Oh, I know who he is - I just meant that he’s hardly an expert on racism in the Ukraine and I’m not particularly convinced by him telling me that Ukraine should not be organizing the Eurocup.
Just saw the start of BBC programming…where the first question to Clarence Seedorf, was about the racism. His answer was pretty close to what Novelty Bobble said a couple of posts ago… (Dixon and Hansen made sure to stick it to the Eastern Europeans anyway).
Now let’s play some football!!
(2-0 Poland and 2-1 Russia ;))
I’m not expecting the opener to be the most exciting game, both Poland and Greece have good defensive records and poor offensive ones. Of the first round games, Germany vs Portugal on Saturday and Spain vs Italy on Sunday are the most obvious stand-outs.
I guessed that. I’m not a fan of celebrities sticking their oar into political matters either, but there was nothing absurd about interviewing a black ex-England captain for the programme, and nothing unreasonable with the position he took.
I managed to watch the first 55 minutes of this before I had to head back to work. Your guess looked good, especially when Greece went down a man…and then what the fuck, they even it up and hold on for the draw. Not a good start for a host nation.
Well, the tournament’s off to a flyer with a pretty entertaining, if not especially high quality, opening game, and then Russia playing some sexy football to demolish the Czech Republic. They seem to have carried on where they left off at the last Euros. Arshavin seems to love playing in the national shirt, eh? They were helped a little by the way the Czechs appeared to be playing without a left back at times. Russia look nailed-on to win group A, but the fight for second place could be interesting.
Actually, after halftime the Greeks were better and should have won. I don’t know what happened with poland, they looked sooo much better in the first half. Russia was impressive, could have had a few more. Most importantly, two good and open games to start the tournament with. If this is a sign for things to come, it’s going to be a classic tournament. Hell, just this weekend could be one for the ages (Germany-Portugal, Italy-Spain and France-England on monday, but still).
Russia look really good, they could have had 6 or 7 if Kerzhakov had showed a bit more composure. They are all but through already when you consider the other game was a draw and the +3 goal difference. Arshavin has certainly benefitted from his loan away from Arsenal, he hasn’t played like that for them in a long time. Plenty of incident in the first game as well.
Wtf happened to Cech? I expected far better from him.
As an Ireland supporter I am hopeful they will get out of the group then fall apart. Cf. WC1994 etc.
So Group B coming up, the obligatory Group of Death. According to The Knowledge at the Guardian, if you go by FIFA rankings (::waits for guffaws to subside::), this the most lethal GoD ever. Average ranking 4.75.
Although, looking at the rankings, Portugal have just plummeted down to 10th, so not so deadly after all.
Its an insane group, Denmark really got screwed on this one.
Its crazy to think that Portugal are considered only the third best team in the group, when you think that they not only have possibly the best player on the planet Ronaldo, but also a very solid supporting cast with the likes of Nani, Pepe, Coentrao, Meireles and Moutinho.
Its really going to make for good viewing though, not likely to be any dead rubber matches in this group.
Heh, “plummeted” to 10th. They’re totally underachievers! /snark
Not much to add. It was a great start for the tournament. Pulling for Denmark and Portugal today. I’m guessing Netherlands win and POR-GER draw.
oooooops! Denmark score. Any result for them against Holland would make this even more fascinating.
I really don’t think you can call any of the games with any degree of certainty.
(Incidentally, I am trying my best to keep up with the Holland - Denmark game, the cricket test with the windies, the rugby test with the springboks, and the Canadian Grand Prix qualifying, Man was not designed with such sporting overload in mind.)
I actually think Denmark has a legitimate shot at Group No. 2 if we manage to beat Holland here. Historically, we do well against Portugal when it really matters - that would give us six points, which Holland and Portugal could at best match - we’d be through on head-to-head.
Draw with Holland, then it gets interesting. I think that’d put Portugal and Germany through. The dutch defense is too rocky to keep out the germans or the portuguese, and of those two, Germany by far has the better defense.
This is a great match. NED is applying all sorts of pressure, but the Danish are holding up so far. Go Dansk!
I’ve been rooting for Denmark, even though they don’t historically do well against Holland. I think they might actually pull it off though.
What a frustrating game - how many more golden opportunities to score are we going to pass up? I can’t believe we’re still 1-0 down. :mad:
1-0 to Denmark.
Well played.
I don’t know about well-played - I think the Danes got pretty lucky here, it’s not like they were too successful in blocking Dutch play and preventing us from getting to the goal and creating good opportunities to score. The fact that that did not happen is not really due to how well the Danish played but rather to how the Dutch side squandered the opportunities it got.
I also think the Danish got lucky that the Dutch did not get a penalty for that handsball in the 89th minute. The ref could certainly have turned that into a PK without much debate, the Danish defender (was it Agger) had his arms spread-out in a way that was not entirely necessary.
Another good game, and still Germany/Portugal to come.