Official Football Thread

Well, I didn't really look up on the rules, it is something I've picked up from commentators/TV pundits during this season. The referees have been instructed to not stop play unless it looks like the player has a head injury/other serious injury - obviously to reduce the problem with players faking injuries to delay the game.

I've also noticed that we don't see as often as before that the ball is played out whenever a player is injured. I was actually surprised to see Italy do it twice when Spanish players were down - thumbs up to them for that - but in general it is a custom which has been abused, again by players looking for a chance to delay the game. It might be a good idea to just keep on playing until the referee blows the whistle - and that unless the injury looks serious, he doesn't do that until the ball goes out of play or a foul is committed.
 
Forostar said:
From our "old predictions", did I have the most semi-finalists correct (2)? (I had Russia & Germany in the semi-finals). EW, Albie and Genghis: did you also predict semis?

More important is the final (Nush and Nat are still in that race, I'm out)
and the championship winner (Nush still has a chance, Albie and me are out).

(if done):
@Genghis, Albie and EW: which final did you predict?
@Natalie, Genghis and EW: which winner did you predict?
Click to expand...

My old predictions:

1. I got all my eight quarter-final predictions right, except I expected Sweden to make it instead of Russia.  So far so good, but my percentage of correctness went down significantly from here.
2. Regardless, I expected the Netherlands to win.  I was wrong on that account and on the guessed Portugal and Croatia win.  The only semi-finalist I got right is Spain.  In my self-defense, the news story I read about Germany turned out to be wrong.  Their coach moved Ballack up front, removed Gomez, started with Schweinsteiger all of which proved fruitful.
3. I never stated who I expected to win overall (though I silently expected the Dutch would) or even who I predicted in the finals.  In order to get it right at this point, Spain would have to be the Euro 2008 champion. 
4. I've said that I won't make any more predictions since only 1/4 of my semi-finals were correct.  If I favour a team, I just may curse them.  :P
 
Well, Forostar - now I've made sure I'll be ringside when our teams clash in October. Secured five tickets for the World Cup qualifier between Norway and Holland in Oslo. That's gonna be interesting  :D
 
Actually, I am considering going to the away game against Scotland as well (the saturday before Norway-Holland). I've been to England twice (not for football though), but never north of Hadrian's Wall (or is it Adrian's Wall  :D?). The problem is that there are no direct flights from Norway to Glasgow or Edinburgh - I'd have to fly via Schiphol or London. Would take the entire day and be expensive as fuck. But experiencing the atmosphere at Hampden Park during a Scotland game could be worth it ...
 
Eddies Wingman said:
Actually, I am considering going to the away game against Scotland as well (the saturday before Norway-Holland). I've been to England twice (not for football though), but never north of Hadrian's Wall (or is it Adrian's Wall  :D?).
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Same here (twice) but I have been on and north of Hadrian's Wall as well - I went on a 10-day trip to Scotland. Most memorable places were the Isle of Skye, Loch Ness, Edinburgh and the most northern point Inverness. On the campings the musquitos were terrible though. Clouds, full of them. We had to walk around with nets over our heads.

But all those things are far away from the stadium. Still your plan could be an adventure, I'd say!
Besides, you Scandinavians live like Kings in the rest of Europe. ;)
 
Ok, let's see. First I'd like to add a comment about Di Natale's whole fiasco thing. GOOD JOB HE WAS BOOED AFTER THAT. I think he should have gotten a warning, if not a yellow card for that stint, what the hell was he thinking getting back on the pitch and stopping Spain's play? Obviously he wanted to stop them, but you don't do that by rolling back on the pitch. Shame on him and I'm sort of sad that I essentially share his name. Pooh.

Back to predictions of finals. I think Germany can beat Turkey (the team is in shambles after all those yellow cards and injuries and what not). Faith and determination go a long way, but against a veteran team like Germany? Not unless Germany do what all the favorites have done so far...which is play badly when it matters most. And I don't see Germany doing that, they have this thing about wanting to win real bad, which is to their credit I suppose. And with Ballack thirsty for revenge after the Champions League. I'm not sure what to make of Spain vs. Russia, as I said before it really depends on who wants revenge and who really has more skill. I'd like to see Spain win, but I'm afraid of cursing them. So for a final I predict Germany against Spain (or with some likelihood Russia).
 
Forostar said:
From our "old predictions", did I have the most semi-finalists correct (2)? (I had Russia & Germany in the semi-finals). EW, Albie and Genghis: did you also predict semis?

More important is the final (Nush and Nat are still in that race, I'm out)
and the championship winner (Nush still has a chance, Albie and me are out).

(if done):
@Genghis, Albie and EW: which final did you predict?
@Natalie, Genghis and EW: which winner did you predict?
Click to expand...
My quarter final and semi final predictions (posted here) were:

Germany v Turkey (German win)
Italy v the Dutch (the Dutch to win)

So I got one semi final line up correct - and I will stick with Germany to win. As for the other 'oribly wrong prediction, I will say that Russia will beat Spain.

The Germans will win the whole thing, though.

national acrobat said:
Is Guus Hiddink the best ever international manager? Although he's never won anything, he always seems to take a team further than they should go, best shown by taking South Korea to a World Cup semi final (albeit with some luck) and now Russia to another semi. I really would have liked to see him become England manager - didn't he take over at Russia about the same time as McClaren at England? We missed out on something there.
Click to expand...
Apparently, Hiddink was asked to attend an interview for the job and found himself in the FA's offices with Sam Allardyce, Alan Curbishley and McClaren. With respect to the other three, he possibly felt he was not taken that seriously and politely declined the offer - and went off to Russia.

