Euro 2016 QF, Wales vs Belgium 20:00 TV3 & BBC

jacool

Mec27 wrote: »

Stupid tbh, all cards should be suspended after group stages and if a player is carrying a yellow into the semi and gets a yellow in semi-final, a panel should decide on whether or not the player will miss the final.

No way.
If this was the way, Italy would find a way to pick up more cynical yellows and still have a full side later on in the tournament. Everyone knows the rules. If they break them they get punished - simple.
Ramsey should have remembered two things before his handball.
a) His defence were playing a blinder up to that point and
b) Lukaku was never going to score if he got a chance.
I can see why Chelsea bought Batshuayi and do not want Lukaku back. He never gambled on anything coming in from the wings and usually was so slow coming back onside that Hazard didn't have him as an out ball.

SantryRed

Benimar wrote: »

Chester isn't suspended.

And James Collins will slot in for Davies pretty handily I'd imagine. The big blow is Ramsey though. King is gonna have to have the game of his life. Ramsey is incredible for his forward runs.

A Primal Nut

jacool wrote: »

Stats for Portugal games (Portugal first)
vs Iceland
Possession 66-33 Dangerous Attacks 67-13 Attempts 27-4
vs Austria
Possession 59-41 Dangerous Attacks 61-22 Attempts 23-3
vs Hungary
Possession 58-42 Dangerous Attacks 61-18 Attempts 19-10
vs Croatia
Possession 41-59 Dangerous Attacks 37-54 Attempts 5-17
vs Poland
Possession 46-54 Dangerous Attacks 55-49 Attempts 21-14

Portugal were very dominant in the group stages. The last two games were strange though. Literally nothing happened in the Croatia game and nothing happened in the Poland game after the 33rd minute either. They still haven't won a single game. I've watched all their games and don't know what to make of them. They have certainly made themselves hard to beat. But then again Hungary scored three against them, and I'd put Wales ahead of Hungary. Should be a fascinating game.

The attempts statistic is a bit misleading. Certainly in the two games against Iceland and Austria, the vast majority of shots were Ronaldo shooting hail mary shots from well outside the box and missing by a mile, both in open play and free kicks.

Francie Barrett

When's Hazard coming on for Belgium?

~Rebel~

SantryRed wrote: »

And James Collins will slot in for Davies pretty handily I'd imagine. The big blow is Ramsey though. King is gonna have to have the game of his life. Ramsey is incredible for his forward runs.

What a season for Andy King! He may only be a bit part player for his two teams, but winning the Premiership slotting in for Drinkwater in a crucial game, and likely starting a Euro semifinal filling in for Ramsey...unreal!

funtime93

Mec27 wrote: »

It's going to be difficult for them with Davies, Chester and Ramsey suspended, impossible even.

Chester isn't out.

jacool

Stats for Portugal games (Portugal first)
vs Iceland (on target attempts in brackets to eliminate Ronaldo/Nani effect!)
Possession 66-33 Dangerous Attacks 67-13 Attempts 27-4 (9-4)
vs Austria
Possession 59-41 Dangerous Attacks 61-22 Attempts 23-3 (6-1)
vs Hungary
Possession 58-42 Dangerous Attacks 61-18 Attempts 19-10 (6-5)
vs Croatia
Possession 41-59 Dangerous Attacks 37-54 Attempts 5-17 (2-0)
vs Poland
Possession 46-54 Dangerous Attacks 55-49 Attempts 21-14 (5-5)
That's all I can do now, except the odds
6/5 Portugal 11/5 Draw 10/3 Wales

Johner

Francie Barrett wrote: »

When's Hazard coming on for Belgium?

Was one of their better players tbh. Didn't have much help.

Kerrigooney

Magnificent stuff. Well done,Wales. Love it.

Ol' Donie

Am i right in saying Portugal haven't won a single game in 90 minutes, whereas Wales have won 'em all except England?

