The Official Football (Soccer) Thread (v. It's starting again!)

[Nekov]

So, after suspending it in Argentina due to covid, Copa America will no be played in...     Brazil. These guys are a joke.

[MirrorMask]

So, after suspending it in Argentina due to covid, Copa America will no be played in...     Brazil. These guys are a joke.

"We can't play on the edge of a cliff because it's unsafe, let's move nearby a tornado instead"

[Tomislav95]

Anyone following Euro cup?
Pretty good opener yesterday, Italy played really well and it seems they might go far this year.
France again looks terrific, Belgium and England are also great. My country Croatia didn't look too good in friendlies and I'd be happy with anything more than advancing from group stage.

[MirrorMask]

The enthusiasm for the tournament was seriously dampered yesterday.

Christian Eriksen from Denmark suddenly fell down senseless in the middle of the pitch, with a cardiac arrest. His captain immediately attended to him, medics were quickly on the pitch, and all the Denmark players made a human shield when the doctors were working on him to shield him from the cameras, then they all walked him out together.

Also, at the stadium finnish supporters (the match was Denmark - Finland) chanted "Christian!!!" with the danish ones replying "Eriksen!!!".

And Lukaku from Belgium, his team mate from Inter, scored and ran to the camera to say "Stay strong Christian, I love you".

Yesterday we saw some of the most memorable, touching, soul warming moments in football seen in a long time..... and they were tied to a young guy almost dying on the pitch. How weird and surreal.

[MirrorMask]

First round of matches done!

No big surprises, in the group of death France defeated Germany with a quite thoughtless own goal by the germans, as if the one Turkey did to themselves wasn't bad enough.

Now round two begins, tonight Italy vs Switzerland!

Oh, and next friday there's England vs Scotland, William Wallace mode on 

[Elite]

Oh hey! I've actually watched a few matches this year, though I haven't posted in this thread.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Haven't watched a game yet but planning on it.

I did hear about Cristiano Ronaldo little stunt on Coca-Cola, ouch! 

[Elite]

If they keep this up, Italy will win this tournament. Very captivating to watch.

[soupytwist]

Aside from the horrible Eriksen incident, this has been a decent start to the championship.

As an Englishman us starting with a win against a decent side and playing pretty well was great to see.  Also loving Italy (my second team) being so enjoyable to watch.
Loved seeing Germany lose, shame it meant the French won though 

[Elite]

Germany - France was the best game so far though ...

[Luoto]

There have been 5 penalty kicks given in the Euros so far, and players have missed 4 of them. That's a pretty weird stat.

[RoeDent]

Germany v France was awful for the standard it should have been. A 1-0 own-goal win is not a great game.

We just had our first come-from-behind win when Belgium brought on their supersubs and completely turned the game on its head vs Denmark and showed class both in footballing terms and in the 10th-minute tribute to Eriksen.

[Kwyjibo]

Germany - France was the best game so far though ...

I thought it was pretty boring. Germany had a lot of ball posession but had absolutely no idea what to do with it. And France didn't do much either, but they always were dangerous when in attack mode. Germany could have played for another two hours and not creating any chances. This is 2018 all over again. 

Maybe it's a good thing that Jogi Löw will resign after the tournament. He was so great for so many years, but he seems to have run out of ideas.

[Elite]

Germany v France was awful for the standard it should have been. A 1-0 own-goal win is not a great game.

The goal itself wasn't good, but it was exciting to watch, I thought. So far.. best attacking team award (given by me, a football noob who only watches EC and WC) goes to Italy.

Belgium's first goal just now was some great player interaction, but I felt bad for Denmark who I thought deserved the win after the first half (in which Belgium played very badly, I might add).

Austria - the Netherlands tonight. No idea what to expect from this. I have a feeling Oranje will be overconfident and give it away, the same way they practically gave Ukraine the two goals in the first match.

[soupytwist]

Big match England vs Scotland tonight.  We (England) should win this, as this is a fairly workmanlike Scotland team (Robinson and Tierney are the only two top quality players in their team, and they both play in the same position).   In theory we should have to much quality and pace upfront for them - but you never know, we still haven't had an outright shock result yet!

As an aside I'd much rather live in Scotland than England these days, but patriotism still wants me to batter them tonight!

[MirrorMask]

I love London and a gazillion of England bands, but speaking of bands, you can't listen to Grave Digger and be indifferent to Tunes of War, their best album and a concept about scottish history.

