EURO 2012

a point to el grap

in other news - loving this tournament - nice drama from the Greeks in game 1, Great underdoggyness by the Danes, 

and decent football spain v ital

How are you feeling about England's chances tigers?

And agree, the quality of football and the drama so far has been great, I hope it stays this way.

England vs France live on PRIME at 3.50am for all of those without Sky Sport. Sky TV must be trying to redeem themselves after the OFC fiasco.

He won't be captain and "leading his troops either". I guess that is the problem with throw-away comments that insinuate that John Terry worships Adolf Hitler - they are generally factually incorrect

only my loyalty allows me to state "we will make it out of our group" only madness lets me state "we will win at least one more game after that

we are the Greece of 2012 (but which era of Greeks I really don't know)

You are an awful person and bad things should happen to you. 

Absolutely cracking game between Italy and Spain.

Lots of midfielders in action. Italy played 3 at the back and 5 in midfiled, Spain started with Fabregas as striker. Bought Torres on after 60 and he butchered several good chances including a one on one with Buffon. 

High action game with some sublime passing from Pirlo, Inesta and Xavi. Some of the first time passing under pressure was absolutely stunning. Italy scored first from a Pirlo dart forward and then a great pass which was expertly finished by Di Natali. Spanish reply from Fabregas was straight out of the Barca coaching manual.

If we get more high quality games like this then it will be a great tournament. Italy looked very very good. Spain need to start with a striker.

Commentator on Prime says there is only a "clutch" of French supporters in the stadium.  I've spotted a few that I wouldn't mind clutching.

Gallic flair vs English stoicism.  Long periods of lying back and thinking of England, a few short bursts of "zut alors".

1-1 then.  The winner on the day was Man City.

This is just a mockery of Paul: http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/7084947/Can-bolting-bovine-replace-Germanys-oracle-octopus

I mean really?  A clairvoyant cow - please!

England reminded me of a foosball team - standing in dead straight lines and just swinging through the ball with gay abandon whenever it got close.

Only if you lined the 5 and the 3 man white rows in front of the goalie.

True - foosball teams are usually set up quite attackingly (is that a word?)

I wonder if you can get foosball tables with the teams in a 4-4-2?

The draw witn France was a lot better that most predicted. England played a lot better than they did against Belgium last week. Lets hope Ukraine beat the frogs next game, England win, which will just about put the arrogant frenchies out.

I think Italy still views the Euros as a World Cup rehearsal.  This is an opportunity to refine their system, prove the new players, etc.  If a trophy comes out of that?  Well, nice enough, but not what it's about.

well there were moments of that match that reminded me of being in the dentist's chair waiting for the seemingly inevitable bad news  

but a draw keeps us in the frame, hope Ukraine don't prove to be our un-doing

possibly the least optimistic i have ever been about England's chance (so, just you listen up JinxFairy)

in other news - i still can't believe how Balotelli didn't even shoot when he had that 1:1

It's all about Koi Hodgson on the Mirror LOL.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/euro-2012-predictions-koi-hodgson-878598

Literally tried to walk it in, the man is a legend.

He and Torres really did the premier league proud.

Terrible terrible game for neutrals. Easily the worst game so fare of the tournament

England are getting mega slagged off here in Europe. Michael Ballack said it was "anti-football". Its easily the worst English team I have seen. Nick a goal from a set piece and then park the bus. Two rows of defenders standing across the box.

The French don't rate their own team very highly...even though they are now unbeaten in 22 games. But at least they tried to play some football. Their problem was they were two timid and allowed the English to set the pace of the game. 

They showed the stats here on TV after 60 mins. France 635 passes, England 285. France 17 shots on goal, England 2

Best image of the game was of one of the spectators sound asleep.

Hopefully Sweden and the Ukraine will eliminate England and spare is any more of that durge!!

You are giving England too much credit. They only had one shot on target all game. 

Worst thing is they seem really happy with their efforts! How the 'mighty' have fallen...

Very happy to see Greece lose this morning.

Why all the hating on the greeks? I know nothing about greek football, is there any particular reason you both hate it?

EG is Croatian and the result helps them. 

For me, good question. I'm not really sure why, I've just never fancied them. I probably don't dislike them any more than I do England. It just started somewhere awhile ago and grew. I think if you support a team passionately there are going to be a fair few teams you love to hate for whatever reason. 

Fair enough, that's football!

He's just racist. 

Ps - I think the goal was good too 

Past the Dutchies on the left hand side.

Good couple of games today.

My entirely unexpert take on the game was the the Netherlands looked like none of the players were on the same page, especially in the front third. As soon as they got into a dangerous position, 9 times out of 10 they'd either take a shot from distance and shank it horribly, or play a 'clever' ball through but have no-one running on to it. 'Clever' in inverted commas because although it might take some skill to find the gaps in the defensive line, it's really not clever at all if there's nobody on the end of it. Contrast this with a slick German team who seemed to have a superb awareness of where their teammates were, and the result wasn't particulalry suprising. 

sounds like there's a bit of a spat among players in the Dutch squad. Sneijder said there were too many "pathetic egos" in the team before that game.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jun/13/euro-2012-wesley-sneijder-pathetic-egos

What goes on tour stays on tour...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/7102105/Goalkeepers-bare-bottom-used-for-training

Imagine the embarrasment it would cause if this sort of thing happened in the Nix and then Slater started to tell Mel about it in graphic detail on TV.

Nah, the result doesn't really help us in any way, just dislike them. I guess my dislike dates back to EURO 2004 when they won it by playing the most dour football imaginable. Prior to that they hardly featured on the radar.

talking about dour Greek football makes me think of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79vdlEcWxvM

And can I just say, I'm absolutely stunned by this...would never have thought that something like this could ever be a problem for a Dutch national team.

"Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics,? Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside."

Pure awesomeness.

Sneijder is the heart of the team and good on him for speaking out. Today we only looked good when he created something, pity the rest of them can't follow his lead.