Euro 2012 Thread

[High Sierra]

Walcott changed that game from his first touch on the ball. Lovely shot which caught the goalie going the wrong way. This we need more of - England were playing horribly for most of that match.

lacklustre passing, no movement off the ball, poor decision making.

On the positive side, Gerrard linked with the players in front of him very well a couple of times, one of which being the Carroll goal.
Walcott showed that running at a defence and getting them on the back foot really does work

However Shearer in the post match analysis was right - that Swedish side was average. England simply have to play more attacking football and pass it around more if they want to progress

[Traxio Nacho]

Couldn't really watch the game, turned over saw 1-0 thought England might have a chance, turned over again 5mins after DT and saw 1-1, thought well still have plenty of time to get one back watched it till second goal and thought bollocks we got no chance, rather glad I was wrong

Not sure if anyone else saw it but the Swedish captain got a bit upset by Hart when they got their second goal, guessing Hart tried moving them out of his goal and you could see their captain repeatedly tell Hart to fuck off.

Shame Sweden had to go home but at least they weren't the first

[Meths]

Couldn't really watch the game, turned over saw 1-0 thought England might have a chance, turned over again 5mins after DT and saw 1-1, thought well still have plenty of time to get one back watched it till second goal and thought bollocks we got no chance, rather glad I was wrong

Not sure if anyone else saw it but the Swedish captain got a bit upset by Hart when they got their second goal, guessing Hart tried moving them out of his goal and you could see their captain repeatedly tell Hart to fuck off.

Shame Sweden had to go home but at least they weren't the first

I too saw Zlatan tell hart to fuck off ,i was telling the Mrs, surprisingly she did not give one fuck about what i was saying. :WOMEN:

[ChaeDoc II]

That commercial is at least 6 years old. Maybe more.

EDIT: 8, it was an ad for Euro 2004 apparently.

What gave it away?

[ChaeDoc II]

I don't get why people are praising Walcott's goal - it was a weak straight shot from outside the area which the swedish keeper made a complete mess of

To be fair to Walcott the look on his face when it went in said "WTF?!".

[Chrien]

Englands problem is that it gives away possession too easily. Its why they look so bad, they never look in control of the game. Compare this to the big sides in the competition, even France against the Ukraine they passed the ball around making easy passes looking composed on the ball and waiting for an opportunity to exploit a hole in the defence. England's players struggle when put under pressure and give the ball away.

Edit: Goal of the tournament?

[Pattern]

Without whilshire, this England midfield can't pass for shit.

Theo :bow:

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

[Chrien]

Nah the midfield needs a person who knows how to play short simple passes rather than going for the glamouros hollywood long ball ala Gerrard. So basically they need the best central midfielder in England this season, Michael Carrick.

[DanFraser]

Englands problem is that it gives away possession too easily. Its why they look so bad, they never look in control of the game. Compare this to the big sides in the competition, even France against the Ukraine they passed the ball around making easy passes looking composed on the ball and waiting for an opportunity to exploit a hole in the defence. England's players struggle when put under pressure and give the ball away.

Edit: Goal of the tournament?

That's always seemed to be a problem for England. They don't relax or settle. They always look nervous (under Graham Taylor they were probably on valium and still looked worse than this) and the play suffers. You can see some great movement and thinking in some flashes but nowhere near enough as to what they all are capable of, which in fact we see most of these players are capable of combining to become one of the scariest teams to play against.

On a side note, Hodgson is a fucking genius. An England team actually come back like this? Against a team we have never beaten competitively before? The only thing Hodgson needs to instill is belief, positiveness and a more attacking attitude. Too many times we see a negative pass backwards rather than a pass to the side or to a slightly more forward player.

[teds :D]

yeah that ^^

i don't mind the odd pass back to hart to reset a play, but when it's every 5 mintues or so :S

[DanFraser]

yeah that ^^

i don't mind the odd pass back to hart to reset a play, but when it's every 5 mintues or so :S

Yup, Euro 96. We had a player taking a penalty against Germany that was the first time he sent the ball towards the opposition goal. It's endemic from generation to generation.

[elmicker]

Nah the midfield needs a person who knows how to play short simple passes rather than going for the glamouros hollywood long ball ala Gerrard. So basically they need the best central midfielder in England this season, Michael Carrick.

The entire point of playing Carroll against sweden was to be able to play those glamorous long balls, to have someone big and physical up front to challenge those scandinavian giants. That's exactly how the first goal was scored. The problems with passing were with the defence, more than once passes were made back into areas with absolutely no one there because the back four were dossing about six inches from goal. Same thing goes for the set pieces, the defence just had no clue what to do. On sweden's second goal, for example, why was Cole, one of the best technical players on the team, and not exactly the tallest guy on the pitch, standing in the wall? Shearer had it right. No one at the back was showing any leadership, making sure people were doing their jobs and being where they needed to be.

[DanFraser]

Young should have been where cole was, simply because young is not a defender and cole could maybe have picked up a dangerous player. Young was useless the whole match.

[Hel OWeen]

Pretty sad for Sweden that they're out after such a fantastic (from both teams, 2nd half was full of :awesome:) match. If only every match was/will be like this one.

Also, I hope one of the hosts stays in the tournament. Both out in the qualifiers wouldn't do good for the overall atmosphere.

[teds :D]

Pretty sad for Sweden that they're out after such a fantastic (from both teams, 2nd half was full of :awesome match. If only every match was/will be like this one.

Also, I hope one of the hosts stays in the tournament. Both out in the qualifiers wouldn't do good for the overall atmosphere.

poland have a good shout at staying in. ukraine need to win though i think? and england would go through on a point (or france being fucking slaughtered) but they'll be chasing a win to avoid meeting spain in the quarters.

[Joe Appleby]

poland have a good shout at staying in.

Nop.

Out, Greeks and Czech went ahead. Good for Greece as a people as well I would say seeing how much trouble they have. I would like them to come further than the quarter final, but most likely that will be against Germany, which I of course want to win.

[Lancehot]

I chose to watch the wrong game. Poland vs Czech Republic was a boring, increasingly messy & fractious exercise in frustration watching Poland's midfield increasingly impersonate statues. Saw the highlights of Greece vs Russia & it looked far more exciting. Will teach me for assuming Russia were a sure thing & Poland would actually make an effort for more than 25minutes.

[Venec]

Fuck Euro, fuck our team, fuck Smuda, fuck Russians (cause why not), fuck everything.

I mad.

[GiDiYi]

Poland sure as fuck didn't deserve to proceed, so I am pretty much okay with the outcome of today. I just hope that the Ukraine will pull it off with Scheva and Voronin up front (I love both of them).

I ain't a friend of the polish football team though, because my mom was born there and is about as borderline polophobic (I made that word up) as you can get.

It would probably hurt the tourney if both of the home teams are out after the first round, but you can't get it all.

[Hel OWeen]

Well, that went ... unexpected. Russia out, Poland out and Greece succeeded, go figure. And Greece actually played football. Not that King Rehakles "let's destroy this game and hope for a miracle"-style of 2004. So much for any "it's just a matter of becoming 1st or 2nd" theory-crafting.

Time to cite the great Sepp Herberger (coach of the German 1954 championship team, know for his awesome because obvious quotes) again: "Ein Spiel dauert 90 Minuten und der nächste Gegner ist immer der schwerste" (A game lasts 90 minutes and the next opponent is always the toughest one.)