Greece’s decision to let George Clooney play in goal is backfiring.
He’s not even close to George Clooney. But I wonder how Jim Mora managed to get them to let him play keeper. :dubious: 
Kidding, right? Florentino might have done plenty of things wrong on the footy side, but financially he is/was a genius:
Much of it had to do with selling our old training grounds, prime city real state, for a kazillion Euros and the plain fact that whether members show up or not, The Bernabeu is always sold-out.
Huh. There was a report a little while ago on the news about Real filing for bankruptcy or somesuch. I was rather surprised, obviously, but I didn’t catch the whole thing.
He’s got a big scar on the right side of his head, so he always looks a bit like that. I think he got a skin graft or something because there’s never hair growing there.
See 'ere: The Sun
We were in financial trouble five/six years ago (with Sanz) and can criticize Florentino’s sports management of the team. But as far as becoming the richest club in the world he gets all the praise – made Madrid the world’s number one sporting brand – ZZ and Becks keys to that strategy. Hell of a financial manager.
Money is hardly an object for Real now a days – but my point is that Ronaldo is not what will put us over and back on top of Europe. Even if we have more than enough to buy him.
Give me Villa and a few other players from our youth system (De la Red) and we’re golden.
Any question that Turkey/Czech Rep is the game of the tournament? I was on the edge of my seat and I couldn’t care less about either team (although I was a big fan of the Czechs after Euro '96).
Nihat’s second goal was a thing of beauty. The finish, anyway.
ETA: Red, are Spanish stadiums still standing room only? I know the Nou Camp was in 1998 or so when I was last there, but I thought the EU might have banned them everywhere by now.
Well, last day today for the opening round. Presumably, the Russia v. Sweden game is the interesting one. Will hopefully be better than either Germany v Austria or Italy v France were.
Can you believe we’ve had only 2 tie matches in this tournament so far?? That’s frickin’ amazing!!! :o
And there hasn’t been a nil-nil draw yet, right?
Yes there has; France vs Rumania.
It was the reason why tiebreaks favoured Italy an the case that Rumania lost and France/Italy was a draw.
We’ve had three draws to date; Austria/Poland, France/Rumania and Italy/Rumania.
Nope. And there haven’t been for years as you’re right, UEFA banned them years ago.
That’s one of the reasons The Bernabeu is always sold out and there’s literally a years long list for season tickets. It went from 125,000 mixed seating to 80,000 all seated/covered/heated/cooled.
Who’d a thunk it?
Turkey in the SFs
Well, there’s a Cinderella team in every Euro…
And now Rossiya join them. Who is the more Cinderella??? :eek:
In all honesty Russia deserved to win. They never stopped attacking, never stopped running and allus looked more threatening than Holland who had an unusually off day
I actually predicted the Russia win, and have proof in the form of a text I sent before the game (although thanks to predictive texting I wrote “Russia will who”). Although their goals hide the fact, I thought Holland were quite negative in their first 2 games - nobody else passed back to the keeper as much. Russia were the opposite - they murdered Sweden but only got the 2 goals, and they have a lot more passion than Italy or France. I wouldn’t mind seeing them win the tournament but I think the number of chances they waste might cost them in the semi or the final.
It’s not something the EU legislates on - national or regional governments license stadiums. However UEFA (the European football authority) has banned terracing (ie standing) areas for games between teams from different countries. I think all large football stadiums are all seated now, except in Germany where state or federal govt allows the seats to be taken out for domestic games. That’s why Borrussia Dortmund get 80 000 crowds for league games.
Wasn’t sure about that. I remember how stadia in the UK went seated-only during the late 80s and early 90s after the Hillsborough disaster by order of HM’s Government; I figured given the EU’s propensity for getting involved in health and safety issues they’d be the ones pushing further moves in that direction.
Makes sense that UEFA would be the ones mandating it, though, now that I think about it.
Actually me. I asked a friend of mine in Blighty to put 20 squid on Turkey winning on penalties. I now need to find out if he did and how much Mr. Ladbroke will be paying me.
I must say I felt no safer when everyone was standing on crappy plastic seats on the Holte end. I did feel a lot poorer when they jacked up the prices to pay for the “improvement.”
How the mighty do fall.
First Croatia then Holland and now Italy
Viva Espana