Dirty Dingus McGee

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

WE DO HAVE A DEFEATIST ATTITUDE. No Irish team would have the balls to do what Wales did tonight!

I am definitely not questioning the commitment of the Irish players but mentally we just don't have it to compete at a major tournament.

We competed fine against France until we ran out of steam after half time.

Francie Barrett

Johner wrote: »

Was one of their better players tbh. Didn't have much help.

Meh. Whatever complaint you have about Ronaldo, at least he was busting himself. I thought Hazard was in pre-season for next year.

JinkyJackson

This Belgium team is like England mid 00s

Elmer Blooker

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

We competed fine against France until we ran out of steam after half time.

I wonder why Wales haven't run out of steam? (I don't accept that they had an easy group or last 16 against N.Ireland as a valid reason by the way, there was nothing easy about their match v England)
Tonight was Wales's fifth match and they had the mentality and belief that they could beat Belgium, we just don't have it.

Ol' Donie

Wales & Iceland (and Ireland, f*ck it) have turned this competition from being quite underwhelming to the best fun ever.

Focus on Fellaini on TV3.

The foul he got booked for was nasty, looks like he raised his knee to try and connect with Bale again after standing on his foot.

WarZ

Ol' Donie wrote: »

Wales & Iceland (and Ireland, f*ck it) have turned this competition from being quite underwhelming to the best fun ever.

Ireland have a notoriously bad sports mentality.

We go on and on about being a small nation and competing yet in soccer you see teams like Wales and Iceland performing to a far higher degree this euros despite having a substantially smaller playing population. Wales and Iceland both approach games as if they are going to win, Ireland never does that against big teams.

Even in rugby teams like Wales and New Zealand with similar or smaller populations completely outperform us.

Ol' Donie

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

I wonder why Wales haven't run out of steam? (I don't accept that they had an easy group or last 16 against N.Ireland as a valid reason by the way, there was nothing easy about their match v England)
Tonight was Wales's fifth match and they had the mentality and belief that they could beat Belgium, we just don't have it.

What's your point?

We showed that we can compete, it just didn't happen against France. We were knackered after the Italy game, compared to France who had a few more days rest.

Ol' Donie

WarZ wrote: »

Ireland have a notoriously bad sports mentality.

We go on and on about being a small nation and competing yet in soccer you see teams like Wales and Iceland performing to a far higher degree this euros despite having a substantially smaller playing population. Wales and Iceland both approach games as if they are going to win, Ireland never does that against big teams.

Even in rugby teams like Wales and New Zealand with similar or smaller populations completely outperform us.

You've picked two examples of teams who perform exceptionally well, and use that to illustrate that we are very bad?

That doesn't add up.

A historic night in wales history and RTE can't even be arsed putting pundits on to discuss it.:mad: I'm as big an apres match fan as the next man but there is a time and place

The_Kew_Tour

WarZ wrote: »

Ireland have a notoriously bad sports mentality.

We go on and on about being a small nation and competing yet in soccer you see teams like Wales and Iceland performing to a far higher degree this euros despite having a substantially smaller playing population. Wales and Iceland both approach games as if they are going to win, Ireland never does that against big teams.

Even in rugby teams like Wales and New Zealand with similar or smaller populations completely outperform us.

I hope Wales win Euros. But Wales have not qualified for major tournament since 1958, it's Iceland first. Now fact Iceland are even in Euros is magnificent achievement in itself, but it's not like they have done it multiple times

Maireadio

Mars Bar wrote: »

The photographer reminded me of this

Me too!

WarZ

Ol' Donie wrote: »

You've picked two examples of teams who perform exceptionally well, and use that to illustrate that we are very bad?

That doesn't add up.

I've used it to highlight that there are smaller teams, with more limited resources, performing far, far better than us because they have a winning mentality.

Ulysses Gaze

WarZ wrote: »

Ireland have a notoriously bad sports mentality.

