EURO 2016

Must be frustrating for Portugal fans having Ronaldo take every free kick within 40 yds of the goal and blaze it high and wide. Nani or Quaresma could be whipping the ball into the area for Ronaldo's aerial dominance instead. You would think that would be a much higher percentage option. Couldn't be worse, that's for sure.

There must be some contractual thing going on, each free kick is 30 seconds more screen time for the CR7 brand.

Could go either way esp with a red card. TAB odds for half-fulltime : $41 Port/Wales  $31 Wales/Port.

Portugal"s luck will run out tomorrow ...Wales to make history !!

Pepe in doubt, could make a massive difference to Portugal. He might be a diving, cheating thug but he's a world class defender

c'mon Wales....0-0 @ half-time

who else but Ronaldo....

...and that's why someone else should take Portugal's attacking free kicks so Ronaldo can get on the end of them

Unbelievable Portugal will be in the final. They're doing a Greece...

bugger...Bale hugs Ronaldo..aww shucks ...

Imagine how different this tournament would be if Iceland hadn't scored that last minute winner against Austria. This is all your fault Iceland.

I just realised that if Portugal win this we might get to see Ronaldo vs Moses Dyer in Russia next year

That was a typo. I meant to say 2-0.

If that hadn't happened, Croatia's path to the final would have been: Iceland, Poland, Wales. Fudge you Iceland.

This could be the real reason they sacked their sports commentator. 

It could all be so different if he just kept quiet.

Would love to see Themi kicking Ronaldo and Fallon giving him an elbow. 

This is already more entertaining than most of the games in this tournament so far

I'd be pretty fudged off if I was a German fan right about now

We've all had that feeling.Dominate, don't score, then concede.

It was a marginal penalty call against them too. And they should have had a free kick right on the edge of the area earlier when Pogba tripped Kroos, and possibly a penalty for themselves on an earlier corner too (I didn't catch a decent replay but one of the French guys fell into Schweinsteiger as the ball came in)

Penalty call was correct, can't go jumping in the air like that with your hands up. As for the German shout for a penalty, Schweinsteiger had mistimed his run and was already past the ball and it was more just a clash of bodies, I wouldn't have called it.

Good shark from France today. Played very well when they had the ball and used their chances. Hopefully they go all the way. What a save from Lloris at the end to keep his clean sheet!

Obivously we all want France to tear Portugal a new one, but you just know that isn't going to happen.

Even if France do win (which i think they will) this Portugal team are gonna ride their jammy luck all the way to the very end.

This is it isn't about deliberate for the hand ball, if your hands are in an unnatural position (Over his head) then if the ball hits them it has to be a penatly. A player shouldn't be jumping up like that where they are doing deliberate or not.

At least it gives the GIF makers more raw material

But the laws of the game clearly say it has to be deliberate. If the guidance says otherwise they should change the wording of the law

It is considered deliberate if your hands aren't in a natural position.... Confusing I know

Phoenix Germany gifted them two goals and could not score once. Can not blame the referee for that. Germany better team, France more clinical. Well at least it was an entertaining game. France on their way to win the Euro.

It just raises deep philosophical questions about what is natural and what is not. At what point in evolutionary history did humans become unnatural?

Not blaming the ref, just saying on a different day in a different stadium I could see those calls going the other way. Germany paid the price for. Their lack of a genuine striker. They were also lucky to not concede another when Boateng did his obligatory dangerous error and let Giroud clean throough

I completely retract everything I said about that penalty. It was a clear handball. I just saw this https://gfycat.com/HandsomeFrailIaerismetalmark

Didn't see that angle on the broadcast. Pretty hard to argue with though

Loew had identified a couple of things before the tournament, teams don't press and harder to break down and has lamented the development of players in Germany hasn't produced that many that can beat the opposition with ball at their feet and also picked Gomez for games like this. 

Bad errors from Germany resulting in goals, France not making errors - it was a very Mourinho-esque big game performance.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/apr...

There is absolutely no reason for Schweinsteiger to have his arm where he had it. It's actually an excellent call from the refs (the call came from one of the assistants).

As average as Gomez is, Germany have looked 10 times better with him in the line-up than without at this tournament. They'll need to solve that problem if they want to retain their world title in 2 years' time.

France is a team that's actually still on the up - and once they iron out some of their defensive problems, they could be the dominant world team over the next 5 years or so.