Hard Luck Michael

Hope we do better tomorrow!

 

Oh well, so we both blew it. Just as well I dont follow football very closely, otherwise I might be a bit pissed off.

 

england played like a bunch of muppets. i'm surprised they held the french off for so long, however when the dam broke it really went.
cheers



julian

 

I don't think we were quite muppets this time, solid decent performance, just we gave them too much space as usual, I like to see more dangerous football, attacking, if you let them at you like that, they will always break through, you have to scare and keep at distance, don't give them time on the ball...

the result was a pisser, just one of those things, just plain bad luck, we weren't embarrassed. Needed a little more up front, Owen can be pretty dire on a bad day.

I should have betted, I guessed 2-1 france before, but I would never have dreamt it would've been like that, 3 minutes before time I actually thought we would have done it.

 

oh come on, ragged defending, asthmatic running, ropey passes, young showoffs muffing it up when they tried to look like an mtv or phone comercial it was farcical. no wonder the french were rattled for so long, they couldn;t believe how such a shoddy team were in the lead for so long. i remember watching one of the first games when sje was manager and thinking that england were at last playing like one of the great world sides, beckham was everywhere, owen was like a small annoying dog worrying the opponents defenders at every chance and even heskey managed to stay upright for more than 2 seconds. last night i saw none of that all i saw was a bunch of stumbling prats who looked less a team and more a bunch of posers. pray to god they get their act together for the rest of the games but i'm not holding my breath.
cheers


julian

 

I'm with Julian on this. Not impressed at all

 

Hi,

Very Interesting.

Too many players went missing at key times during the game. Was Owen on the pitch? He was a waste of space.

We did have a soild defence in the first half. France attack was kept quiet by Ledley King & Sol Campbell in the first half. The French did struggle to get into the flow in the first half. Wayne Rooney looked dangerous with good on & off the ball running. Beckham had a few good touches but was below par by his standards. The goal came at the right time & England should have put the penalty away.

The 2nd half, France stepped up a gears or two. For England, the going got tough but (some of the) tough didn't get going. But they should have held on. The French goals were stupid give aways. Heskey had no need to foul Makelele & Gerrard's stupid back pass cost England the game. You will usually always fancy world class players (Zidane) in dead ball situations.

I would say that overall Ledley King looked Englands best player. A number of the team (Beckham, Owen, Gerrard & Heskey) need to buck their ideas up.


SCIDB

 

If you consider that France are probably one of the top 3 teams (Italy and Brazil) in the world, England did a great job of shutting them down.

King was a excellent. And I agree Owen was a shadow of his former self. J. you may not like Rooney's antics, but he did have the French worried evrytime he got the ball. Am I the only one that doesn't think Scholes is good. Give me Butts any day.

Oh, and I hate Heskey, always have always will. He is a donkey but with less talent.

 

2 stupid mistakes and game over.
And James should have stood up.
Beckham should have placed his penalty kick better. Still an amazing save by the goalie you'd expect to do the unexpected.

Aside from that, not much to seperate the two teams, but Englands midfield didn't work from midway through the second half and Hargreaves didn't make any impact.

I can see the point of Heskey - he can hold the ball up at the front and keep it out of England's half, but it didn't work last night.

6 years ago Beckham and Owen looked like a magnificent prospect for England.... its in danger of fizzling out unless they show what they promised then.

BTW I am a Scot..... but would really like to see England do well. I'll probably get crucified for that up here!

 

I don't know much about football and am not that bothered either way as to whether England win or lose, but I thought it was an entertaining match and England defended very well for virtually all of it. Despite all their possession and the number of attacks, the French didn't look like scoring for most of the game.

Good free kick from the Zidane though, and the sight of the French goalkeeper saving the ball with his face was tres amusant.

Rooney seems like a good prospect. Very quick for a lard bucket, reminded me of Paul Gascoigne.

Much as it was right to sack Ron Atkinson, I don't think Bobby Robson matched him in the commentary department, and I miss Big Ron's Guardian columns, the only bits of the sports section I ever bothered to read. It was great to read 500 words, in English, that made no sense whatsoever when put together in the particular order they were.

-- Ian

 

At least Atkinson was funny and crass, I liked that.
Bobby robson started getting a bit yawn, rather like the Martin O' Neill effect. salivating and pontificating.
If one listens carefully to what they both say, it makes a lot of sense, but I just start to turn off, they are a bit boring for me.
tyldesley and atkinson were great.
Heskey is pretty dire, could be better in midfield, up front is no place at all. maybe centre half?
I say rooney the best performance.
barthez was funny getting hit.

