Official Football Thread

Eddies Wingman said:
And I observed Israel were up 1-0 against Russia. Very good news for England ...
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And apparently, Israel have been pretty good tonight. And Russia poor.

I must admit, I am not that anti Italy to wish them been dumped out of the competition to Scotland - I would rather the likes of France and Italy there than not. And, although they are my neighbours, I don't care too much for Scotland qualifying or not. It turns out, they are out, so I am neither pleased nor happy. But fair play to them to take the qualification to the last game - and the last minute.
 
Forostar said:
Goodluck! I'll keep an eye on the score via Teletext. ;)

edit:

TERRIBLE. Scotland made 1-1 (all hope was back) and Italy made 2-1 in injury time(!), after a totally undeserved freekick (what the FUCK happened?!?!) was given to Italy. The freekick should even have gone to Scotland I think.

Scotland OUT
Italy to the EC
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France goes to EC too !

Incredible freekick. What a bad referee, all match long. Anyway, there was a little offside in the Scotish goal.
 
Warning: Not for soft people:

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! Those fucking horsedicks with their delaying and their bloody fucking luck. Hope they all get severe diarrhea before the Bosnia game. FUCK! How could we manage to lose this game? Bloody HELL! Don't we have ANY decent goalkeepers in this country any more? Now we'll have to hope Bosnia beat Turkey. Yeah, right. Fat chance.

Inside the spoiler tags you can find a spontaneous outbreak of frustration. It is about 1/10 as bad as the one I had when Markus Merk gave the final whistle.
 
Those Israëlians made it in the 92nd minute! Crucial! Just as crucial as the Turkish victory in Norway was... too bad EW, seems Norway's chances are very small now!  :(

Russia can only make it if Croatia will defeat England.
@Albie: is a draw enough for England as well?


Both Poland & Holland have a 1-0 in their favour at halftime. This night seems a "last minute night".... we'll see how it ends.
 
Forostar said:
... too bad EW, seems Norway's chances are very small now!  :(
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I wouldn't say that - Norway's next game is against Malta - Norway really should win that. Turkey entertain Bosnia - and have to beat them. 50/50, I say.
 
Albie said:
I wouldn't say that - Norway's next game is against Malta - Norway really should win that. Turkey entertain Bosnia - and have to beat them. 50/50, I say.
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Still, it's not in Norway's own hands anymore. Even a worse position than England now.
@Albie: is a draw enough for England as well?
 
Forostar said:
@Albie: is a draw enough for England as well?
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A draw is more than enough for England as they have a far superior head to head against Russia. I really do think we will beat Croatia as they will have won the group by then........however, as I type, Croatia are 1-0 down to Macedonia with, what, 10 minutes to go? Should it stay like that and England beat Croatia by more than two goals, England win the group. :D
 
Really, I think we're out. I won't hang myself yet because Turkey have been so unstable that they are capable of losing against Bosnia. But I don't think it will happen. We're staying home next summer. To my consolidation, the chicken I'm eating right now doesn't taste half bad.

Things look promising for England now, so it looks like my usual "substitute" for Norway in tournaments will play in Austria and Switzerland. (In Norway, media has for decades focused more on British football than other European leagues and national teams. This has lead to that a good proportion of the Norwegian football audience has sympathy for England, Scotland, Ireland, while others despise any team that has anything to do with the British isles.) I belong to the former - so good luck to England against Croatia.

We Norwegians can only hope for an early Christmas present on Wednesday.
 
UPDATE: Because of these two results:

Israel 2-1 Russia
Macedonia 2-0 Croatia

For England to win the group, they need only beat Croatia 2-0. A win of that scoreline would put England and Croatia on the same points, the same head to head record and England with a far superior goal difference (as I assume that GD is the third criteria for the separation of two level teams - if it is goals for, Croatia would top the group). If Steve Maclaren did the lottery tonight, I want his numbers. :D

Eddies Wingman said:
In Norway, media has for decades focused more on British football than other European leagues and national teams. This has lead to that a good proportion of the Norwegian football audience has sympathy for England, Scotland, Ireland, while others despise any team that has anything to do with the British isles.
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Interestingly enough, the English have a bit of a soft spot for the Norwegians (despite the odd embarrassment in Oslo) and the Danes - a lot of this has to do the exports to the English league of players like Solskjær, Molby, Olsen, Laudrup, and so on. I would rather Norway be there than Turkey.
 
