The Official Football Thread

[Saturn Beaver]

To quote someone else, "If Sheva is a hero to the people of Kiev before, tonight he is a god." Great game by the veteran, I really wouldn't mind seeing Ukraine going far and having Sheva having his last hurrah, going the way of Zidane in World Cup 2010 (but with less headbutting this time, please).

In contrast, the England-France game is a bit boring. Well, there's soem good defending there, I suppose, and at least there's goal, but it's a relatively unimpressive performance from both sides. I suppose it's not that bad from England as tough defending is their aim, but I expected better tactics and substitution from Blanc. If they're not lucky, Ukraine might actually leap and qualify over them...

[Elo the Blue]

No matter the players, England always play the same conservative, boring brand of football. It's somewhat depressing.

[Kyuu]

I just had to LOL

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer...6302--sow.html

[Shinndou]

Originally Posted by Blaat

Spoiler:

That #8 must be a member of the Ginyu force. I'm sure Shinndou can confirm this for us.

haha, that's Marchisio. I don't even know why on earth he's striking a pose, lol. My guess is that he jumped and landed on the ground like that... still pretty hilarious though. Rather than Ginyu that pose reminds of me Dr. Slump's Arale

[Merilyn Mensola]

Man...My Milan...My Thiago Silva...man..

Berlusconi is going to destroy Milan........man................

[Malkuth]

Berlusconi (like Merkel and Sarkozy) destroy their countries (theirs included), ACMilan is insignificant compared to that

[Shinndou]

Originally Posted by Merilyn Mensola

Man...My Milan...My Thiago Silva...man..

Berlusconi is going to destroy Milan........man................

It's the only thing they can do, the club's in a financial crisis, it was ridiculous they didn't sell Pato for 40 millions in January (and we all know why, he's the new "boyfriend" of Berlusconi's daughter)... it's either Thiago Silva or Ibra that are going to be sold to an other club anyway.

In the past season Milan has generated a loss of over 60 million euros despite winning the 2010/2011 Scudetto, despite partecipating to CL and reaching the playoffs... they got rid of all the old veterans who were eating up part of the club's budget with their ridiculously high salaries but it seems like it's not enough.

The only way out is to sell their best players or find a new owner who has no trouble keeping the club alive by constantly injecting money like Manchester City or PSG owners do.

The financial fair play rule is really needed, and not just that, I would honestly introduce a salary cap in order to stop players from being so disgustingly greedy and ruining a club's finances.

[konart]

Greece : Czech Rep

12 minutes into the game( I was late) and it's already ) 0:2

[Kokukirin]

Greece may be the unluckiest team in Euro ever. Their first choice CB pair are both out. Their goalkeeper just injured himself and had to be subbed off. They have two goals (probably wrongly) disallowed in two games. What did they do to anger the football gods?

[Haak]

Oh Cech. You just never catch a break on the international stage do you.

[risingstar3110]

Poland vs Russia, it feels like a diplomatic match toward that ending. A draw is decent as final round will be more crucial for both

[Saturn Beaver]

Euro 2012: The tournament with the most exciting draws.

Congrats to Poland, they played really well and that 1 point is crucial for their survival. Okay, it's not THAT crucial since they still need to win against Czech either way, but this way they could actually be first place and not count on Greece defeating Poland. That's a bit confusing, so here's the full scenario:

Spoiler for Group A Rankings and Prediction:

Country GD Points
Russia +3 4
Czech -2 3
Poland +0 2
Greece -1 1

Russia QUALIFY if:
+ They win (guaranteed 1st)
+ They tied (1st if Poland wins with less than 3 goals, 2nd otherwise)
+ They lost, and Greece didn't win by 3 goals or more (only 1st if Poland tied with Czech, 2nd otherwise)

Russia FAILS if:
- They lost by 3 or more goals to Greece

Czech QUALIFIES if:
+ They won against Poland (2nd if Russia tied or lost against Greece, 1st otherwise)
+ They tied, and Greece won by 3 goals or more (guaranteed 2nd)

Czech FAILS if:
- They lost against Poland
- They tied against Poland, and Greece won by less than 3 goals

Poland QUALIFIES if:
+ They win against Czech. (1st if Greece defeat Russia, or they win with 4 goals or more and Russia tied with Greece. 2nd otherwise.)

Poland FAILS if:
- They tied or lost against Czech.

Greece QUALIFIES if:
+ They won against Russia by at least three goals. (guaranteed 2nd)

Greece FAILS if:
- They won against Russia by two goals or less AND the Czech vs Poland game do not end in a draw.
- They tied or lost against Russia

I hope I didn't make any mistake...as I remember it, the order is goal difference, goal scored, then head-to-head.

[Kokukirin]

When in doubt, ask Wikipedia.

Tie-breaking criteria

If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied to determine the rankings:

1. Higher number of points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question;
2. Superior goal difference resulting from the matches played between the teams in question (if more than two teams finish equal on points);
3. Higher number of goals scored in the matches played between the teams in question (if more than two teams finish equal on points);
4. If, after having applied criteria 1) to 3) to several teams, two teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1) to 3) are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the two teams in question to determine the final rankings of the two teams. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5) to 9) apply in the order given;
5. superior goal difference in all group matches;
6. higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
7. position in the UEFA national team coefficient ranking system
8. fair play conduct of the teams (final tournament);
9. drawing of lots

So, head to head first, then goal difference, then goal scored.

[Malkuth]

Originally Posted by Kokukirin

Greece may be the unluckiest team in Euro ever. Their first choice CB pair are both out. Their goalkeeper just injured himself and had to be subbed off. They have two goals (probably wrongly) disallowed in two games. What did they do to anger the football gods?

We spent our luck back in 2004

As for for Chalkias injury (the goalkeeper), it was more of a bless, Sifakis (his substitute) might be lacking matches (due to injury), but he is much better.

For the referees, it's true that they were unfair, but the team has not shown at any point in the tournament that it deserved better. Our defensive effort is just attrocious, and offensive effort has been unorthodox at best, passing from the deep and hoping for the best. The team has executed only one rational attack with Poland, Maniatis (DMR) stealing the ball and immediately feeding the ball vertically to Torosidis (advancing WBR), crossing into the box for the central forward (Gekkas) to draw the defense and the right striker (Salpigidis) to score the goal taking advantage of the confusion...

... and that's it offensively we have done absolutely nothing else, so let me crawl back to my misery waiting for the ridicule against Russia and the elections back home

[risingstar3110]

Damn.. the match of Portugal vs Denmark is freaking tense now. Portuguese lead 2-0 in the 1st 25 minutes or so . And it's 80th minute now when Denmark equalise 2-2...

Edit: and damn it Portugal score 3-2

[Elo the Blue]

What a strike by Varela. He was impressive in the previous game too.

[risingstar3110]

Well Denmark still get the chance if Germany beat Netherlands, then Netherlands beat Portugal.

Germany may then just play for draw with Denmark and eliminate both the Dutch and the Portugal early

[Bri]

If the Dutch lose today then it's over for them and they will field a B-squad against Portugal.

Portugal will therefore hope for a German win.

Best Denmark can hope for is a Dutch win with a 2 goal differential or more. A draw against Germany will then guarantee a spot in the next round.

[Solafighter]

Germany vs Netherlands.
The match of matches. Its gonna kick some balls.


Go Germany, go!

[Kyuu]

If I can't cheer for the USA team - by virtue of them not playing -- then I choose Germany.