 

Bonjour

After the Croatia v Switzerland game earlier in the day, it was good to watch a decent one! The Crotatia v Switrz' game was absolute pants! Was no flow to it, and both teams seemed MOre into fouling each other, of acting like they'd been fouled themselves. Utter pants!

I expected France would win be a couple of goals. I didn't think it would be as dramatic though

From a "neutrals" view, France were the better team. England had their MOments, but MOstly, it was a case of keeping the french out. As said by others Owen went awol - though to be fair he wasn't getting much service from the MOre guilty midfield. Scholes was a mixture of good and pants. He's not a tackler, and with the game as it was, he wasn't really up to it. Henry was quite quiet too.

Zidane was all over the field, and where he *should* have been out on the left against Beckham, both seemed to drift about the field. But where as Zidane influenced play where ever he was, Beckham didn't.

King, along with the defence as a whole, played well. A couple of errors cost dear (but not made by the defense really).

Rooney should never have come off. He looked a genuine threat, and as soon as he was off, the french attack (which was already pretty constant), camped even further in the england half. I'd have given Rooney man of the match for the time he was on!

Perhaps a bit cruel the way england lost it. But france were the better team, and though they weren't exactly looking their best, they should go very far.

I've got Croatia in a sweepstake, They better pick up!!!

Larsson v Petrov tonight

Oops, I mean Sweeden V Bulgaria!

 

Oh, and forgot to mention....

When eng-ur-lund went 1-0 up, did anyone else notice the chants of "Are you Scotland in disguise" ???? :lol:

Yep! They looked just like the Scots team with their slick passing, off the ball work rate, pace, etc....

Zidane! A good old Scots name! McZinadine

 

I've been away from the forum for the last couple of days (will post later as to why) but I'll just chip in a little here:

- Portugal: what a disappointment . They were too nervous and didn't play as a team. They can do so much better. They have to beat Russia and Spain now to have any chance of the quarters...I hope they make it.

- England: I was at the game! It was my first ever live footbal match :shame: . What an atmosphere . All the fans really good natured and well behaved - no hassle at all entering or leaving the stadium. As to the game I was so gutted. I thought England played really well, IMO definitely the better side on the day and just really unfortunate to lose in the last minute of injury time. So cruel . Beckham should have scored on the penalty - you don't miss penalties in big games like that . Barthez made a good save, but Beckham should have put it beyond his reach. Zidane's free kick there was little we could have done but what was Gerrard thinking with that backpass to Henry that brought on the penalty .

Oh well, if England play like they did yesterday then they should beat Switzerland and Croatia comfortably and go through to the quarters in 2nd place.....which means I'd get to see their quarter final game :MILD: (I've got tickets for the Winner Gp.A, 2nd Gp. B quarter final on the 24th).

Man of the match was Rooney no question. What a talent and what speed. My Portuguese friend who was with me hadn't seen him before and was blown away.

Michael.

 

There was a lot being made on Sky Sports News about the "chaos" outside the stadium. Nothing to do with hooliganism (is that a word?). But down to poor organisation. People were complaining about having to walk around the stadium for hours before getting in. And then they were trying to get some 65'000 people all through the one gate. Sounded a bit hectic.

As for England being the better side, I thought France eged it over all. Glad you enjoyed it though. Shame about the result not going your way.

 

I've got Latvia

 

Henrik Larsson! Henrik Larsson! Henrik Larsson is the King of Kings!

Only score goals in Scotland?



Two really entertaining games today with the Sweeden v Bulgaria, and the Italy Denmark game. Only the Croatia Switzerlands been poor so far. Should be a really good comp if it carries on like this! Bulgaira werre unlucky. They put up a good fight in the first half, and looked well in it.

No one's mentioned who they think will win yet??????????

 

Sky News looking for a story agian . OK, depending on which metro station you got out at you had to walk a bit to get to the entrance and at the end they made us walk the long way around but it was done to avoid any serious crowding issues and worked very well and there was no "chaos" at all IMO.

Michael.

 

They went "live to outside the stadium". And the reporter was talking about how he'd seen no problems, was all good natured, mixed crowd etc. However, he was next to a check point and you could see people getting pissed off, and a few came over to him to rant. "we've been walking around here for hours", "worst organization of anywhere we've been", "people are getting crushed". And even mentions of "another Hillsborough"

............ they've just shown it again on the news!

Some top bod has apparantly come out and said "another entrance will be needed for entrance to the stadium for the next game".

Anyhow, Larssons goals eh?

 

Hopefully this'll lighten the mood...

Why do french women love english men?



Because they stay on top for 90 minutes and then come second!

cheers


julian