EURO 2012

Poor Gabriel Clarke. His Benn-McClellan documentary was quite good.

Keane only just keeping a lid on it you feel

Are they ever going to show the Sweden goals?

Did the game involve England?

xp hoping for a Keane kill crazy rampage any time now

Southgate reaching Claridge-esque heights of third-wheeling. ITV must be be praying they can find some way of getting Keane and Carragher together again in future, cos they could run with them for years like this.

I was looking at the Gazzetta dello Sport website yesterday (after Italy had gone through) and there was a comment from one Italian that he'd rather face France than England as England's style of football was too similar to Italy's. What do you make of that?

Actually, have ITV ever had Keane, Chiles and Townsend together in the same studio? I'm pretty certain there'd be blood.

italy are a bit crap but they're not like england, nobody is like england except for ireland and maybe sweden

Chiles would get eaten.

Greece?

hodgson still got so much dignity, despite terry, despite england

Roy's tells are excellent:

Q: "[question about Rooney]"
A: "He played well" *scratches eyebrow*

Allegedly the Ukraine manager challenged a reporter to a fight outside the stadium not once but twice.

Sounds like him.

big lulz how the F did we win this group haha

Meanwhile, I'd missed all this:

http://espnfc.com/us/en/news/1108121/ubha-advance-.html

Ukraine totally got fucked tonight though, it bears repeating.

wait. it was TWO nil to Sweden? lol my pub.

Better to be shit and qualify then play beautiful football for a game and a half and choke when it matters, I suppose.

big lulz how the F did we win this group haha

I don't see France or England winning their next match tbh

England might win it in the way that mediocre Premiership teams beat better ones, Italy aren't that great. Spain will probably beat France but it's not a foregone conclusion.

Italy France Spain England

They've all had a couple of moments this tourney interspersed with dull ness and hesitation. I'm bummed about the hosts being out, especially Poland, and Russia messing up. Maybe its the lack of regular play together or maybe its the relative quality of the teams generally but, except for Germany who look pretty confident and pretty happy, no-one looks more likely to take it all. It might come down to a Ronaldo or someone.

germany looked pretty crap in the last game also tbf

england playing in a manner that suits them tbh, it could take them further. italy no great shakes. rooney scoring a tap-in winner despite being the worst player on the pitch (maybe in the stadium tbh) just seemed inevitable. if woy drops him for the next game he will already be the second best england manager ever.

worth repeating that the ukraine `goal` came from a ridiculously bad offside call.

my predictions for work sweepstake (at full time, not AET/pens)

czech rep 0 - 1 portugal
germany 2 - 0 greece
spain 1 - 1 france
england 1 - 1 italy

england playing in a manner that suits them tbh, it could take them further. italy no great shakes.

i sort of concur with this, tho i've gotta say that even playing on the counter they're hampered by inconsistent defending and lack of pace/flair when they break. but yeah they can beat Italy. if they start to believe, drop Terry, Rooney gets his touch back. i dunno, it's weird.

i'm even liking the notion of Milner as a dude who just aimlessly lumbers up and down on the right because there's nobody else to put there. Gerrard wd probably be best placed as the right-sided mid but then there's nobody to put in his gap in the middle.

genuine kudos to Roy for making a passable imitation nylon purse out of this bag of sows' ears

England-Italy will go to pens I reckon (although I haven't actually seen England play this tourney aside from the first 30mins against France)

Spain look out of sorts but France aren't much cop and got badly outplayed last might. So Spain will win.

Can't see anything other than Portugal/Germany wins in the other half of the draw.

Roll on Thursday.

milner is there as the chips under johnson`s dip tbf

mate was tryin to tell me last night that englad are doing well `despite` the absences of lampard, barry, carrick. laughed him out of it tbh. any one of them fucks the whole thing up beyond salvation.

lescott by some distance better than terr last night imo

I think Portugal and Germany will win and may well contest the final. I think France will do Spain because they never go out in the QFs, are perverse, and because Benzema has something spectacular in him. England, well history says Italy and they are a better side, but I quite fancy Roy to be diligent enough to work something out. If Harry had been manager, no way.

I reckon Spain will beat France and then lose to Portugal. Portugal look very disciplined and solid and Spain look vulnerable to being run at on the break. Germany will probably beat them in the final though.

"work something out" = clog Pirlo out of the match iirc

wtf how the hell can you pick france after yesterday's appalling display. a team of arrogant dicks who watched spain at their peak and all they got from it was "we should try for 1 million consecutive pointless passes in front of the box" , a coach who seemingly picks players randomly (after the game against ukraine, you pull menez? you leave nasri on? you bring malouda on when we're trailing sweden... ).

france didn't need to win last night's game amirite

nope they didn't. could have been out of the tournament only if ukraine had won by more than 2 goals or something like that.

You can't judge France based on form though. They are the most erratic team in football.

Usually France would be shit for ages and then get their act together because they'd have at least one world class player that a game would turn over. There aren't any world class players in the current French squad, certainly not to Zidane or Henry level.

i'm judging this one more on the fact that blanc has absolutely no idea what he's doing. but ya, you never know, maybe since every one says they'll get trounced by spain the players will get their shit together and do something.

matt otm also

reckon:
england 0 - 0 italy (eng win on pen 4-3)
czech rep 0 - 3 portugal
germany 1 - 1 greece (greece win on pen 5-4 FU merkel)
spain 4 - 0 france

The other thing with Spain is that although it's really really hard to beat them, you don't actually have to be super-talented to do so.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter: 'After last night’s match #GLT is no longer an alternative but a necessity.'

Gammon Lettuce and Tomato?

i'm judging this one more on the fact that blanc has absolutely no idea what he's doing.

Should be a perfect fit at Spurs then

some people want him to be the next Utd manager

France just don't have enough good players, that's not his fault... picking Malouda is though

not sure the lack of good players is the issue for FR - on paper this could be quite a squad but as NL has shown yet again it takes more than a bunch of talented individuals to make something.

OK, they are a lot of good players but I don't think any of them are particularly outstanding

ya france don't have great players... but holding on to evra for as long as he did was a mistake, removing menez and cabaye after they were 2 of the best players against ukraine was a mistake, keeping samir nasri on and putting him on the right side, then in the center of the field, with nasri doing fuck all was a mistake, subbing malouda in was a mistake (but taking ben arfa out was not a mistake, so yay, good job, good effort laurent), bringing only 2 cf to the euros meaning that you can never play giroud & benzema at the same time except at the end of games where you're trailing was a mistake (especially since benzema really doesn't seem to want to set foot in the box, which may be due to the fact that he'd then never even get a whiff of the ball). declaring that you want france to play like barcelona and then stocking up on players like ribéry, nasri, menez, ben arfa who like nothing more than to dribble rather than pass also shows a distinct lack of awareness. if domenech was coaching instead of blanc, he'd have been torn apart, totally destroyed by every journalist with a pulse.

declaring that you want france to play like barcelona

Beginning to think Barcelona are having a pernicious influence on world football!

Unless Lionel Messi is actually in your team

xxp
Hah! - well to be honest this FR team was alwas going to be a transitional team - most of these players will reach maturity for the next WC - I'm curious to see how many of them will still be playing in the national team by then.