We go on and on about being a small nation and competing yet in soccer you see teams like Wales and Iceland performing to a far higher degree this euros despite having a substantially smaller playing population. Wales and Iceland both approach games as if they are going to win, Ireland never does that against big teams.

Even in rugby teams like Wales and New Zealand with similar or smaller populations completely outperform us.

We don't have three players as good as Ashley Williams, Bale and Ramsey.

Do we even have a player as good as Joe Allen?

Dirty Dingus McGee

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

I wonder why Wales haven't run out of steam? (I don't accept that they had an easy group or last 16 against N.Ireland as a valid reason by the way, there was nothing easy about their match v England)
Tonight was Wales's fifth match and they had the mentality and belief that they could beat Belgium, we just don't have it.

Because Belgium and Northern Ireland are nowhere near as good as France are.

Also we had a lot less rest than France did before the last 16 match so it stands to reason they would be fresher than us and this would have an impact on the game.

1 **** performance in the tournament is what we had.

Ulysses Gaze

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

We don't have three players as good as Ashley Williams, Bale and Ramsey.

Do we even have a player as good as Joe Allen?

Do Iceland have any player as good as those you've mentioned? Or Greece in 2004?

Ol' Donie

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Do Iceland have any player as good as those you've mentioned? Or Greece in 2004?

No, but that's the point.

Both of those are examples of exceptional achievements. That's why they are so rare.

Dirty Dingus McGee

WarZ wrote: »

Ireland have a notoriously bad sports mentality.

We go on and on about being a small nation and competing yet in soccer you see teams like Wales and Iceland performing to a far higher degree this euros despite having a substantially smaller playing population. Wales and Iceland both approach games as if they are going to win, Ireland never does that against big teams.

Even in rugby teams like Wales and New Zealand with similar or smaller populations completely outperform us.

Wales have beaten Russia (worst team in the tournament), Slovakia (a mediocre team),Northern Ireland (a mediocre team) and a Belgium team that don't give a **** and were missing a few key defenders.

The reason why Wales and NZ outperform us in Rugby is they are the only 2 countries in the world where Rugby can be considered to be their main sport and it's probably our 4th team sport in Ireland, it would make sense for them to do better than us.

We've qualified for more major tournaments than Wales and got to the knockout stages in 4 of the 6 tournaments we've qualified for and yet for some reason Wales are the standard we should hope to attain when in all probably they are going through a golden period right now with one of the World's 5 best players (which is pure luck for any country to have that sort of talent) and when you have a truly great player in a middling team it makes such a big difference.Stick Gareth Bale in our team and we'd be doing a hell of a lot better but sadly we don't have a great player like him not many small countries do.

By the way I don't want it to seem like what I said above is undermining what Wales have done but it is ridiculous Wales doing well means that this country has a defeatist attitude when it isn't really the case for the players and management.

JinkyJackson

Deleted User wrote:

Do Iceland have any player as good as those you've mentioned? Or Greece in 2004?

Greece actually had a better starting team in 04 as we do now.

Ulysses Gaze

Deleted User wrote: »

Do Iceland have any player as good as those you've mentioned? Or Greece in 2004?

No....but I'd take the two centre backs Iceland have over any combination of ours. I'd take their left back too. And their centre midfielders as well.

Ulysses Gaze

JinkyJackson wrote: »

Greece actually had a better starting team in 04 as we do now.

And a brilliant manager in Otto Rehhagel.

tastyt

WarZ wrote: »

Ireland have a notoriously bad sports mentality.

We go on and on about being a small nation and competing yet in soccer you see teams like Wales and Iceland performing to a far higher degree this euros despite having a substantially smaller playing population. Wales and Iceland both approach games as if they are going to win, Ireland never does that against big teams.

Even in rugby teams like Wales and New Zealand with similar or smaller populations completely outperform us.

Difference being in wales and iceland the GAA havent taken over most of the country and have kids playing their games in school every day.

