EURO 2020 (2021 Edition)

Good stuff. Switzerland are such a boring team but I imagine they'll go through anyway.

imo require footballers to have cyborg legs installed at youth, then the tackles can be hella vicious without fear

Wales at the knockout stages on GD.

i've seen quite a few switzerland games in the last couple of months, and i have to agree, which is why i decided to watch the italy-wales game.

also, yes, that wales player didn't deserve a red card, i think

Rude. Bale.

No more football tonight what is this?

Torture.

Every goal in the Swiss-Turkey game might still be in the tournament top 10 by its end. Likely no English player will score one half as good.

Was definitely Turkey's best performance of the tournament.

Some tasty permutations in Group B later - could have three teams tied on 6 or 3 points although Belgium & Finland might settle for a draw which would see both teams progress

Very few red cards in this tournament.

🚨 BREAKING: Billy Gilmour will miss tomorrow's game against Croatia after testing positive for coronavirus.https://t.co/rkHvjPKMur

— Clyde 1 Superscoreboard (@ClydeSSB) June 21, 2021

not now rona

FFS. Even though if performance was overrated due to the Premier League Effect.

'his performance' not 'if performance'.

Well, that's rough.

Hopefully there's just enough sense of jeopardy in this (unsatisfactory) format to make teams already on 3pts play for the win in their final games. UKR-AUT ought to be a decent match, or they could just take it easy in the knowledge that a draw would put AUT ahead of SUI in the 3rd-place rankings. Of course, later in the week, teams will know what they have to do. Which seems bad.

Good chance SUI/FIN/AUT/CRO/SWE/POR all finish 3rd on 4pts. SUI have -ve GD, POR would be +ve, rest could be a wash. Might come down to disciplinary records.

So Robertson and McGinn bot have to self-isolate and will miss the Croatia game too - it’s all over I think?

*both

Ok nope that was a lie!

Of course, later in the week, teams will know what they have to do. Which seems bad.

The World Cup was like this for years and nobody complained (or they did but not on the Internet).

So Robertson and McGinn bot have to self-isolate and will miss the Croatia game too - it’s all over I think?

Careful there. Any chance that McTominay was sharing a room with Gilmour?

The World Cup was like this for years and nobody complained (or they did but not on the Internet).

I was raging about this in '94 on rec.sport.soccer (I wasn't).

people complained a great deal, the Disgrace of Gijón and all that

Looking at the groups there's a good chance Portugal could narrowly lose to France and still get through as one of the best placed third teams (will become a bit clearer after today's matches) xps

That would be such a Portugal thing to do.

Disgrace of Gijon was '82; that was the first 24-team WC, but still only two qualifiers from each group (there was a second group phase: four groups of three). The issue then was that the final group matches weren't played simultaneously, so WG and AUT knew exactly what they had to do (so, yeah, similar to this). See also Argentina knowing what they needed to do vs Peru in '78, etc.

There's something a bit off about the groups not being truly discrete entities - a team gets through thanks to results in another group, etc. But I suppose that's no different to an athlete being squeezed out of an Olympic final because their 1500m heat happened to be at a slower pace than the other. If you're not in the automatic Q places, it's a bit of a lottery.

That's true, about the groups lacking independence.

But wasn't this practice of best 3rd-place qualifying also in play in 1986 WC?

Yes, 86/90/94 - and Euro 2016.

Watching Austria/Ukraine, seems the more relevant match...

Same

teaching a class, meh. somebody write out play by play in entertaining prose ITT

North Mac have already had the ball in the net vs. Netherlands. Offside. Just.

lively start to Netherlands v North Macedonia, should be 1-1, macedonia scored, offside but not as clear cut to me as everyone in the VAR room, it seems, didn't even get the protractor out

Lots of clashes of heids in this tournament, been a bit twitchy about seeing anyone hit the deck post-Eriksen

Don't have a dog in this race but Austria looking like Arsenal is not endearing them to me.

rocket off the post by Macedonia they look up for it and dangerous on the counter

Austria scoring off a corner.

Should liven things up, wouldn't feel comfortable finishing 3rd with 3 points if I wanted to get thru

You shouldn't be letting a man score with his feet from a corner to the edge of the 6 yard area imo

awesome dutch goal!

1-0 nederlands, delay finishing a tasty counter, there's goals in dem dar hills, this game is open as fuck

depay

That's a foul on pandev imo

Ukraine getting outmuscled in midfield

Two tight VAR calls against Macedonia in this game

Clive Tyldesley just excitedly commentated a replay of a Netherlands chance as if it was happening again, then had to correct himself like he was just retrospectively amazed at what a good save it was

great save but shouldn't have had a chance to save it really, respect both of these teams for moving the ball quickly and taking risks in attack, the controlling procession style adopted by so many teams now is the height of cowardice and an expression of fear that sours many games for me these days

football concussion protocols are non existent. concussed, score, go off. emma hayes on the co-comms bringing it again.

marco soft miss

Wasteful Austria

that controlled possession is very defensive-minded (maybe like how italy used to play) and is very boring to watch. i've noticed a lot of teams adopting that style of play, as well.

xp
yup should have punished 2 mins of criminal ukraine defending in stoppage time there.