declan Rice started throwing comments like "tiocfaidh at la" about the place

~Rebel~

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Ireland don't deserve to be at Euros but got to say after watching Poland and Sweden I don't think we have fared as bad as I thought we would based on last night.

We should have beaten Slovakia although to be fair to Slovakia I feel they upped it a little since we played them too.

Hopefully both matches today will be decent.

I keep thinking - 24 teams seems the wrong number for this tournament.
There's two choices really to make it a great tournament - tight and high quality, or inclusive enough to give more countries the tournament experience. 24 does neither.

I like 16 for how exclusive and high quality it is, and just getting there is a major major achievement, and you know most games will be quite competitive right from the group stage.

I think if you're stepping away from 16 at all, then you need to just go all in. Make it 32, and make it a total European Festival of Football. Everyone in South America competes in the Copa America, and I love it for that - it's a proper continental competition where everyone is involved. Now, obviously at 32, some countries are still gonna miss out, but you likely have pretty much all the populous countries there. Of course the groups will be worse quality, but as soon as you get to the knockouts its great again - cut straight from 32 to 16 - and I think it's worth worse groups for most of Europe to be able to get behind their team.

Muahahaha

I was wondering what Arnautovics celebration was after his goal, he seemed to be losing the head and at the time I had thought that Alioski had said something to him along ethnic lines. Seems now the reporting was it was the other way around.

HalloweenJack wrote: »

Lots of players of Serb, Croat, Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Montenegrin and Kosovar descent in Switzerlnad, Germany and Austria hence how these things tend to spill over. A lot of them ended up there as refugees because of the wars.in the early 90s so its a conflict that affectdd a lot of them and is still quite raw for some.

There really is some amount of hatred between all those nations even now two decades after the conflict. Much of it could have been avoided as well had the US & Nato not sat back and watched the Serbs commit genocide, the Serb generals were even ordering their soldiers to use rape as a tool of war as well. It was nasty stuff and its no surprise that its boiling over between football players even now years later.

breezy1985

~Rebel~ wrote: »

I keep thinking - 24 teams seems the wrong number for this tournament.
There's two choices really to make it a great tournament - tight and high quality, or inclusive enough to give more countries the tournament experience. 24 does neither.

I like 16 for how exclusive and high quality it is, and just getting there is a major major achievement, and you know most games will be quite competitive right from the group stage.

I think if you're stepping away from 16 at all, then you need to just go all in. Make it 32, and make it a total European Festival of Football. Everyone in South America competes in the Copa America, and I love it for that - it's a proper continental competition where everyone is involved. Now, obviously at 32, some countries are still gonna miss out, but you likely have pretty much all the populous countries there. Of course the groups will be worse quality, but as soon as you get to the knockouts its great again - cut straight from 32 to 16 - and I think it's worth worse groups for most of Europe to be able to get behind their team.

I have an utter hatred for tournaments where some groups get 3rd place through or whatever.

Tchaikovsky

It's a fragile peace that's in place in the Balkans, by all accounts. Hopefully it's not the powder keg that exploded in the 90s.

Tchaikovsky

breezy1985 wrote: »

I have an utter hatred for tournaments where some groups get 3rd place through or whatever.

I think it was the case for the World Cups in 86, 90 and 94? Playing 36 games to eliminate 8 teams is silly.

Liam O

Tchaikovsky wrote: »

I think it was the case for the World Cups in 86, 90 and 94? Playing 36 games to eliminate 8 teams is silly.

If it helps teams get up to speed and leaves higher quality knockout games then it can be a good thing imo. I think it will be a better tournament for (hopefully) having Portugal, Germany and France through.

Speak Now

breezy1985 wrote: »

I have an utter hatred for tournaments where some groups get 3rd place through or whatever.

Apart from Italia 90 where the drawing of lots between us and The Netherlands would have been to see who went home otherwise

The second group stage of Espana 82 was an awful format, not to even mention how West Germany and Austria knocked out Algeria in the first phase.

~Rebel~

Muahahaha wrote: »

There really is some amount of hatred between all those nations even now two decades after the conflict. Much of it could have been avoided as well had the US & Nato not sat back and watched the Serbs commit genocide, the Serb generals were even ordering their soldiers to use rape as a tool of war as well. It was nasty stuff and its no surprise that its boiling over between football players even now years later.

In a way, I think it's this long after a major event like that, that you see the biggest spike of public anger and resentment - because all the people who were kids at the time have now reached adulthood, and they're the ones whose lives were utterly dictated by those events. The adults at the time had lived lives before then, and dealt with what they were given - but the kids are now fundamentally different people than they would have otherwise been.

So the generation that now have a public voice and a platform are the ones that were most impacted, which is why we see things like Shakiri and Arnautovic etc, and it's only when the next generation grow up that we might see those tensions drop off.

