EURO 2012

RIP, I guess: A soccer fan in China has died after staying up for 11 straight nights to watch every game of Euro 2012, according to a report in Chinese newspaper Sanxiang Metropolis.

Poor guy was watching in the middle of the night, then going to work - I have a lot of respect for pandemic and his commitment to the sport but I hope he's taking care of himself.

it's a little ridiculous that the match started at 21:45 local time

this escaped me earlier but

i'm not sure what pirlo did all match that was so damaging tbph, i musta missed a few things.

yeah I think you must've! Italy couldn't finish and the opposition wasn't of the highest quality but still, that was a commanding performance.

poor chinese guy. that's exactly what i'm doing, but usually go to bed at 5am to grab at least a couple hours sleep.

Diamanti scored eight goals, though only three came from open play with most coming from penalty kicks. On 4 May 2010 he was voted runner-up as Hammer of the Year by the club's supporters, for the 2009–10 season, behind winner Scott Parker.[7]

glad wiki remembers this too. diamanti was a really fun player at west ham and commentators calling him a reject can go fuck themselves.

I only saw this from 70 mins onwards. England were fucking dour. One thing that really annoyed me was the misuse of Theo and Carroll. Carroll was doing really well in the air but with no-one following up, it was pointless. That seemed the role Gerrard should be playing. And how fucking hard is it to play a decent ball for Theo to run behind a full back? I think Scott Parker overhit one and they just thought 'its not worth it, he can't even get on the end of that one' and just decided not to play w/ him after that.

http://tf-chalkboards.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/images/09Xqy.png

Arrow: pass (blue = successful, red = unsuccessful); Arrow: defended the ball; Cross: tackle (orange: successful, purple: unsuccessful). Green heart: interception; Grey rectangle: shot by opponent blocked

Soz, circle is defended the ball

For people wondering why Pirlo was so great last night. He was the heart and soul of this Italy.

Plus, Italy had 36 shots at the goal, a record this tournament:

http://tf-chalkboards.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/images/09hRx.png

Ha, nice stats! England's one shot on target there from superstriker Glen Johnson.

It'll all be OK; we've got Jack Wilshere.

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

― Rosie 47 (ken c), Wednesday, 20 June 2012 10:03 (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretty poor predictions :/

It'll all be OK; we've got Jack Wilshere. Joey Barton.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 25 June 2012 09:42 (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So semi-serious question, who's going to be in mainstay of the England team (if we qualify) for Brazil 2014?

Joe Hart

Glen Johnson
Joleon Lescott
Martin Kelly
Leighton Baines

Jack Wilshere
Tom Cleverely
Theo Walcott
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Wayne Rooney
Danny Welbeck

I'm not filled with confidence.

phil jones
gary cahill

rooney lol

cleverly
smalling
young

the possible team in 2 years time >>>>> the possible and actual one this summer

That's okay imo - Wilshere and Cleverley, if fit and developing properly, might sort out the minor problem of ball retention. The centre of defence looks weak tbh, Lescott has never convinced me. Though Smalling's good. I'd've had Theo on for Rooney instead of Milner last night personally, and have him as a second striker - Theo with Young means half the midfield is too lightweight, Ox may yet develop into a beefier presence. There might be a couple of new lads too - I'm thinking Sterling at Liverpool, but who knows if that'll happen really.

Hart, two schmucks
Richards, Kelly
Baines, Gibbs
Smalling, Jones, Lescott, Cahill
Livermore, Colback, Wilshere, Cleverly, McEachran
Dyer, Sinclair, Lennon, Ox, Walcott
Rooney, Welbeck, Sturridge

I would have liked to see Oxo cube, the iron baby, come in to the midfield for Parker and Walcott on for Young who should have been subbed if not at the start of the second half then at the start of the game or the tournament itself

Would never have let him take a penalty tbh

I guess that is 1 player too many (23 man squad innit) before Milner, Carroll, THUDD...

oh i forgot Young as well, maybe because he was so shitty last night.

I'm quite excited about the future England team if the young quick lads are allowed to run about a bit and pass the ball around - think it's a better combination with Walcott/Ox/Welbeck than with Carroll upfront though

repeat every two years forever

now that the joke team of the tourno is out we can concentrate on some decent semi finals.

germany 2 - italy 0
portugal 1 - spain 3

Watching the game last night I somehow didn't notice England were as bad as everyone is saying, I thought they did alright. They played quite well for 30 minutes of the game and had some chances, and that exceeded most of my expectations. I just wish Young had got subbed because he looked like the worst player on the pitch and there no point him being there

Although my friend - who doesn't watch football at all - said Rooney should have been sent off "for being shit"

no livermore, thudd, no credibility btw

I'm not seeing a glittering England future for Carroll, who, as someone said on Twitter last night, looks like an early-90s ecstacy dealer.

He looks like the first man who ever lived

He looks Brendan Fraser in that one film

A neanderthal living with humans for the first time and trying to work out how the world works

3-1 is madness. It'll be 1-0, I dearly hope to Portugal.

Looking forward to the remake of that with Kevin Nolan teaching Andy Carroll how to be a human being xp

no livermore, thudd, no credibility btw

― irrational angst that makes me innocuously thingy (darraghmac), Monday, 25 June 2012 11:15 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hart, two schmucks
Richards, Kelly
Baines, Gibbs
Smalling, Jones, Lescott, Cahill
Livermore, Colback, Wilshere, Cleverly, McEachran
Dyer, Sinclair, Lennon, Ox, Walcott
Rooney, Welbeck, Sturridge

― Smothered, Covered and Chunked!!! (a hoy hoy), Monday, 25 June 2012 11:09 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh hei

Ronaldo will score 2 is my predo.

I should add that I'm not quite excited about future England team in the sense of them winning anything, I just massively prefer them to these guys and can't wait for Terry etc to get tae fuck. It's a team I'd be happier about supporting however shit they may end up being

I mean I support Arsenal, winning isn't the most important thing

Pretty blasé tbh

they come as a unit imo sam

Oh Suedey, but I'm p certain that just because Terry and Stevie Me are leaving doesn't mean Carroll and Wilshere and maybe one or two more unsavoury characters (Morrison?) won't take their place.

Wilshere is a lovely lad how dare you

Guy Mowbray: "Gerrard is England's Pirlo"

(^o^)

Carroll is indefensible obvs, and not in the sense that he's unplayable etc etc

Come to think of it, why was nobody closing down Pirlo? The only other thing I noticed during the game, and esp after everyone ever was like "yeah you can't give him an time or you're fucked"

Gave him way too much time on the penalty, Hart should have mooned or something. I expect he still would have been indifferent tho

<3 Pirlo

Easily the 4 best teams in the tourney have made it thru to the SF's so that's cool. Possibly Croatia the only other one to feel unlucky. If Germany-Italy is as good as '06 I'll be happy, happier still if Germany win this time.

England were England, able to draw against the first decent team they face in the knockout stages.

Pirlo was magnificent.

Got Thurs, Fri and Monday off so I can now watch the rest of the tourney without managing on 3 hrs sleep a night. Hurray!

Wilshere only spits on Tottenham fans.

Lawrenson was a disgrace last night, just fucking awful

England seemed happy and keen to mark Pirlo for the first 40 minutes or so, and then gave up, as if they (like the commentators) were convinced he'd get tired, or something. Because someone playing the way he does is likely to get tired, with all those gut-busting runs from deep. Idiocy.

Lawro's best moment: the main commentator said something like "What else has Pirlo got up his sleeve?" and Lawro responded "His shirt". wtf?!