Albie said:
And, although they are my neighbours, I don't care too much for Scotland qualifying or not. It turns out, they are out, so I am neither pleased nor happy.
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On TV I just saw some disappointed Scots, who actually turned crazy of joy when they saw the last goal of Israel vs Russia.

Ah, I almost forgot.. Poland won 2-0! First time ever Poland will be present at the European Championships! Congrats to Poland, and congrats to Dutch coach Leo Beenhakker, who does it again! :)

The Netherlands had 15 to 20 chances to score but they only did once!! So a disappointment when it comes to the score, but they're qualified and even have a small chance to become the number one, since Romania lost from Bulgaria.

Some remarkable statistics of the Dutch team (from the whole campaign, except the last round):

-From all countries which placed themselves for the EC Holland created the most chances
-From all countries which placed themselves for the EC Holland scored the least amount of goals (only 14)
This means that Holland has missed terribly many chances!

One good statistic still:
-Together with France, Holland had the least amount of goals against them. Just 3.

edit: I just saw BBC's Match of the Day, and that last free kick given to Italy was really rediculous, BEYOND BELIEF.
 
Forostar said:
On TV I just saw some disappointed Scots, who actually turned crazy of joy when they saw the last goal of Israel vs Russia.
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I must admit, I would be quite surprised if this was a general feeling amongst the Scots. The situation we have here is that there has been so much mud-slinging backwards and forwards between us and the Scots which is why I choose to keep well out of it.

Examples:
It has been known for the Scots to actually buy shirts of the opposition England play and become as passionate about England loosing as Scotland winning.
The English press do us little or no favours with their over bouyism about the England team thus making some of the English fans just a little too zealous to the point of gloating about a Scottish failure.

The results of behaviour by both sets of fans has lead me not care for Scottish football and boycott all tabloid press.

Forostar said:
edit: I just saw BBC's Match of the Day, and that last free kick given to Italy was really rediculous, BEYOND BELIEF.
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This is very true, the free-kick should not have stood in favour of Italy. However, Italy did have a seemingly good goal disallowed and the Scotland goal could have been deemed off-side. Football can be cruel sometimes, but we have to take the rough with the smooth. ;)
 
True as well... but in the last minute! The Italian even made the fault himself. Where do they find such referees? I say suspend this man for a while to bring back his senses (if he has any).

And these Scots I talked about were watching football in England, so if they live in England they might like both countries? ;)
 
Forostar said:
True as well... but in the last minute! The Italian even made the fault himself. Where do they find such referees? I say suspend this man for a while to bring back his senses (if he has any).
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Sounds like the Italy vs Australia game during the last world cup.

EDIT: Croatia was too damn lazy in their last game.  As soon as they saw the result of the Isreal vs Russia game, they knew they were through.  Too bad that their unbeaten streak had ended.  The game against England will give insights into things to come during the actual EU tournament.
 
Genghis Khan said:
Sounds like the Italy vs Australia game during the last world cup.

EDIT: Croatia was too damn lazy in their last game.  As soon as they saw the result of the Isreal vs Russia game, they knew they were through.  Too bad that their unbeaten streak had ended.  The game against England will give insights into things to come during the actual EU tournament.
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Perhaps people in Croatia will love the thought of Russia not qualifying. :)
 
Genghis Khan said:
I can't see why they'd put too much though into it one way or the other?
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For the same reason most of Latin America likes it when the U.S doesn't qualify or loses?
 
I did not hear any talks about Russia when I was in Croatia this summer.  They wish to join the west and forget the past, though they're not quite sure what joining the west means in many respects.  Back on topic.  Russia has been no threat for such a long time, I don't think most people think about them as a soccer nation. 
 
Genghis Khan said:
I did not hear any talks about Russia when I was in Croatia this summer.  They wish to join the west and forget the past, though they're not quite sure what joining the west means in many respects.  Back on topic.  Russia has been no threat for such a long time, I don't think most people think about them as a soccer nation. 
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nope, but they are still an olympic powerhouse :D
 
Genghis Khan said:
I did not hear any talks about Russia when I was in Croatia this summer.  They wish to join the west and forget the past, though they're not quite sure what joining the west means in many respects.  Back on topic.  Russia has been no threat for such a long time, I don't think most people think about them as a soccer nation. 
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Russians and Serbs are both Slavic folk, if I'm not mistaken. I thought Serbs and Croatians didn't like eachother that much. The Russians have always supported the Serbs (even now, when Serbia doesn't cooperate with Kosovo). It's a wide link I make, but it's not unthinkable, is it?

Still, the Croatians might be proud enough to beat England. In that case they would be of major assistance to Russia.
 
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