…and Finland leads. (60th minute)
Schmeichel looked very bad on the first ball that ever targeted his goal.
Belgium up early. Lukaku is probably one of the top 3 favorite for the golden boot and started strong.
…and is “awake and stable” according to this 10-hour-old article.
Netherlands-Ukraine is the most exciting game so far.
Excellent game but the Dutch looked very poor without the ball.
England were impressive today - if they win the group their route to the final involves only one game away from Wembley - and they’ll be tough to beat at home.
Indeed. That was fun to watch.
They not totally convinced me today, there were some dull phases in their game, but I agree that they’ve got a very good chance to make it far in the tournament.
Yarmolenko’s goal sure was a dandy.
I’m going to patriotically stick my neck out just to get on the record and say that Scotland are going to beat Czechia, Kieran Tierney or no Kieran Tierney.
We have nothing to fear except hope itself.
This is fine.
Scotland don’t deserve this scoreline but that second was the sort of quality that separates teams sometimes.
It was an absolute wonder goal, and in many ways a thing of beauty. And yet…
Well now. Hope, the old enemy, has vanquished us once more.
Lots of chances in the second half, none properly taken. At the risk of being utterly mercurial, I’m really not sure we have the mental resilience to do better in front of goal when the pressure is that much higher.
It’s painful too see how Poland is unable to feed the best striker in the world with assists and create chances.
Yeah, it’s always a shame when someone wonderful basically has zero shot at international hardware solely because where they were born. George Best, George Weah, Ryan Giggs, Lewandowski.
Given the smaller confederation (and Gonzalo Higuain), weaker teams win Copa America much more often than the Euros. So people like Luis Suarez, Arturo Vidal, or James Rodriguez still have a good shot to win a competition.
ETA Lewandowski won’t win anything because his team can’t keep up with him. Spain won’t win anything because their team has nobody to supply. If he was Spanish, they might have won everything since 2008.
The same also applies to Germany, I’m afraid. An overload of good offensive, creative mid-fielders, but no real goal-getter. We have a great tradition of excellent center forwards, but after Miro Klose retired, the streak has dried out. If we had Lewandowski, I’d say we were a favorite, but the way things are I don’t have much hope.
IMO Klose is the most overrated player in the history of the sport. (I might also have a miscalibrated idea of how other people rate him…) That he racked up 70 international goals speaks to your point though, if not him you were playing Lukas Podolski. Lewandowski would have 120 international goals by now were he German.
I didn’t really watch Leipzig, but I thought Timo Werner was going to be the guy, but now that he’s at Chelsea it seems he was revealed as a system player.
I still think Germany has a shot. It’s pretty rare for a team to be solid throughout their first XI. Brazil and France might be the only two that don’t have real obvious holes. England too I guess.
Five groups in the aging Belgies are the best I’ve seen. Group of Death today, including France - Germany.
These teams are good.