EURO 2012

russia should surely have a bunch of sub-standard brazilians in their squad these days, c'mon let's diversify.

Evhen Khacheridi. Not so long ago Oleksandr Aliev called his Dynamo Kyiv team-mate "The woodpecker". Khacheridi was known for his stupid behaviour on the pitch, which saw him sent off several times, but he has now matured and is playing his best football. He is a cool, collected and reliable operator.

http://en.euro2012fantasy.uefa.com/my-leagues/67725/join/?autojoin-code=13714-677

anyone interested?

Yes. It doesn't seem to be mobile-accessible, but I'll have a look shortly.

Poland's passionate coach Franciszek Smuda is so excited by the prospect of Euro 2012 that, according to assistant Jacek Zielinski, he's behaving like a feral animal.

"Smuda? He's like a wild fox in a cage," champions Zielinski. "He just wants to waste them all. He can't wait."

knew that would be a bullshit translation, and so it proved

waste dem wastermen

Heiko Wastemann (born 14 August 1983 in Alzenau, West Germany) is a German footballer who plays as defender for German Bundesliga club Hamburger SV and the German national team.

http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/fourfourtwoview/archive/2012/06/06/possession-jon-harley-amp-foreign-coaches-henry-winter-s-blueprint-for-a-better-england.aspx

lulz

Did McManaman ever actually play for England after that? I'm struggling to remember.

http://en.euro2012fantasy.uefa.com/my-leagues/67725/join/?autojoin-code=13714-677

anyone interested?

i'm in.

mcmanaman never got a decent go for england, ludicrous.

You could cast him in with Hoddle, Le Tiss, Rio, etc. as too suspiciously foreign for England. He did play in the 4-1 Holland game I'm sure, but seemed to fade out of the reckoning as he got more accomplished.

england's mythical left winger, too good for them imo

was "no way no way, mcmanaman" ever a chant?

hard 'ch'?

not today

don't get fresh with me

lol

http://i.imgur.com/BC0Eh.gif

great country by country previews at zonal marking: http://www.zonalmarking.net/category/euro-2012/

yeah been reading them, good stuff.

Wait are Italy really playing Cassano and Balotelli upfront these days? Ohboy.

has cassano even been playing regularly for milan or are they merely seeking lols?

mcmananaman had the starts but never really did it for england in my recollection

rarely failed to underwhelm throughout his whole career tbh, hindsight be kind to him

hes been sick for most of last year

in any case he is 29 and is fairly sensible these days

balotelli, provided he has no defensive responsibilities, is less of a problem than the great british public's ardently expressed need for an angry black hate figure would have you believe

knew i shouldve just typed macca xp

mac mañana mañana mañana man

tbf to the great british public for a change that is not quite the need they have of mario is it, it's more the carrot/stick gazza loony angle

http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/b/banana1.jpg

balotelli could be a love figure but insists on being a cunt so idk i'm giving the great british public a free pass on this one regardless of his colour

don't rly see the vermin with the little england flags treat loveable bipolar wifebeater gazza in the same fashion as balotelli

trea-ting

anyway deems good luck in poland, don't say anything nasty about the dead king of pederasts karol wotyla and you should be fine

gazza's wackiness well within the realms of the oddball pal of your little england vermin, balotelli's brand of mentalism all his own.

He was much-loved 'til he was acting like a dick around Easter and he's still not really hated, maybe save the racist aspertions for whatever next catches your displeasure.

everyone loves his (fictional) off the field antics

i wasn't in love with him kicking scotty parker in the head, after all scotty done for the queen gawd blesser in WWI

yeah i think after his slightly derange performance vs arsenal the linekerite bantuhstans seeking a king in the mountain have given up on mario and are probably looking for another bantuh legend to patronize

he actually seems bothered about playing for italy and pranelli is super suspect of him so i don't really envisage any problems

maybe more worrying for italy would be whether their narrow, pedestrian midfield is going to do enough running to make up for balo & cassano

Platini and Collina have both warned him about being booked already.

UEFA president Michel Platini has told the official Euro 2012 kick-off press conference that any player who leaves the pitch due to racist abuse will be given a yellow card.

Platini confirmed that the rule preventing players from leaving the field of play without the referee's permission would be enforced even if they are the victims of racism from the stands in Poland and Ukraine.

The comments came after Mario Balotelli last week threatened to walk off the pitch if he suffered racist abuse during Italy's Euro 2012 games - and Platini confirmed he would be punished in that event.

"It's a yellow card," Platini said at a Warsaw press conference dominated by the theme of racism. "We'd certainly support the referee if he decided to stop the game. It's not a player, Mr Balotelli, who's in charge of refereeing. It's the referee who takes these decisions.

"So the referee has been given advice and he can stop the game if there are problems. We will stop the game if there are problems because I think racism is the worst of this.''

UEFA's chief refereeing officer, Pierluigi Collina, underlined Platini's sentiment, insisting the teams had been informed of the procedure in the event of racist abuse being a problem.

