Be Excellent To Each Other

Who cares about the disallowed goal, was that awful hat Rooney was wearing legal attire for a football match?

Rooney and Gerrard have never delivered? Trooper, I'm starting to doubt your credibility in the football punditry arena. And I'm not including tonight. Gerrard especially.

Again, they just weren't running around like headless chickens. They were trying not to concede. They were trying to win. They succeeded in both. That they largely made it look easy surely shouldn't go against them.

But, in the record books, Spain winning 1-0 against croatia, stands just as much as England winning 1-0 Ukraine...

Never mind that England looked overwhelmed for most of it, and Spain looked like they were in control, both teams won 1-0, and that, in the end, is all that matters.

Don't mind me, I'd prefer if all the games I watched were like the England Sweden game, I was shouting at the TV and all sorts in that. Now in the game tonight (last night now I guess) England might not have attacked fully, but then, they didn't really look like losing either. Ukraine had a few chances, but, nothing really testing...

Malc

If only that had time stamps...

Malc

I'll give you Gerrard, but Rooney? When was the last time he actually did anything in an England shirt? 1994?

I don't disagree. I'm just saying it's unfair to suggest Spain didn't 'try as hard' as Croatia in their match.

2004 he was outstanding. I don't want to make excuses but he certainly has reasons for not performing in subsequent tournaments. Besides, he's not part of that generation anyway. He's only 26. And he's one of the best players in the world. At club level he has shown that. If he can get up to speed in this tournament he's key. Today was just a warm up for him. He hasn't played competitively since the last day of the season!

Besides, I think it's easy to write off the "Golden Generation" because 2010 is still fresh in memory. Frankly, prior to that, England overachieved if anything. We've been good but just not as good as five or six other teams, who frequently knock us out.

who says we need goal line technology?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiqcO_s0mGs

My word!

Just discovered that if you press red button during the game on bbc1 game you have the option of watching the game in a sensible soccer view with 5 live comms.

I get the same view (but in sd) but with the option of 5 live, no sensi soccer view though

Malc

I get ordinary cameras and the choice of 5Live or the much more appealing "no commentary". When did they start doing that? It's excellent.

Ronaldo is exactly like a spoilt 12yr old, it's hilarious to watch

May just be on Virgin. Its actually called the tactical cam.

Radio5 has been a red button option for years, but only recently did it make it to virgin.

I meant the no commentary option specifically. I know there has always been alternative commentary!

I can't recall a no commentary option previously. F1 with CBBC commentary was fun last year, for 30 seconds.

I wonder what the odds are on England getting knocked out in the semi finals on penalties by Germany...

Probably pretty long because we won't even make it to penalties against this German side.

Why do you hate England so much?

I don't! I'm not one of the naysayers. But this German side is incredible.

(Does the Isle of Man have a football team?)

They're not allowed, on account of the three legged thing.

That's technically incorrect. FIFA amended the rules for the 1958 qualifying campaign to reflect 22 legs so as to not unfairly discriminate. IOM narrowly failed to qualify with a strong 7 man team, missing out only on goals conceded. Things took a turn for the worse in qualification for the 1962 tournament with them fielding 7 players with the full complement of legs and one player, Dougie Haushill, who had two legs sheared off in the week before the game to make the squad. He fell Ill with acute septicimia the day before the game and as a result of inquiries, which implied a high level of duress being applied to accept the operation, the team were banned from international competitions with immediate effect. Due to embarrassment on the part of the local FA, they've not since applied to have the ban rescinded.

Oh, yeah. I remember now.

Well, that wasn't the most thrilling of games.

The three Quarter Finals haven't been up to much at all. At least the more negative teams have gone out, so maybe there's hope for a half-decent semi-final or two.

France forgot they had to attack & score a goal to win

Bedford has a very large number of Italians (33%), so it's going to be an interesting one in town tonight.

A nice simple boring game please, I can't take the drama

Boring so far then...

Malc

Time to jinx it, but England are playing well!

£5 free bet with no deposit:
http://www.coral.co.uk/mirror
set up the account, when you get to the deposit stage, open another tab and log in, should have £5 in your account.

Yeah either team look like they could score.

Nice to see the Italians are still a bunch of cheats, diving all over the place like they've been fucking shot if anyone so much as looks in their direction.

Fuck, really? That's a massive amount!

Urk!

Looking a bit wobbly at the moment

Not so good in the second half

Yeah, largest number, per head, in the UK.
There's some sort of Italian embassy too, or something.

England are dire and dreadful, and it needs to be over soon. Mind you, the Italians should have well wrapped it up in the 90 mins.

Terry has played really well.

Why have a couple of the Italian players got blue tape on their necks?

I saw that - the goalie has one.
Also, what was that shield-like thing Gerrard gave to the Italian player at the start of the match?

Good god how did we survive to penalties.

Good decisions by the linesmen?

I think, and am happy to be corrected, that it's supposed to help the blood flow (or something like that) - I've seen players have the tape on their thighs or backs sometimes.

EDIT: Just looked it up - something to do with general injury prevention and muscle strain.

Seems you're right.
http://www.kinesiotape.ca/whatitdoes.htm

Seems a bit far fetched to me.

I can't believe England may actually progress here.

Sigh.

Thank Christ for that. Best team won, though it should never have got to pens.

Mind you I hardly think Italy are world beaters, and Germany should stuff them easily enough.