Big mistake by the FA, but at least the FA got it right (I still think) with Cappello.

As for this Di Natale incident, I sympathise with NA and his thoughts on inconsistency. Perhaps if players that leave the pitch without permission should be booked, if the ref thought this was the case - then Panucci would have been booked and the ref at the time would have made it absolutely clear to us all why he allowed the goal to stand. Then there would be no more discussion. ;)
 
As for this Di Natale incident, I sympathise with NA and his thoughts on inconsistency. Perhaps if players that leave the pitch without permission should be booked, if the ref thought this was the case - then Panucci would have been booked and the ref at the time would have made it absolutely clear to us all why he allowed the goal to stand. Then there would be no more discussion
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Well - now neither situation was about a player deliberately leaving the pitch without permission . And thus there should be no bookings. Panucci was pushed over the line.But since the ref had not stopped play to grant him permission to leave, he was considered part of play. Stopping play was never an issue in the Panucci incident.

In the Di Natale incident, no rules were broken either. Di Natale rolled off the pitch after being tackled, and came back on the pitch - all without the ref taking any form of action. The point is that it was bad sportsmanship. If the ref should be criticized here, it should be for bad judgement  considering the severity of the injury. A player who is able to deliberately roll himself back on the pitch isn't so badly injured that the ref should stop play at all.

My point is - the two situations are completely different regarding what the ref has to consider. In the first - is Panucci to be considered part of play? According to the rules - yes, he is. Like it or not. In the second - should the ref stop play to allow for immediate treatment of Di Natale? Well, it doesn't seem like it was necessary, but the ref obviously didn't see the entire situation and decided to stop.
 
EW, whilst I agree that the rule is such that Panucci was in play and all that malarkey, I will only make one more point on this: had that rule not been in place, the officials would have still come to the same conclusion - no offside.

I do intend to make a post regarding how football can learn from such sports as Rugby and it will cover such incidents as above (i.e. microphoning the ref to the TV commentary so that the we all can hear why he gave the decision) - so that discussion and arguments about it will be redundant. I will wait until after the Euro's to post it.

However, I read this blog the other day about how some people (not just the English) have said it was a shame England are not here. Personally, aside from England not being there, the one thing I do miss is the English crowd outsinging and outnumbering the opposition - almost every time. They travel in vast numbers and always have a knack of generating a brilliant atmosphere and if you have been involved in such a mass of the English fans, you would know what I mean. It is a shame they are not there. I dare say there is a few bar/club owners missing the beer money from these guys also. :D

As for the team, well quite frankly they do not deserve to be there - and I hope to God that they are sitting at home and taking in what they are missing. Perhaps the players that failed to perform in an England shirt might buck their ideas up a bit and make certain of qualifying for 2010 - instead of reserving all their energy and passion for their club whilst clinging on to a feint hope of winning the Champions league or the Premiership.

So, in light of that - do you think it is a shame that England are not there? And no, this is not "do they deserve to be there", as that has already been answered.
 
To your first point - itmight be that their reasoning for giving offside was that the ball came off a defender and had nothing to do with Panucci. But my point wasn't whether the decision was correct or not, but that the situation was not comparable to the Di Natale incident.

Anyway, I'd also like to hear directly from the referee, there and then, why a certain decision is made.

And I agree that the English traveling fans are missed. Not the portion of them that are hooligans, of course - they can stay where they are - but the rest, those who just like to drink beer and sing - yes, I miss them. I think it's a shame the English players don't seem to absorb that energy when they play with the Three Lions on their shirt. The team might not be the most exciting, but the fans are. And there are several good players in the English team as well - players that would be attractions in the tournament. So I really hope your team qualifies for the 2010 World Cup.
 
Good show by the Turks, but as so often before the Germans are more efficient and get the goals. Still, the 3-2 goal was pure class.

Annoying with the power outages though, missed about half of the 2nd half ...
 
The power outages were surely annoying.  What was to me the most interesting game of the tournament was spoiled.  Turks played better for most of the game, at least, accounting for the trasmitted part, but I give credit to the Germans for being able to find the net whenever they needed to.

Spain played with class and bravo! 

On paper, Spain looks to be a better team.  This Euro is probably the most interesting one I've watched and the final should be more entertaining than the one in Portugal four years ago. 
 
So, it will be Germans and Spain then?  I thought Spain ran roughshod over the Russians, who hardly seemed to show up, were not very aggressive at attacking the Spanish strikers, and their defense made many turnovers.  I really thought that the game was Russia's to lose, and they sure did that.
 
The difference between Spain and the other teams Russia have met, is that the Spanish are very good in possession. They are very safe with the ball, so it is harder to play the counter-attacking game that Sweden and Holland got to experience. Spain simply didn't give away the ball in the midfield as often (the Swedish commentators also mentioned that), but got to Russia's defense line before losing the ball. Then it is harder to counter-attack simply because there's a longer way to go.

The Spanish team is the one that has been most consistently good in this tournament. They have had the majority of chances and the most possession in every game they have played and up to this point not lost a single game. From what the teams have done so far, I would have to consider Spain favorites in the final. But no - I still think Germany will win. Just because it's them. They always seem to be just good enough - they don't really dominate that often. But they win.

I guess we get a closely contested final. My tip is Germany to win 2-1 in extra time.
 
Gary Lineker said:
Football is a game for 22 people that run around, play the ball, and one referee who makes a slew of mistakes, and in the end Germany always wins.
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Perun will have a sleepless night come Sunday, I'm afraid.
 
Yeah, I have no idea how I'm going to get out of bed on Monday. But hey, what can I do ;)
 
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