Yeah, G Neville was probably the most underrated of that entire 'golden' generation. You're right, he never really looked the part but was a brilliant defender. It'll be interesting seeing how he does as defensive coach. I reckon even now he's still better than Johnson and the way things are going he may have to don his shin pads again come Monday. We can only hope.

Im still expecting absolutely fuck all. The Portugal/Holland/Germany group is more interesting at the moment

Yeah, it's actually quite nice not having that burden of expectation (unless expecting not to get past the group stage counts as expectation). And I'm actually a lot more comfortable with footballing despair than I am optimism. I remember feeling almost envious of the French in the last world cup. Their meltdown really was world class. If things are gonna fuck up for England, let them really fuck up, I say. If we can't come back as winners we may as well come back as the ultimate footballing disaster in the tournament. I'm hoping for brawls after Terry calls Defoe a pickaninny during training. I'm hoping Neville will run onto the pitch mid game to twat Glen Johnson after he makes yet another misjudged gallop forward, leaving the defence exposed. I'm hoping of leaked rumours that a WAG did the nasty with a Ukrainian Mafia boss.

poor US. we used to have a team..

Yeah, I never saw it but drawing with Canada is pretty bad. Did Dempsey play?

Although a big name, I really don't think Klinsmann was the answer for you guys.

That would truly be brilliant...
What could top that, I don't know...
Surely, some team will come up with something...

You've actually got some great players and you're thrashing of Scotland should show more than a draw with Canada.

pscheh...



this US team is probably better than ever in terms of quality players. it's a growing sport here and this new generation is showing it by playing in top teams abroad.

also

1) what h8kurdt said!

2) http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/sto...aly-first-time

still, these are friendlies, no real stakes except maybe a bit of pride, so don't expect the moon tomorrow. klinsmann is trying out different systems. please get informed of why and how in this article:

http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/1679/...-formation-for

i expect klinsmann to do better than bradley. bradley is a good guy and i wish him well working for egypt, but professionally he doesn't have the chops to build a world-class team. klinsmann has had his career ups and downs, but he operates at a different level than bradley-- have some patience and see you in 2 years.

I think the major plus for the US now is that, in Donovan and Dempsey, they have two players that can reasonably have a team built around them. The danger is that they become a Gerrard-Lampard problem: too similar and end up cancelling each other out.

As el Symbols says, Klinsmann has two years to get it right. I'm still not convinced he's the right man but saying that, I don't know who I would've chosen instead. And at least he's now in a situation where he knows who his two best players are, which has to make any further team selections a lot more straightforward.

Just to say, there's a great article in this week's Time magazine by Bill Saporito.



I couldn't find a link to his article so you'll have to buy it if you're interested but it is really worth a read.


He's apparently doubtful with injury but if he goes, Mario Balotelli has to give Italy the potential edge there. Although John Terry will always put England in contention.

Thats all well and good, but why is he standing like a ballerina?

A slot on Strictly if things go as tits up as we expect this June?

Well Audley Harrison is still boxing, so anythings possible

Of possible interest to US posters in this thread ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...-brazil-canada

what do people make of ferdinands exclusion from the squad?

i'm finding hard to swallow the "footballing matters" argument to be honest.
He played alot of toward the end of the season and played well.
i'd certainly rather have him than Kelley

I'd rather Ferdinand too but I think his exclusion is valid. 'Footballing matters' can extend to harmony in the squad and while we'll never know for sure, having Ferdinand and Terry in the same squad would arguably undermine that harmony. The option (if you accept that harmony theory) is to take one or the other (or leave both behind) and, while I personally can't stand Terry, I'd say he's had the slightly better season. But whichever way you look at it, it's a mess.

i wonder if terry himself has a say in the matter ("i won't play if he gets selected")?
how big is his power/influence, keeping in mind that the manager's been appointed only a couple of months ago, as well as the suggesstions that the senior players were running chelsea, etc.

I doubt if even Terry would make that kind of ultimatum. All i know is that if I was Ferdinand I wouldn't play alongside Terry. The FA was stupid postponing the trial till after the Euros. Surely it would've been better for the stability of the squad had a verdict been reached before the tournament. As it is there's this constant doubt and controversy hanging over things.

Personally I think the FA should've suspended Terry until the result of the trial (as would've happened in plenty of other areas of work.) But they didn't, so all the pressure of making that decision has fallen on the manager who can really only cite footballing reasons. So I do feel sorry for Hodgson. If he'd dropped Terry (without FA backing) he'd be condemned as judging him guilty before the trial. If he took both, the media would be all about rifts in the camp. So leaving out Ferdinand seems like the best of a very bad set of options available to him. Of course, if he had taken Ferdinand instead, we'd at least be sure that Terry would turn up, in full kit, regardless.

Terry's a good player but the sooner he's not an option for the England team, the better. He's just too much trouble. And even without Ferdinand there, I wonder just how many of the remaining squad (black or white) have their own issues about playing alongside him.

--

Further to the Ferdinand/Terry issue, fears about racist abuse in Ukraine has prompted some players (most notably Balotelli) to say they'll walk off the pitch if they're racially abused during a game. Platini has said any player who does walk off will be automatically booked. It could all get really interesting.

I don't wanna go on a massive rant about it but all I say is that there's no way Ferdinand would be able to play all the matches. His back has been an issue for a while now. Hell even Ferguson has said he didn't think Ferdinand would be up for it.