"Things are clear,'' he said, confirming that officials had also been fully briefed. "Referees have a protocol so they know what they have to do. The match director, who is responsible for each match, knows what has to be done on the field of play."

Platini, though, refused to be drawn on the findings of last week's BBC Panorama programme, as well as Sol Campbell's warning that black fans who travel to the tournament risk "coming back in a coffin''.

The Frenchman, who was increasingly angered by the line of questioning, added: "What would you like me to say? How would you want me to answer this?

"Everyone can do what they like. I don't think there's any more racism in Poland and Ukraine than in France or anywhere else, or even in England. It's not a footballing problem. It's a problem for society.

"I'm not charge of what goes on in football stadiums. It's the states that need to take charge of this. There have been problems with violence in the 1970s in England.

"They made great strides actually to change the situation, and we need to do work in the field of racism and we need to stop this from happening. How can you say outside the stadium: 'He's a racist - he can't come in, he's not a racist - he can come in'? You can't do it."

ugh i can imagine the leading questions from the english hack scums

england's peerless and unblemished post-racial paradise is now another myth for boorish patriots to cling to

now every retard on twitter has been prosecuted, england is free of racism and we can sneer at those horrible eastern european countries where they hang foreigners from trees and drink their blood

Is this tournament thread going to be 75% "Daily Mail" / "Dem not gonna con dis nation"-type content?

thought mario was going to get sent-off in the 2nd half against Russia the other night. He looked to be heading that way. Still he played well. Cassano didn't.

i wasn't in love with him kicking scotty parker in the head, after all scotty done for the queen gawd blesser in WWI

― irrational angst that makes me innocuously thingy (darraghmac), Wednesday, June 6, 2012 6:14 PM (19 minutes ago)

that was pretty good, suarez kicking him in the balls was a hans molemanish classic

http://i.minus.com/ibz2dg0uThuYMd.gif

http://www.boxofficefootball.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/1417a86.gif

suarez beautifully naturalistic mea culpa gesture is better than mario's obviously feigned fall

http://h9.abload.de/img/untitled-11cyali.gif

content tbh

Spain 08-12 basically counts as the same team. Villa and Puyol would have been in there had they not been injured.

Marcos Senna, how quickly we forget

Capdevilla and Torres rip

This sort of thread is why I Love Football exists. It is ILX's version of the pub where endless footie conversations take place every single day and night of the week.

***---> Endless! Footie! Conversations! <---***

When such a heaven exists, why would anyone not want to go to heaven?

One day, eventually, we will run out

one day we will tog out, you mean

'Only' the one nine, isn't it? (v Ipswich in 95)

Ipswich totally deserved that stuffing after the misery of the 6-0 defeat they dished out to Man Utd in 1980 iirc.

― gonna send him to outer space, to hug another face (NickB), Wednesday, July 4, 2012 1:31 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally deserved. as an ipswich fan living in manchester i'm not sure where to start with that sort of one-eyed nonsense.

haha. reading about that cruyff testimonial. pretty funny in a cruel kind of way.

Actually the real best thing about the Cruyff testimonial is Cruyff unashamedly having a fag in the middle of the game.

are there any good articles on it

Is that real, Matt?! Awesome.

Tiny bit in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jun/22/least-successful-testimonial-match-ever):

And take Johan Cruyff's farewell fixture for Ajax against Bayern Munich. You might think the result doesn't matter in a testimonial and, by and large, you'd be right, but what about when the team you invite turn up and give you a proper shoeing?

"The German champions wanted to show their Dutch counterparts something after earlier defeats and not being welcomed at Schiphol Airport," writes Dave G Boham. "They even had to sleep at a sub-par hotel. After jeers from the crowd, they showed their hosts something. Three goals were disallowed during the 8-0 hammering dished out by the Bavarians. The Ajax players just wanted to have a good time. In 2006, Bayern apologised."

I didn't get to watch much of the tournament (combo of working when games were on/not actually being fussed about it at all), but did I get any predictions right? http://noisey.vice.com/blog/euro-2012s-most-predictable-soundtrack--cliches

The Song They'll Probably Use: "Sexy And I Know It" by LMFAO. It works on two levels, one for the actual sexy shots of buxom Swedish girls picked out by pervy camermen (no doubt on the behest of Lineker) and for ironic purposes when juxtaposed against some beer-bellied brute from Dagenham doing the Macarena.

I feel like this was done at some point.

The song at least; I can't remember the setting.

England's exit got a cover of 'In The End' by Linkin Park. I don't think anyone could summon the enthusiasm for a Torres montage, but his kids were cute.

who did the horrible cover of "thriller" after the final?

Imogen Heap.

Zonal Marking's TOTT http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/07/04/zms-team-of-euro-2012/

---------------------------Casillas--------------------------
--Pereira-----------Pepe----------Ramos-------------Alba-----
---------------------------Pirlo-----------------------------
--------------------Khedira-------Mountinho------------------
-------Jiracek-------------------------------Iniesta---------
---------------------------Fabregas--------------------------

Jiracek?

where did rooney go?

went to grab lunch