What a hit from Christensen.
the 12 minute period from the 70th minute was epic.
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What a hit from Christensen.
the 12 minute period from the 70th minute was epic.
Brilliant! Denmark game was great. Strike was brilliant. Made even better by the context of the game.
Wijnaldum is having a good tournament too.
Feel for Hradecky (??), made some absolute brilliant saves, didn’t deserve that.
Interesting tournament isn’t it. Basically win one game and you’re a chance to progress.
I don’t think you can bench the Premier Leagues leading goalscorer and assist-er.
Sterling, you can drop him.
Foden has done reasonably.
Phillips had a good game one.
Mount, Sterling and rice can be rotated imo.
Grealish and Henderson haven’t had much game time over the last few months so maybe that’s impacting decisions.
Sancho needs to play for a EPL club to get a look in.
Against Scotland, England had 4 or 5 players who will be starting for UCL teams next season {James, Shaw, Mount, Stones and Foden). Foden still hasn't locked down his best position, Stones was lucky that Dias formed a good partnership with him because Laporte is clearly the better CB, James is still earning his place over Azpi and shared gametime all season, Shaw had a great season but performed way above his usual level and Mount had a good year (he just really needs Kane to piss off and stop standing around where he wants to be playing in) The rest all play for mid table sides or lower. For comparison, Scotland had 2.
Mid table squad with a couple of kids from top sides sprinkled on top. Add in an average coach and they should be happy they made it out of the group.
Would a squad of:
Pickford
Walker, stones, Maguire, trippier(or Shaw)
Henderson, mount, foden,
Sancho, Sterling and rashford
Be better?
Bar Pickford, all should be getting regular UCL and league game time.
Dean Henderson
Walker/Trippier- Stones - Maguire - Shaw
Mount - *Rice - Foden
Sancho - Rashford/Kane - Sterling.
To me, thats a much more attacking side than what we've seen. Plus if they move to a 4-3-3 (similar to Spuds) then it may benefit Kane who is obviously the better striker, but given his form right now I would honestly start with Rashford and let Kane earn his spot back from the bench.
*Henderson isn't fit and Rice has shown that he should be playing for a bigger side.
Grealish, Saka, Phillips Calvert-Lewin and Bellingham off the bench sounds a bit different to starting them.
Brilliant game the Sweden one. lewandowski with a meme worth effort in the first half hahaha.
Spain infinitely lucky against Slovakia. Morata looks so Impotent. Gifted their opening goal, but the longer that stayed 0-0, the worse Spain were getting. Laporte playing for Spain now? Googling tells me he played youth for France, selected in France World Cup qualifiers and Euro qualifiers however never took the field. May 2021, applied for Spanish clearance.
Group F dishing up some drama. All teams have been qualifying at Some point, 3 teams have been last in their group at some point this morning.
Wow.
Italy and Belgium are the only big sides looking good so far. Sweden have a good balance. Netherlands look like they could trouble anyone. Some enjoyable games coming up too.
****ing hell North Macedonia.
Damn. Czech did very well.
Belgium lucky to keep portugal out. Despite having a fair few counter attacks with numbers, they couldn’t convert to put it to bed.
Bruno Fernandes is a penalty fraud. Just about every Portugal attack was ruined by him
Well that was fun while it lasted....I'm out
Just give Ital the trophy now. Their acting is just too good.
France v Switzerland....wow
Wow wow wow
Didn’t wanna say anything earlier In case it prompted somebody to check scores. Incredible moments throughout that.
For anybody that likes to watch replay or extended highlights. Would recommend watching the Croatia Spain game first as there’s many spoilers in the next game.
what a brilliant morning of football
insomnia and being kicked all night by cold children is really paying off
Outside of that 10-15 min period, Switzerland honestly completely dominated France. Granit Xhaka carving them up all game was beautiful to watch, even if he's leaving soon, and he deserve his MOTM award.
I said France looked poor from the first game, relying on individual brilliance isn't enough to win tournaments and Deschamps didn't have a decent setup at all. Mbappe having a shocker every game doesn't help either, lol.
Some amazing goals in both games!
Bloody brilliant to see..
Interesting to see who ends up winning it.
Spain, Belgium, Italy on one side of the draw looks good for a particular team on the other side that should be able to account for Denmark or Czech.
Spain seem to be able to score some goals again after a poor start.
Belgium got the goal but were very much under the pump to Portugal for 45 minutes.
Italy had their little hiccup needing extra time to account for Austria.
Everyone seems to have their day.
Czech needed a red card to help them beat the Dutch.
Sweden/Ukraine both have been plucky but idk if they can take on the bigger teams.
And the winner of England/Germany put in a solid performance and look the most capable on this side of the draw.
I think all teams left have potential to beat their opponent, and every team has had their moment of weakness in this tournament.
Makes for some very good games for a neutral.
I think the biggest thing working against Belgium is the injuries to De Bruyne and Eden Hazard. Missing someone as influential as De Bruyne could be their undoing.
Watching the Ukraine/Sweden game now, where Ukraine have scored in Extra Time, will have have England licking their lips.
I think Spain are building well.
No idea how I've gotten this far either Baldrick
Turns out relying on shitty red cards is a great way to win knockout games. See you soon once Kalvin Phillips gets himself sent off and Morata misses 95 chances + gets himself sent off for a studs up challenge on the post or something.
So the knockout rounds are well into it.
We've got Stanny vs Stanny in the first game, lol.
Macca vs Not Plague up next.
Baldrick taking on Brem after that.
And finally myself taking on Bon to round it off.
Get your shit talking in now gents. Stanny is gonna get crushed by his opponent, no doubt.
Bon, your teams flag is just some shitty white cross on a red back ground. It's so unimaginative I bet they just copied someone else's design and tried to palm it off as their own.
Please dont let England win
I've got faith in my boys to come out on top
PS anybody who disagrees with the Sweden red this morning is a fool.
Winning the ball does nae matter when it's serious foul play. You cant just follow through like that and obliterate a blokes knee.
I disagree. There was no player there when he swung at the ball, the attacker ran in when he wasn't going to get the ball anyway and they collided. If the attacking player was trying to win the ball he would have been running towards goal and hoping that the CB missed it. The fact that he was running towards the player means that he was attempting to make a tackle himself. He got in the way of the swing, not the defender who only had eyes for the ball, won the ball and before he could react there was an attacker right where his momentum was taking him. Looked completely fine at full speed, it only looked bad in a still image because of the exact point that the contact was made.
If the ref gives a yellow, as most would have, Ukraine wouldn't have complained.
Sticking by the theory that this is a red card, any time an attacker kicks a keeper it's a red card and in extra time when the Ukrainian attacker kneed the Swedish midfielder in the head, who'd dove in to block the ball himself, should have been a red card. His follow through took him into his head. Contact with the head is as dangerous as studs up, therefore no matter that he won the ball it's a red card in your world. It can't be both ways.
I’m with Frodo.
The still image looks terrible. But it’s the context behind it.
Swedish player, takes like a step to try to clear the ball, he’s not moving at speed, he makes good contact with the ball and the Ukrainian arrives late to the challenge and runs into the foot of him.
The Ukrainian rushes in and provides the “speed” element to the “tackle”. The contact point is unfortunate, as is the players injury but I don’t think the Swedish player had any malice and effectively performed a routine clearance with a player running into his follow through.
I mean, if we are okay with sending him off for the contact, then I think that sets a precedence for what other players can milk. We see Pickford go in on VVD in an attempted challenge and gets far less.
Everytime a keeper comes for the ball in the air and leads with knees, I’d be sprinting in to make some contact and get the keeper sent off.