Official Football Thread

Don't think it was an offside goal. Yes, two Croatia players were in an offside position when the shot went, but it stopped in an Irish player, and it was the Irish player who sent the ball onwards. Had it just been a deflection, I would agree, but it seemed like a missed clearance from a player who was in semi-control of the ball. Thus it could be argued that the ball came from a defender - so, no offside.

However, the Irish should have had a penalty in the 2nd half when Keane was kicked down from behind. Hard to see how the ref didn't spot that.
 
Yes, it was a clear penalty. The referee did a lousy job. Compensated an obvious Irish bias in duels (every second duel between our attackers and their defenders was a clear foul) with that decision.
We were better tonight, Croatia gave a good game, however I'm not happy about us falling back after the third goal.

In any case, next match against Italy, which never won a game against Croatia (lost 2 times in official games, lost one friendly, and drawn two official). The Italians employ Irish tactic (actually it's vice-versa), albeit with tighter play, and with greater skill. I hope our statistics against Italy, plus our display tonight, puts additional pressure on Italians.
 
The Italians impressed me a lot yesterday. After seeing their horrific displays in the friendly matches, it was hard for me to see them giving Spain trouble in winning the game between them. They controlled the pace perfectly had some changes and scored in one of them. On the other hand, Spain desperately missed David Villa yesterday. Finishing can be a huge problem for the Spaniards going further.

Both Croatia and Ireland deserved to win. The game probably was the best in the tournament as of yet. Croatians were fabulous in the first but I really expected them to attack more in the second half and in the meantime I also expected Ireland fall off a bit. Didn't happen, Ireland could get the draw had they been awarded with the deserved penalty on the 70's of the game. Keith Andrews missed a lot of chances too.

Group C seems like the most fun one so far, I'm looking forward to see France and England.
 
Torres makes me laugh. One on one with the keeper, and he gets tackled by Buffon's feet! Another one on one, over the bar. An elbow in the face, yellow card. Plus all the misplaced passes. If Llorente doesn't start or come on before him in the next match, I'll be suprised and he'll be disappointed.
Only Spain would line up with a 4-6 formation.
 
I thought Italy did great yesterday. I missed Croatia vs. Ireland, sadly. But I am thoroughly anticipating today's matchups. Go England!
 
national acrobat said:
Torres makes me laugh. One on one with the keeper, and he gets tackled by Buffon's feet! Another one on one, over the bar. An elbow in the face, yellow card. Plus all the misplaced passes. If Llorente doesn't start or come on before him in the next match, I'll be suprised and he'll be disappointed.
Click to expand...

Hear, hear. I saw that match and when Torres came on, all I could do was groan.
Watching France v England and Ukraine v Sweden today! (Heja Sverige!)
 
France will come out and try to sweep away the disgrace of recent tournaments. Should be an interesting match.
TV switched on... ready to hear the anthems.
 
I'm going to treat myself to one of these:

spitfire.jpg
 
And that was a fantastic stop by Hart. I can't help but think that if Green was in net he would have let that in.
 
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