EURO 2016

Being in Europe helps as you get more rankings points for getting results against higher ranked teams and Europe has the highest ranked teams. Also remember Iceland only missed out on qualification for Brazil 2014 in the playoff against Croatia so have been on a pretty good run

It's not just results against higher ranked teams which gets European teams more ranking points - there's a multiplier just for beating any UEFA opponent. So Iceland beating Luxembourg or San Marino or Latvia gets them more points than us beating PNG or Tahiti gets us. 

IMO that's one of the biggest flaws with the ranking system. There's a multiplier for the rank of your opponent already so why is there another multiplier just for the confederation you are in?

who said England was great? No English supporter would unless deluded.

 

Key qualifier.

Looking at the teams in this tournament, England could actually win the darn thing.

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) June 25, 2016

I guess you have never said something that you came to regret. 

They were poor  and I have never seen a worse performance from them.  If you look at all their games in the tournament saying that they were a 6 out of 10, they were a 3 out of 10 against Iceland.Not one player was even half decent, but you certainly can't  say that the players are rubbish- they played almost unbelievably poorly. The same as the AW's  in their last tournament. 

I picked them to make the last eight, but no further.

 

Dale's not paid to be a football pundit.

He also didn't say anyone was rubbish.

Do you think that England squad had a chance of winning it? I don't. I thought they had a greater chance of going out in the group stage than going through to the final.

Lineker is (was) off his rocker!

I did not think they would win it- last 16 was probably where they should have been. More  than likely he was taking the piss as he of all people would have known. 

I would doubt that any England supporter thought they would win the final. The last poll I saw before the Iceland game was only 36% thought they would make it to the last 8.

Bobby Charlton was asked how he thought the England team of '66 would have fared against Iceland. " I think we'd have won 1-0 " he replied. "Only 1-0?" Said the reporter. "Yes," said Bobby. "Most of us are in our 70's."

I'm an England fan and I knew there was no chance we'd win but expected to probably make the quarter final. We had won 10 out of 10 in qualifying and looked pretty good throughout, and given the draw on paper I don't think that was being unreasonably arrogant. Didn't bank on Hodgson changing from a system that worked very well and putting too many of the wrong players in the wrong positions and generally having no idea what he was doing. It wasn't unreasonable to think that based on the sustained level of form over the last 2 years that they could have done better than they ended up doing.

Also Linekar is an English pundit catering to an English audience. Out of his mind if he really believed that they could win it, but I doubt many pundits from other nations said "we have no chance and shouldn't even bother turning up" either. 

When you look at their track record in tournaments i wouldn't have expected anything more than a QF at most.

England have only won 6 knockout matches in 50 years since winning the World Cup. These are: Paraguay (86), Belgium (90), Cameroon (90), Spain (96), Denmark (02), Ecuador (06).

Belgium and Cameroon were both after extra time and Spain was won on penalties. So 3 (THREE) knockout wins inside 90 minutes in 50 years. Not a very good record.

In reality England going out at the first hurdle of the knockouts is about par.

I think you need to remember he is a BBC pundit commentating for a predominantly English Audience. So what he says about Engerland needs to be taken with a pinch of salt

I think Iceland played bloody well.

Portugal bore their way to another win via pens vs Poland...still haven't won a game in normal time...I guess it's that small team mentality ?

And it's quite conceivable that they'll make the final without winning a game in 90 minutes at this tournament.

Paul Ifill ‏@PaulIfill

5 draws for Portugal and they're into the semi finals! Winning is obviously not everything #EURO2016

Portugal are gonna win it, aren't they?

Semi final with 5 draws. Could win the whole thing without winning a game.

More like Drawtugal

I think any of the Germany/France/Italy in the final beats them. Italy and Portugal final sounds unwatchable.

Italy-Portugal would have 0-0 and penalties written all over it.

In 510 minutes of football each Portugal have led for about 20 minutes and are in the semi final and Poland didn't trail for a single minute and are out.

Weird how these things go sometimes. One team through to the semi without winning a game and the other out without losing one or even being behind in one. Don't know how Poland scraped through this far tbh, they never looked much good.

Not sure why you think a hypothetical Italy v Portugal would be 0-0. Tournament stats don't support that at all:

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/season=2016/statistic...

They have the lowest goals per game for teams left in the tournament?

The way Portugal have played so far and the tactics usually employed by Italy throughout history? To beat an Italian team who only need a draw is one of the the toughest tasks in the game.

Ronaldo was so shark. So, so shark.

That air shot in front of goal was brilliant. Shame it didn't cost them.

The only difference between Ronaldo & Rooney in this tournament is that Portugal are in a semi. Otherwise both players have played absolute crap and of the ability that would warrent 2k per week max,not the 200k (or more) that they are on.

To be fair Ronaldo did pretty much single handedly get them back into a match they should have lost against Hungary. Rooney hasn't produced a match winning or even saving performance for England at a tournament since he was an Everton player.

 

Perhaps true but weird comparison. Ronaldo is one of the most credentialed players in the world, arguably the best of his generation. Rooney is...bald?

And Portugal made it the 6th time in row to at least 1/2 final in the Euro's. (As far as I remember)

He is also clearly well below full fitness and the fact he got into about 4 good goal scoring positions was the result of some pretty clever and efficient movement. Woeful finishing though.

The 2 air shots I saw were brilliant. At club level I have seen him put away much more difficult stuff away for fun.

The youngster Renato Sanchis has been a bit of a revelation for Portugal though.

Bayern Munich paid 50 mill for him. Not bad for an 18 year old. 

Always the way. Hadn't heard of him before this tournament and was just thinking he looked pretty good this morning then heard that.Feels like every time someone new emerges and looks good Bayern or Real etc have already bought them.

That was some penalty too. When he stepped forward I was thinking it was too big a moment for an 18 year old but that you won't see many better penalties than that.

That 18-year-old ought to teach Brockie how to play and take a penalty like a mature, calm, composed player.

My hunches:

Wales v Belgium = Belgium

Germany v Italy = Germany

France v Iceland = France

SEMIS:

Portugal v Belgium = Belgium

Germany v France = Germany

FINAL:

Belgium v Germany = Germany

Fantasic scrambling off the line for Wales there.  Save from inside the 6 yard box, then two clearances off the line by defenders in quick succession.

Wow, no scrambling could stop that! Great strike from Nainggolan to go 1-0 up.

 

On Facebook this week Brocks posted a photo of him and his son who is about 2. Former All Whites assistant coach Brian Turner was the first to comment with "probably takes better penalties than you Brocks."