Euro 2016 - hype, anticipation and general excitement

right you are! i thought i heard one of the commentators saying that when Albania took the lead and blithely accepted it without thinking about it, obviously there's no guarantee that Albania are through. so it'll be England against Albania or the 3rd maybe place team from either groups C or D. So almost anyone other than Ukraine then.

Not the greatest of games there imo

lord

Rooney wants manager who keeps picking him to stay

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36572045

Love it when players who shouldn't be trusted to pick their own dinners have opinions about team selection, tactics etc. Lot of bullshit hype around Rooney's 2 performances, as if not completely fucking up was laudable in itself. He still slows the team down, especially with those long, hanging crossfield passes that do nothing except allow the opposition defence a few seconds to stabilise.

think he's been alright there, not twpirlo obv but yknow. those long passes are symptom not cause imo, the side's movement is so lacking that the hail mary is more attractive an option than it ever ought to be

none of the praise has been accounting for the fact that neither Wales nor Russia saw fit to press him whatsoever, any decent midfield would have him for breakfast.

It's not necessarily that he's choosing the wrong option every time, the problem is more that he doesn't seem capable of sweeping the ball around at pace. Those leisurely floated balls are so easy to read.

Unlikely as it seems I think the best thing that could happen tonight would be for wilshere to come in and play a blinder to make himself undroppable for the next game

I think I'd allow him "alright" and maybe there's nobody in the squad who would obviously be more than alright but it's still unseemly crowbarring him in like this just because of alleged talismanic powers imo

The thing is you can just tell that Rooney reads the game better than most of the other England players, you can see what he's trying to do, but he doesn't really have the pace or control or the experience to execute it properly. He's been doing alright, and will probably continue to do alright against Slovakia, but it won't work against one of the best midfields.

A fully match-fit Wilshere would probably do better in that role but it's not going to happen.

Those diagonal passes might work with really lethal wide players but if you're playing them to Sterling all the time you might as well be hoofing it into the stands.

a bunch of them have been more horizontal than diagonal, which doesn't help

but yeah I can see a "Rooney is the best approximation of a player we don't actually have" argument

Rooney also out of the team for tonight, along with Kane, Alli, Sterling, Walker and Rose. Vardy, Studge, Wilshere, Henderson, Clyne and Bertrand in.

No Rashford? I'm out

Conflicted abt which one to see

I only have ITV HD, and not ITV2 HD, so my mind was made up for me

Ramsayyyyyy!

Wooooooo Ramsey!

(Idk what's on what Ste, not in uk)

Ah I see :) Lovley finish.

That Joe Allen pass...

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/12/07/article-2244650-165EA80A000005DC-92_634x412.jpg

That was nearly amazing from Henderson.

Loooool Taylor! 2-0

Wonderful oversight by Bale there

Oh my word. Get the fuck in!

Russia have utterly disgraced themselves in the tournament

^^ I think Taylor muttered that to himself after that godawful first try

Xp

https://youtu.be/mwFBWTRjhiE

Timing is off but you get the picture

Unbelievable miss there. Bale is rampant.

Russia is only, what, 300 times the size of Wales?

a quick google suggests it's over 800x as big, although only ~47x as populous

814 times

Xp

what abt india vs west indies

Despite Russian possession we should probably be 3 or 4 up at HT from some of the chances we've missed.

only 47x

after those pissy comments from ronaldo i went through the footballers from madeira wikipedia category to see if it could field a competitive team vs iceland (it is about 20% smaller) and i think it could probably do so

there's a reasonable contingent of minor primeira liga players and some from the second division, though no goalkeeper, but as well as ronaldo they could play ruben micael in midfield, and danny behind ronaldo

Yeah, hope Wales dont come to rue those missed chances. Though Russia are utter, utter shite. Should be a comfy win.

just noticed my youtube link didnt embed!

bc it was posted from mobile maybe?

from desktop this time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwFBWTRjhiE

Starting to think Russia has some sweet dough riding on a loss here. They are throwing it.

this reminds me of a dunphy quote from 2008

"There's sort of a melancholy about the Russian psyche, a willingness to be beaten. Much like the Welsh..."

Ignatievich being subbed and noone wants the captains band o_O

Thats a decent quote Nakh

new ts

robert lewandowski or corey lewandowski

perfect way to amalgamate us elections and euros threads

This is way too suspicious

"wayne rooney is imminent"

imminentizing the everton

got to slow it down.

lol