So, in the name of the song Rebellion, go Scotland tonight!   

[Zydar]

Sweden is starting their second game now, and I'm stuck at work for a few more hours. Luckily I have dual monitors here at the office 

[ariich]

Big match England vs Scotland tonight.  We (England) should win this, as this is a fairly workmanlike Scotland team (Robinson and Tierney are the only two top quality players in their team, and they both play in the same position).   In theory we should have to much quality and pace upfront for them - but you never know, we still haven't had an outright shock result yet!

As an aside I'd much rather live in Scotland than England these days, but patriotism still wants me to batter them tonight!

I'm English and my wife is Scottish, so our son is therefore both, so we support both. So in a sense I don't really mind what happens this evening.

Strictly speaking I'm actually only half English, so I guess our household is more Scottish than anything else.

[Nekov]

[soupytwist]

Germans don't play till tomorrow!

Well back to the England performance I've seen way to many times in my life during torniment football.   Fair play to the Scots they were the better side.

[MirrorMask]

Germany lost with an own goal, against France... and took the lead with TWO own goals against Portugal 

And then rounded it up to 4-2 in their favor just because they could.

This group of death is gonna be interesting!

[Elite]

What a game though, that was great to watch!!

[Kwyjibo]

Best game of a german team for a long time. 

But still some horrible mistakes in the defense.

[Elite]

And Spain is but a ghost of their all-star team that won the world cup 11 years ago.

[MirrorMask]

Group A is done! Italy dominated it, three victories out of three, 7 goals scored and ZERO conceded.

Of course the rivals were not that impossible but let's call it a good beginning. Also, it's 30 matches in a row without defeat - a feat that was resisting since the '30s, the times when Italy won two world cups back to back 

Now the real doubt is if they're actually that strong, or if at the first really difficult match they will crumble. Fingers crossed....

Tonight Group B also ends! (EDIT: not true as mentioned. below)

[Elite]

Tonight Group B also ends!

Nope, that's tomorrow!

[soupytwist]

Group A is done! Italy dominated it, three victories out of three, 7 goals scored and ZERO conceded.

Italy are my second team, I grew up watching Italian Football in the 90's, when sky took the English Premiership away from terrestrial TV, Channel 4 started showing a Serie A game every Sunday (as well as a Brilliant Italian Footy magazine show on Saturday).  My two favorite players (outside of Leicester City) come from that era in Robbie "Divine Ponytail" Baggio and Gabriel "Batigol" Batistuta.  Samp and Roma were the two teams I ended up supporting most, which still stands (although Mourinho going to Roma may test that  ).

[MirrorMask]

Baggio is a national treasure 

[Zoom E]

I'm cheering for Wales, my home country, but don't think they'll get too far. They meet Denmark in the round of 16. My second and third favourite teams are England and the Netherlands.

[MirrorMask]

In these tournaments I always root for, in order:

- Italy
- Germany because I've been there many times and I love the country
- Scandinavian nations
- Random underdog with no chance to win
- Whoever is playing against France 

[Elite]

For me it's usually The Netherlands and England, because that's my roots.

Then random underdogs too (Ghana in 2010 WC, Iceland last Euro for example).

This year I'm also rooting for Germany and Italy and against Portugal.

[soupytwist]

I have a strong dislike for Spain atm.  Nothing to do with the country, I just hate their current style of stagnant possession based football - it's so boring to watch.

Really pleased for the Danes, they deserved that - it's a nice story after what happened to Eriksen.  They played pretty well in their first two matches and got no reward, it was really good to watch them unleash against a dull Russian side.

[MirrorMask]

I have a strong dislike for Spain atm.  Nothing to do with the country, I just hate their current style of stagnant possession based football - it's so boring to watch.

Yeah, Spain as in "spanish football team" is another team fun to dislike, with all their tiki taka bullshit that basically was imported from Barcelona's glory days with Xavi and Iniesta, and I guess that whenever a team wins so much it's natural to develop some "hostility" towards them.

BTW, I too when I root against France I mean "France's football team", Paris is one of the most beautiful towns of the world and in general I don't feel the hostility with french people that many other italians have (you know that every neighbour in the world bicker among themselves), it's just that whenever the specific entity of France's football team loses, it will always be something to cherish about 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Pretty exciting game between Sweden and Poland right now. 

[Elite]

Indeed!

EDIT 2 minutes later; well, it's over now after that goal