Coldfire, I understand Kölsch pretty well. Do you know an example of Kirchroaier so I can compare the two?
And:
GO PORTUGAL (sorry 
)
Some Kierchroaier poems online.
I’m not vouching for the quality, as I don’t understand a whole lot of it, but knock yerself out. 
It’s interesting that English ire, after the sad but expect sight of them having a go at the ref, has switched to poor old Sven.
How many weeks until they start accepting that the problem lay with some of their more experienced and skilled players just not producing the goods? England suffered the same fate as France. They could have gone on to win the tournament, but the players just didn’t perform as well as they can. Beckham was a mere shadow. Gerrad, hotly tipped to shine, looked like a worn out little boy. Owen failed to display the touch he’s had in past tournaments. So much of England’s chances rested on one teenager, which was a sad state of affairs no matter what happened. If the English had taken a reality check at some point they’d maybe have realised that there was no way he could carry them through an entire tournament. He’s not Maradonna, at least not yet.
Sven’s only mistake was to keep playing them, and if he’d dropped them he’d have been crucified anyway.
My favourites are Portugal. Much as I’d like the Dutch to finally win something, I think the Portugese are improving with each game and can only get stronger. T suspect the Dutch may have already peaked.
I don’t know. I understood only a bit more than with regular Dutch, but some of the words do look Kölsch.
So Portugal wins. I suppose it’s fair all things considered, but I think it was one of the worst matches I’ve seen in the tournament so far, especially the second part. The Portuguese second goal was pretty ok – though it’s obvious they should have been pressed by the Dutch defense, and if Figo had scored on that shot where he hit the wood it would have been the goal of the tournament.
Is it me or is there an inordinate amount of whistling and booing from the spectators in this Euro? I really hate that! Even before the matches when the national hymns are being played. The Portuguese spectators today were particularly annoying – nearly ruining the match for me. At least the Brits know how to sing.
I didn’t watch the game. I thought I was jinxing it by watching. It helped the last time. [spoiler]but: Aaaaaaaargh. Feck feck feck.
Congratulation, Portugal! [/spoiler]
Thank you, though, for giving me the silly giggles [slappe lach] with your talk about our food. owl, ‘Filet Americain’ is worse than raw herring. With a herring you can see what you eat. I dunno what they put in Filet Americain, but don’t be surprised at empty animal-shelters. 
Loved the Telegraph article.
uh? What’s wrong with blaming the Swede? That’s what Danes have been doing for a thousand years. It’s an honored tradition. Goddamn stupid Swede Sven!
Well I’m glad I had some reading material on hand - beyond Portugal’s second, which the production team managed to completely miss at the first time of asking, that was really rather dull. Here’s hoping for better stuff from the Czechs and Greeks.
Not by me. I was calling for the heads of Beckham and Owen after the first game. Of course seeing as Sven didn’t see fit to bring another striker who can actually score, such as James Beattie or, hell, even Chris Sutton or Jon Stead, replacing Owen was next to impossible.
Speaking of Swedes: How about a big cheer for Wednesday’s match’s best participants…the Swedish refs!
Question for the men: Is it really worth getting a yellow card just so you can show off your pecs?
Definitely seems that the way into UEFA’s good books is to apply the letter of the law, however petty. Booking a guy for celebrating a goal, FFS. That Russian or Ukranian guy, Vladimir something, is even worse than Mr Frisk (wasn’t he a Grand National winning horse once?) - red hot regarding players not having their shirts tucked in and what have you, clueless when it comes to actual football stuff like playing the advantage.
Since it’s in the open: **Congratulations Portugal!!! **
Can’t wait for the finals.
Why, I oughta!
I think Frisk ref’d a piss-poor match yesterday. In both senses: the match was piss-poor quality wise, as were Frisk’s calls. During the first half, he hardly used the whistle at all, and allowed both sides to play physically. Fair enough, although we did seem to be getting the short end of the stick, but that’s football. Then in the second half, he started breathing through the fucking thing or so it seemed. And again, all 50/50 situations seemed to be decided in favour of the home team. Indeed, Advocaat could be seen at one point, shouting “He’s a home referee!” to the fourth official - and he was right.
Still, it’s all rather trivial. We would not have won this match if it had gone on for four weeks. Portugal were just better, plain and simple, in a match where Figo refound his form, Maniche scored an absolutely cracking goal (thanks, Seedorf, for sleeping on the pitch and looking at the goal rather than at the ball), Miguel showed some awesome defending (completely neutralising Robben), and Holland needed a Portuguese defender to score an own goal to give us even a small bit of hope.
Nope, for this Oranje, the semi-finals was the top of the abilities. Portugal outclassed us in a rather poor match, but they outclassed us clearly, still.
So congrats, Portugal, and give those Czechs hell in the final. Even though I hope those same Czechs win, as they’re by far the most complete team in the tournament.
I’m not even all that disappointed - it was a logical defeat.
Actually, it does look a lot like Kölsch. For instance, I noticed a lot of “mienge Pap” (my father), “zienge stad” (his city). This is what they would say in Kölsch also.
It also looks more like German than Dutch. For instance:
“vuur miech
is 't sjunste óp de welt
wat d’r Herjod hat jemaad”
sounds a lot more like:
“für mich
ist das schönste auf der Welt
was der Herrgott hat gemacht”
than:
“voor mij
is het mooiste op de wereld
wat de Here heeft gemaakt”
so, I guess you could say it is a lot closer to Kölsch than Dutch.
