EURO 2012

we used to have our own pound!!!

Have you ever genuinely thought England would win a tournament?

I've never thought pre-tournament 'England *will* win this', but when England reached the semis in Euro 96 I thought they had the best chance of the four teams still in it. Euro 2004 was looking good up until Rooney's metatarsal went. World Cups of 90 and 02 didn't start off promising much, but reached a point where I thought 'if we can beat Germany/Brazil, we'll probably win the whole thing' (but that was always obviously a big if).

just got italy in the work sweep. shame they're going out in the group stages.

they are?

you've obviously not noticed ireland are in that group??

i suppose tho spain or croatia could also fail to get the 4 points to our 9

will prob depend on who concedes the most against us in the end

reading the zonal marking thing and he makes ireland sound like the most depressing team going. obv they'll win it.

also i'll never not be amazed by stats like this: Cristiano Ronaldo (146 goals in 144 games for Real Madrid)

ireland's formation featuring one player in the opposition half is p good.

Roy biting Trap's style or vice versa?

andy carroll would be so good in trapp's ireland team.

Walters should play ahead of Doyle really

loved trap's "no tracking back = ur pontius pilate" line

one must also fully commend cox maintaining remarkable journalistic sangfroid in painstakingly enumerating quite plausibly the grimmest international side in the history of football

Little over the top. We're hardly the first side to play defensively, and even if we ignore some creative players the issue of whether we could succeed with a better brand of football is debatable.

a hoy hoy tempering his challops by safe betting germany for championees

I've switched from thinking Germany would win this a month ago to thinking that they won't even get out of their group now. Possibly crystallised by so many of the BBC pundits tipping them.

Their predictions are incredibly safe. Going for an england semi makes Shearer the Stockhausen of punditry.

His reasoning? "I'm a proud Englishman".

Group winners: Russia, Germany, Spain, France
Runners-up: Poland, Netherlands, Croatia, England
QF: RUS def NED, ESP def ENG, POL def GER, FRA def CRO
SF: Russia over Spain, France over Poland
France 2-1 Russia final (Ribery, Giroud; Pavlyuchenko)

Russia haven't a hope in hell of beating Spain!

I rather hope you're right, would like to see Spain beat lesser like they ought to, just suspect they're going to struggle.

beat lesser sides*

Now I have them in the work sweep, I expect Russia to win everything.

The ZM piece on Spain was v good I thought. I wonder if Spain do try to get both Silva and Iniesta in the starting 11 on the wings. It kinda worked for City with Nasri and Silva sometimes, but then sometimes it didn't and they needed YaYa to step forward to save them. Also I haven't watched much of Spain post South Africa so interested to see what kind of role Cesc plays presuming he's even starting.

Poland beating Germany is the crazy prediction there.

I'm in two minds on Spain. On one hand I feel they're knackered and bound to hit a wall at some point. On the other they're clearly better than everyone else except maybe Germany, and they have forwards too, so might mop up at a canter.

Spain-Italy's a belter of a first game, really looking forward to that.

Russia have impressed me most in the warm up games, maybe France too fwiw, which is probably not much.

I think Pirlo might have to do too much defending vs Spain for Italy to be effective. Then again it least it won't be counter attack defending where his lack of pace would really be exposed. But seriously in their last game the positioning of the Italian full backs in a back four was woeful and was easy pickings for clever passes inside them which should suit Spain to a tee.

I haven't watched any warmups, I needed a break to try to come to this fresh. I could've done with a couple more weeks tbh, the calendar's so draining these days.

Man, I've almost been reduced to actually doing jobs around the house and gardening and crap now that there haven't been multiple games on my DVR waiting for me when I get home from work. Thank G_d for the NBA play-offs.

I hear you - I pointed myself towards the Sopranos box set instead. Kind of aggrieved the footy's going to get in the way of that now, it's effing great.

just when you thought you were out...they pull you back in

I'm for Italy all the way now anyway

set up a league. code is 336437-76498

― Michael B Higgins (Michael B), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 22:46 (Yesterday)

i'm in. also i picked paul mcshane. cower.

i'm in two minds about all of the big hitters, france starting to look attractive purely out of unpredictability

fwiw poland gave germany a damn good game they were unlucky not to win in a recent friendly

i don't want to know what savage and cruel god of efficiency germany are worshipping if mertesacker is a better fit than hummels (per zm)

yeah i read that with disbelief too! Surely there's no way.

so many of the teams have major questions at the back, no?
bruno alves and pepe & terry and lescott might be among the best center back pairings in the tournament.
and whoever plays for italy i guess.

I'm betting on a red card for either bruno alves or pepe.

QF: NED def POL, ENG def SPA, GER def ???, FRA ?omg? IRE

SF: NED def ENG, GER ??? ???

F: NED def GER or FRA def NED

feel the fuckin vibe

alternatively and quite possibly, SPA def SWE in the QF and sail through to win it

inglund av it in um ta goo all tha way.

bloody hell could it be that mizzel's right about cb pairings??

errr cos that would then also mean that jagielka-lescott would undisputably be the best

kjaer - agger? heitinga - mathijsen? maybe it's the greeks. has shakira really ruined pique that badly?

didn't see much serie a this season but italy's two juventus guys are presumably no bad.

kjaer seems to blow hot and cold. certainly not the dutch.
pique ramos certainly has the potential to be the best, but it's not certain.

true Bonucci- Chiellini both from Juve should be the best pair.

i looked them up

Chiellini was awesome at the last Euros, especially in the knock-out game vs Spain. He's a terrible one for faking tho.

an italian faking?????????!!!!!?