Terry has been more consistent and there's no threat of an injury re-occurring.

which is only gonna encourage the idiots to sing racist chants and make monkey noises and try to get balotelli to walk




i do wonder if ferdinand had said to hodgson he couldn't play with terry. that leaves hodgson with no choice but to say "fuck you then"

surprised that the czech republic went down by so much. i think russia could be the dark horse of this tournament.

czech republic have a really shit squad this year. Cech and Pilar are the only two good players.
they won't make further than the group.

Czech Rep really disappointed me. I wasn't expecting them to beat Russia but I wasn't expecting it to be that one sided either. Russia did really impress me, though. Dzagoev and Arshavin look awesome. They look pretty much nailed on to top the group but I do think any of the remaining three could make runners up, although I'd probably make Poland slight favourites, if only cos Lewendowski looks more capable of scoring than anyone I've seen so far for Greece or the CR.

I actually can't believe Greece got to within a penalty miss of beating Poland. Even the draw was a bit ridiculous. It was the first real chance I'd had to see Lewendowski and he looks great, although a bit wasted in a team that's obviously not up to his level. Greece's sending off was ridiculous but, as often happens, they seemed to play a lot better after it happened. It's a shame that we won't know how good Russia really are until the knockout phase when they face some genuine competition.

arshavin looked incredible. nothing like the player he was at arsenal. Russia looked really good all round

so far Euro 2012 wins!

He really did but, as you say, Russia seem pretty strong all round. I can only imagine what the score might've been had Kershakov been a bit better in front of goal.

If the Dutch don't get a goal in the next 30 mins then I'll be shocked. They've been pretty much handed too many chances. Especially Van Persie's slip just as he was about to hit what would've been a screamer.

uauza. total surprise. and denmark was rated last in likelihood to win this?

Even with the missed chances I think Holland were really disappointing. Midfield they seem really disconnected. Robben was wasteful and far too selfish. He gets away with that when he scores but when he doesn't he becomes a bit of a problem. Even if they'd got a goal or even won I'd be doubtful of them progressing much further. It'll be interesting seeing Portugal in a minute. They must really fancy their chances of going through, now, even if they lose against Germany.

Well done to Denmark though. They defended really well, especially Jacobson and seemed far more organised than Holland - even if they rode their luck at times. I can't see them qualifying but both Germany and Portugal will do well to break them down.

yes demoño but on espn3 ballack was reminding people of this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...o-2012-group-h

so you don't really know until you know

ps just before that last-minute corner kick i started to think "fuck, portugal could win this"

the german attack is fucked. gomez is standing there like a wooden pole. bring in klose i say.

I'm glad Germany nicked that, if only because of how frustrating it was seeing Portugal so obviously play for the draw. I don't think Germany did anything particularly wrong I just think for 3/4 of the game, Portugal made it almost impossible for them. Although I'm a bit surprised Loew took so long with his substitutions.

Haha I was watching the game with a friend of mine who through pretty much the whole game was just yelling "BRING KLOSE ON!".

Even though he was barely noticeable through the whole game Gomez's header was a cracker.

So far this Euro has been great. Especially when you compare it to the beginning of the last World Cup which was just dulldulldull.

nice first half, pretty even, a slow warmup pace but italy has been surprisingly good considering the expectations. i love their passing game. spain's attack is a bit pussed out--too much fucking passing in the area. who was teh guy who returned the ball when he was all alone?

my only complaint would be that the ref let the fouls get a little bit out of hand until the yellow card for balotelli-- then people calmed down. the card should have gone to the guy who fouled casillas, whatshisname, and that would have tamped the abuse earlier.

I loved that. My fave game of the tournament so far. Good to see Italy have a real go at Spain and for large parts I thought they were the better team. Spain look great in the areas we'd expect but I do think they might struggle to score against more defensive-minded teams.

El Symbols, have you sorted out your login on the Fantasy Football site?

What the HELL was Balotelli doing when he was fannying around with the ball on his own in the penalty box? That could've easily been a goal till he pretty much let Ramos have the ball. Bloody idiot.

All in all a good game.

Good game and good result (suspense wise).
The goals were fine, some attempts beautiful to watch (Giovinco for Di Natale), and there's those misses from players who haven't had that good a year (Balotorres).
Yummy.

Italy looked really good! Ireland looked really bad. Awfull defensively, no real ideas going forward going down far too softly and complaining to the ref about everything. They looked like a sunday league team compared to croatia.

Also, so far the prem league big guns have all been shite! Van Persie Ballotelli Torres all had shockers. Modric was ok but didn't really shine. Daniel Agger played quite well

I was at least expecting Ireland's defence to hold up a bit better than it did. It's hard to see them getting anything against Spain or Italy.

At least if they go out we won't have to suffer ITV pundits resorting to Irish cliche after Irish cliche. I half expected Jim Beglin to play a penny whistle when they scored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QRlR0ctjNE

i sorted that out but not yet everything else. check that thread for more.

yesterday i drank for an hour to the perpetual sorrow of the irish.

poor guys! that was a rough game.


philosophy. "to be or not to be," etc.

Allez les Bleus!!!

---

ah shit i was hoping for more from france.

nice game, not as nice as spain-italy but pretty good.