The official EURO 08 thread

[Pete]

Russia's goals through out the tournament have been just beautiful, but wasn't that last goal (by the amazing #10) offsides? Or do throw-ins go by different rules? B/c it looked like 10 was a good 2m past the last defender.

But so many Russians were carded today that I don't know if it'll be the same team next game. Pity, b/c they're fun to watch.

 

[DJ12]

You cannot be offside from a throw-in

 

[StefanS]

You cannot be offside from a throw-in

Correct!

 

[Deepak]

WTF, Turkey, Russia and Germany. Fancier teams lost...btw what happened to England? Didn't they qualify?

 

[StefanS]

WTF, Turkey, Russia and Germany. Fancier teams lost...btw what happened to England? Didn't they qualify?

Yeah, England didn't qualify at all. They were knocked out in the qualifying stage before the Euro by Croatia.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Well Holland went back to how they played the last 4 years. Crappy. If we add up the bill 4 years of van Basten gave us 2.5 good matches.

Cant say I feel bad about it, from the moment the match started they just played like shit, nobody made a effort to even try and win at all. Not that the Russians were any better, because they defenitly didnt play well either but in cases like this we Dutch always lose.

 

[catisfit]

Yeah, England didn't qualify at all. They were knocked out in the qualifying stage before the Euro by Croatia.

...and Russia.

 

[Arwin]

all the teams that tried to give some rest to their best players in the last match of the group stage (after they had locked up the group win) have lost in the play-offs. Portugal, Croatia and now the Netherlands

Not just that though ... in the case of the Netherlands they couldn't use some of the more important players like Robben (who could'nt play) and had to use a substitute for an injured player preventing them from a more strategic substitution.

But perhaps more importantly, the Russian team played great, had a great coach and had the complete reverse in terms of players on the field - they hadn't been able to use their best players initially but they could use them now, and they turned out to be really good. Van Basten said in advance that Russia should be considered very dangerous because it has a population of 136 million to find players from (vs 16 million in the Netherlands), and very much to the credit of Hiddink, he made a great selection from the players available, foregoing some old big names in Russian soccer and instead going with younger talent that he could make into a proper team. He did a great job, and it will be interesting to see how far Russia will be going in this tournament!

 

[zed]

WTF, Turkey, Russia and Germany. Fancier teams lost...btw what happened to England? Didn't they qualify?

no surprise with germany, they were the favorites before the tournament, the dutch were 6th (cant remember the rest, but u can see spain 4th,russia13th + turkey14th so definitly some upsets)
current odds are
1 Germany $2.50
4 Spain $2.50
13 Russia $4.25
14 Turkey $12.00

 

[StefanS]

Italy vs. Spain was really a dreadful match. Really awful to watch...

 

[nutball]

Italy vs. Spain was really a dreadful match. Really awful to watch...

It was indeed very poor. I'm glad Italy lost too, goodbye and good riddance.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Italy needs top notch strikers with the ability to score goals, now they didn't have any and thus their playing style was pretty much doomed, although anything is possible in penalty shootout. Spain wasn't very good either...

 

[Deepak]

Even in the last world cup Italy played same defense-boring football.

 

[Simon F]

Did you guys see that?? Croatia got 1-nil in the 119th minute and then Turkey amazingly managed to equalize in the 121st minute. It was literally seconds before the ref would have sounded the whistle since the extra time period was only extended 1 minute. Damn what drama!

Absolutely. Turkey certainly know how to leave everything to the last minute

 

[DJ12]

Italy needs top notch strikers with the ability to score goals, now they didn't have any and thus their playing style was pretty much doomed, although anything is possible in penalty shootout. Spain wasn't very good either...

You cannot say that, look at the Golden Boot standings Luca Toni is right up there at near the top.

On the evidence of Euro 2008 you'd rightly say he couldn't hit an elephants arse with a bango, but that obviously isn't the case.

I think he just bottles it when the pressure is on.

 

[Arwin]

Italy vs. Spain was really a dreadful match. Really awful to watch...

I thought it was OK actually. I'm long used to not seeing too many goals and still enjoying a match, but I did have to laugh when after ten minutes my wife asked me to wake her up when the penalties started. Spain seem to be good, very similar in style to Russia. It will be interesting to see the two against each other again with Ashavin back on the field, who seems to be more than a match for his Spanish counterpart.

Also, thinking back about the Netherlands vs Russia match, I was wondering that perhaps in retrospect van Nistelrooij wasn't a good choice for deep striker position, because at least in this match he certainly didn't move around enough. I would probably have preferred van Persie in his position, he will create a lot more chaos which will allow other strikes to score.

Ah well, old cows as they say here.

 

[dizietsma]

Germany are going to either be reamed by the hard work and team play of Russia or the flair and brilliance of Spain.

How a team so feeble can get to the final is quite amazing.

 

[silhouette]

Man, we lost the game that we best played... Congrats to Germans!

 

[L233]

How a team so feeble can get to the final is quite amazing.

The Secret of Germany's Football Success

 

[Frank]

The Secret of Germany's Football Success

That also goes for Russia. May the most mediocre team win!