I know a dude who's now in his mid-20s, from Kosovo, where they were pulled from their houses and the lucky ones were thrown onto trucks and driven out of the country to be dumped out by the side of the road across the border. That's a hell of an experience to grow up with. He went and made a film about the experience that's pretty good, if anyone's interested; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vczn2AM0LQ

breezy1985

Speak Now wrote: »

Apart from Italia 90 where the drawing of lots between us and The Netherlands would have been to see who went home otherwise

The second group stage of Espana 82 was an awful format, not to even mention how West Germany and Austria knocked out Algeria in the first phase.

Can't remember which year but the World Cup had a final group phase one year and it was just pure luck that the final game was the decider so now it's listed as the final

Speak Now

breezy1985 wrote: »

Can't remember which year but the World Cup had a final group phase one year and it was just pure luck that the final game was the decider so now it's listed as the final

Brazil 1950, Uruguay beat Brazil to top the group and win the cup. Brazil knew a draw would have done them and had even taken the lead in the second half. I wonder how the mood at final whistle was with 200,000 people in The Maracanã :eek:

The_Kew_Tour

~Rebel~ wrote: »

I keep thinking - 24 teams seems the wrong number for this tournament.
There's two choices really to make it a great tournament - tight and high quality, or inclusive enough to give more countries the tournament experience. 24 does neither.

I like 16 for how exclusive and high quality it is, and just getting there is a major major achievement, and you know most games will be quite competitive right from the group stage.

I think if you're stepping away from 16 at all, then you need to just go all in. Make it 32, and make it a total European Festival of Football. Everyone in South America competes in the Copa America, and I love it for that - it's a proper continental competition where everyone is involved. Now, obviously at 32, some countries are still gonna miss out, but you likely have pretty much all the populous countries there. Of course the groups will be worse quality, but as soon as you get to the knockouts its great again - cut straight from 32 to 16 - and I think it's worth worse groups for most of Europe to be able to get behind their team.

Good point, although I'm ok with 24 teams myself.

My gripe is the playoffs. It should be 2 leg affair against one team. Its very unfair on supporters not knowing where hell you are going in few days after one win. The old format was better and fairer.

Cause its so tough to get yo WC at least this gives the smaller nations like Macedonia a chance to shine on the big stage. Countries like that deserve a chance too.

People can argue that they only want see the quality teams as somehow it makes for better games which is simply not true.

Best game so far was Holland v Ukraine and while Holland have outside chance but would not be seen as top 6 or 7 teams at minute.

At end if day some of the teams that qualify for WC from Asia, Central America, Oceania and lesser extent Africa would not get 3rd or 4th in European group.

Mr.Nice Guy

Team news:

Hungary XI: Gulacsi; Fiola, Orban, At.Szalai; Lovrencsics, Kleinheisler, Nagy, Schafer, Botka; Sallai, Ad.Szalai.

Portugal XI: Patricio; Semedo, Dias, Pepe, Guerreiro; Danilo, Carvalho, Bruno Fernandes; B. Silva, Ronaldo, Jota.

Santos keeping faith with William Carvalho despite him not playing a lot of club football.

Important for Portugal to start off with a win. I think they will. I'll go for 2-0.

EltonJohn69

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Team news:



Santos keeping faith with William Carvalho despite him not playing a lot of club football.

Important for Portugal to start off with a win. I think they will. I'll go for 2-0.

3-1 Portugal

Loafing Oaf

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Team news:



Santos keeping faith with William Carvalho despite him not playing a lot of club football.

Important for Portugal to start off with a win. I think they will. I'll go for 2-0.

That's an impressive attacking line-up, I wonder how they would be expected to set up: Jota as CF, Bruno no. 10, Ronaldo wide right, Silva wide(ish) left?

Liam O

Surely you'd go for Andre Silva over Jota as a striker if that was how he was looking to set up?

Jota is starting, lovely stuff.

Couple of goals would be peachy.

EltonJohn69

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Jota is starting, lovely stuff.

Couple of goals would be peachy.

If Portugal score early….

~Rebel~

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

That's an impressive attacking line-up, I wonder how they would be expected to set up: Jota as CF, Bruno no. 10, Ronaldo wide right, Silva wide(ish) left?

I'd guess Jota nominally left and Ronaldo centre, but both will probably move around a bit as space opens up.

yourdeadwright

Liam O wrote: »

Surely you'd go for Andre Silva over Jota as a striker if that was how he was looking to set up?

Jota can & will drop deep/float wide which leaves the space central for a certain Ronaldo chap to pop up in ,
Plus the front 4 can all rotate with each other

jimmytwotimes 2013

'Arry Redknapp on SSN today saying he expects England to win tournament.

A quick Google shows he also said England would win WC 2010 & 2018, Euro 2016 and Spurs could win the Premier League in 2020/21.

I'll 'ave what he's 'aving

castletownman

Whats with the black shirts in segments of the crowd? Anti-Orban protest?

namloc1980

Seeing a full stadium is jarring.

Tchaikovsky

castletownman wrote: »

Whats with the black shirts in segments of the crowd? Anti-Orban protest?

Hahaha!

Bash them, Portugal!

AMKC

Come on Portugal.

Mervyn Skidmore

Rte with the wrong colours on the time and score graphic.