Not surprising actually, considering that most linguist group Dutch with the languages and dialects of lower Frankony, thus the dialects of the lower Rhine valley, which include Kölsch, Xanthens, etc. The only exceptions are the Frisians, who have their own language (which is more closely related to English), and the Tukkers (from the province of Twente), who speak a dialect of lower Saxon.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Congratulations Portugal. They were the better team (at least they were yesterday). That second goal by Maniche was pretty amazing But when van Hooijdonk had the free kick near the end of the game I was on the edge of my seat. Van Hooijdonk is well known for making a lot of free kicks like that. I guess it was too good to be true though, and to be honest it would have been a little bit undeserved.
Yep, I have to agree with you there. Frisk was clearly a home referee, but he’s not the reason we lost. The Portuguese defenders did a great job (excepting the one mistake by Andrade), especially Miguel, who completely flustered Robben. Speaking of Robben, when is someone going to teach him to stop with the theatrical dives? A player of his quality doesn’t need to do that. I thought he deserved a yellow card even earlier for some of the stunts he was pulling, and you just know referees are going to be watching him, and they will never give him the benefit of the doubt if he keeps doing that.
Pretty much the same thing goes for van Nistelrooy. If he didn’t have such a (deserved) reputation as a diver, he might have had a few more penalties called in his favor.
Other notes:
Seedorf was indeed asleep at the wheel when Maniche scored (did you see van der Sar run out to him and yell at him after the goal?), but that was still an amazing shot.
The main reason we lost is because, just like in most of the other games, the midfield was not involved enough. It seems the defenders were much too afraid, and kept dropping further and further back. Then when they got the ball, instead of playing some nice passes through midfield, they would just do their imitation of English 1970’s kick and rush. Poor van Nistelrooy didn’t have a chance up front.
Johann Cruyff also noted that when the Dutch had the ball they would oftentimes take away any options for the player on the ball, by rushing another player in the same direction, instead of away from the ball, so there might be more room. Witness the room that Figo and Ronaldo had to make some nice moves and take good shots, and the way Robben was completely shut down.
Eh, it’s mostlly inexperience I think. The kid’s a mere 20 years old.
Cruyff said it best, I think, when Robben’s dives were discussed after the match. It pretty much boiled down to this: if you’re rushing towards the ball with a defender in tow, and there’s little chance of succesfully passing the ball, stop dead in your tracks. The defender will bump into you, knocking you down - instant free kick. Yeah, it’s a bit of a dirty trick as well, but it sure as hell won’t render you a yellow card, which continuous dives WILL.
I guess Miguel had such a tight grip on Robben that he got desparate, and reached for his last trick: the Schwalbe, if you’ll excuse the term. 
Did you see the Heineken commercial right after the match? Classic.
For those not in Holland, Heineken has been distributing these, well, it’s sort of a huge orange bullhorn that either works as a personal amplifier, or a really nutty hat. They were also confiscated en masse at the stadiums in Portugal, by the way - seems the Carlsberg sponsored tournament couldn’t deal with 20,000 Heineken hats in the stands. Damn Danish Blue-chewing monopoly monkeys. But I digress!
OK, so Holland’s lost the match, and after a brief exchange in the studio, a commercial break starts. First commercial: Heineken.
The scene: a bar, quiet and mostly empty. Oranje parafernalia scattered across the floor, chairs thrown down. A couple of guys scattered at the bar, silent. All of them have the Heineken bullhorn in front of them. After 10 seconds of silence, one of the guys picks up his bullhorn, places it over his mouth, and semi-shouts in a complete half-assed way: “Van den Hogeband, Tra La La La La… Van den Hogeband, Traaaaa La La La La La La”. Then a second guy picks up his, and in the very same manner replies, “Inge de Bruin, Inge de Bruin, Inge, INGE, Inge de Bruin…”.
Then the voice-over kicks in: “The Heineken bullhorn will work just as well for the Athens Olympics!”
Well…you said it all already. We were beaten. There never really was a huge amounts of optimism to start with, was there? Still feel a bit disappointed, of course, but I had a good night looking like a tangerine with some new found Dutch friends (met them partying on Saturday) in the pub and being laughed at in a friendly sort of way by Charleville eating will-support-the-underdog-team-as–it-has-good-betting-odds monkeys. (I’m not as good at these as some, am I?)
Oh well.
All right, allow me to pose a point of debate. I’ve been giving it some thought, and it just doesn’t sit well with me. OK, first off, this doesn’t change the fact that Holland lost fair and square one bit, BUT:
How does UEFA think it’s a wise decision to appoint a Swedish ref to a semi-final match, when one of the teams playing in said match has just kicked the Swedes out in the quarter finals?
Again, I’m not saying another ref would have made us win. But it certainly would have saved me a lot of anguish. I normally like Frisk a lot, and think he’s a good ref. But he didn’t seem impartial last night, at all.
So we had a swiss ref, you had a Swede…
If Greece get through to the final i guarantee you that the ref will be French
Re: last night’s game - what exactly was Davids (I think it was him) doing when the first goal went in? He was meant to be covering the far post, but looking at the replays he was leaning against the post looking in the opposite direction when the ball went past! If he’d been paying attention he could have blocked it easily!
Hard luck Holland, but the better side won on the day, just as they did against England
The Czechs will stuff 'em, though.
What a game.
Portugal were brilliant in the first half.
Figo was all over the place.
Second half Holland showed their style and had a good 20 minute spell of domination.
Portugals second goal was probably the best of the tournament.
The better team won but I was kinda hoping for a Czech Republic, Holland rematch as their group game was so enjoyable.
A Czech Republic v Portugal final will suit me just fine though.
(sorry greece, but I’m writing you off)