Wales have rugby but also have huge footballing culture, especially in Swansea and cardiff, kids playing football in school every single day

764dak

Not bad for a country with only homegrown English system players

Jelle1880

Hopefully the end for Wilmots. Still doesn't have a clue how to handle a 3-5-2. Jordan Lukaku can also **** off, utter ****.

Credit to Wales, totally deserved it.

WarZ

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Wales have beaten Russia (worst team in the tournament), Slovakia (a mediocre team),Northern Ireland (a mediocre team) and a Belgium team that don't give a **** and were missing a few key defenders.

The reason why Wales and NZ outperform us in Rugby is they are the only 2 countries in the world where Rugby can be considered to be their main sport and it's probably our 4th team sport in Ireland, it would make sense for them to do better than us.

We've qualified for more major tournaments than Wales and got to the knockout stages in 4 of the 6 tournaments we've qualified for and yet for some reason Wales are the standard we should hope to attain when in all probably they are going through a golden period right now with one of the World's 5 best players (which is pure luck for any country to have that sort of talent) and when you have a truly great player in a middling team it makes such a big difference.Stick Gareth Bale in our team and we'd be doing a hell of a lot better but sadly we don't have a great player like him not many small countries do.

By the way I don't want it to seem like what I said above is undermining what Wales have done but it is ridiculous Wales doing well means that this country has a defeatist attitude when it isn't really the case for the players and management.

Our playing numbers are still either the same or bigger in both soccer and rugby so your entire argument is void.

WarZ

tastyt wrote: »

Difference being in wales and iceland the GAA havent taken over most of the country and have kids playing their games in school every day.

Wales have rugby but also have huge footballing culture, especially in Swansea and cardiff, kids playing football in school every single day

Again, Ireland still has bigger playing numbers in both sports.

Kobe248

WarZ wrote: »

I've used it to highlight that there are smaller teams, with more limited resources, performing far, far better than us because they have a winning mentality.

You ignore the standing of soccer and rugby in Ireland

But ok, carry on

WarZ

Kobe248 wrote: »

You ignore the standing of soccer and rugby in Ireland

But ok, carry on

For the last time, the playing numbers are STILL bigger in Ireland so that argument does not hold weight.

JinkyJackson

WarZ wrote:

For the last time, the playing numbers are STILL bigger in Ireland so that argument does not hold weight.

Ido Portal will make it hold weight

WarZ

JinkyJackson wrote: »

Ido Portal will make it hold weight

Ido Portal is a fraud.

TCDStudent1

WarZ wrote: »

For the last time, the playing numbers are STILL bigger in Ireland so that argument does not hold weight.

Do you have a link for this? I'd be interested in reading up the details of it.

AidoEirE

Have to say as a lad born in cardiff and moved to galway at 6, havin a irish mother and a welsh father this tournament has been unreal for me. Shouted the irish all the way through but my heart has always been with the welsh team, before bale was the superstar he is now.

Have to say me and the old man were watching the game and its absolutely the best performance we've seen from them, and to be fair prop the best game of the tournament for the neutrals.

Read a lot of post sayin that wales wer lucky, playin a weak belgium side, kinda beg to do differ. That belgium team is full of world class players, of course they we were weak at the back tonight but i think thats down to chris colemans tactics.
Had the team setup to null there attacking force, sending them out wide which didnt work for belgium. Every sub and tactic he's made all tournament has worked and looks like to me, made wales the most solified group still playing..

Williams played a captains role perfectly, we'd all take that performance from our own respective club captains...

Robson kanu..i think has played the tournament brillantly, wasn't playin last week i know, but he looks likes he loves the lone striker, holding up the ball which he does brillantly, and the cryuff turn..c'mon everyone loves football here and they got to admit that was instinctivly brillant. Was my man of the match with willams a close second

Ramseys ball to kanu, vokes goal, allens bossin of the midfield and the two full backs who love to get forward taylor and gunter all brilliant.

Sorry for the rant but im seriously proud of this squad and staff of what they have achieved. Have to say RIP to gary speed who put these foundations in place.

Win or loose vs portugal this tournaments been a dream.
Cheers

ahnowbrowncow

We've been waiting 3 years for that post, what kept you?

RedemptionZ

TCDStudent1 wrote: »

WarZ wrote: »

For the last time, the playing numbers are STILL bigger in Ireland so that argument does not hold weight.

Do you have a link for this? I'd be interested in reading up the details of it.

Don't know about football but here's rugby playing numbers from the IRB:



We do have more players but numbers don't tell the full story. Rugby isn't played at a high level in large parts of the country(though this is changing as the IRFU are nowhere near as incompetent as the FAI, one could even say they care about growing the sport in the country!) so I would hypothesise that the majority of our best athletes play GAA. However I believe he is right about soccer playing numbers too.

Elmer Blooker

WarZ wrote: »

Ireland have a notoriously bad sports mentality.

We go on and on about being a small nation and competing yet in soccer you see teams like Wales and Iceland performing to a far higher degree this euros despite having a substantially smaller playing population. Wales and Iceland both approach games as if they are going to win, Ireland never does that against big teams.

Well we did beat Germany in the qualifiers but we do see getting out of the group stage and going no further as a success in this country.
I see no reason why questions shouldn't be asked how small nations like Iceland and Wales can get so far in a major tournament when we set our own standards so low.

Utopia Parkway

WarZ wrote: »

Ireland have a notoriously bad sports mentality.

We go on and on about being a small nation and competing yet in soccer you see teams like Wales and Iceland performing to a far higher degree this euros despite having a substantially smaller playing population. Wales and Iceland both approach games as if they are going to win, Ireland never does that against big teams.

Even in rugby teams like Wales and New Zealand with similar or smaller populations completely outperform us.

Not sure what the point is? Wales have qualified for their first tournament in over half a century. It's Iceland's first ever tournament. Ireland have qualified pretty regularly for tournaments over the past 30 odd years. It actually does take a bit of work to even reach these tournaments with any kind of consistency.

Dirty Dingus McGee

WarZ wrote: »

Our playing numbers are still either the same or bigger in both soccer and rugby so your entire argument is void.

Sorry but with regard to Rugby you are wrong. According to the stat posted there are 96000 registered rugby players in Ireland.

There are approximately 120,000.00 registered GAA players in Ulster Alone

http://ulster.gaa.ie/wp-content/uploads/council/strategies/uc-strategy-2009-2015.pdf


I would say that Rugby is well behind Gaelic Games in playing numbers.There are only 221 Registered Rugby clubs in Ireland.There are 259 GAA clubs in County Cork alone.

AidoEirE

ahnowbrowncow wrote: »

We've been waiting 3 years for that post, what kept you?

The welsh team of course..

(think they had different rules for posting when i joined, and just never got back to the site till recently)

Optimalprimerib

On paper, Wales always had excellent players as far back as I remember. But they never gelled together. Now with some tournament glory behind them , no matter what happens in the rest of it, they could step forward as a good national team.

Portugal got to the semis without winning a game in 90 minutes , so they are resolute, but they are nothing special. The fact that bale is better than ronaldo at this moment in time will not sit well with the almighty, so he will be trying hard to fix that, maybe too hard.

Wales/Iceland final????

ford2600

Well done Wales, haven't enjoyed two games like last night and Iceland game in a long time.

Not sure how they have done it, but Wales have the bit between their teeth now and with the spirit they have will be hard to overcome.

The comparison of Ramsey/Bale and how they work as hard as anyone else against the English lads is pretty pointed. Like Iceland they seem to be having a ball. In a month long tournament, having fun/getting on as a large group is as important as anything else. The Germans at last World Cup had worked pretty hard to ensure there was no club clichés and that group gelled.

I hope Wales keep winning just for the singing alone!