[polpot]

Originally Posted by murty001

Time to jump into the discussion .EURO 2008

My teams

ITALY , Holland and of course Portugal

Would love to see all 3 in the semi finals..

Cheers..

haila.. Odd selection... Portugal is plain boring... Italy i respect but play counter football and Dutch just keep trying to out do each other...

I love watching East European teams play. Technically adept and very team discipline based,

Originally Posted by swagatsinha

England's performance on the biggest stage have always left a lot to be desired. Is it pressure, or is it bad execution of skills, god knows! But they have never managed to get my support despite being one of the most popular teams world-wide.
I think that the England team is over-hyped, is badly managed, has lots of egos, and has big time selection issues!!

England just proved yesterday what i kinda knew. They dont have the ABILITY to play the top teams. Yes, ABILITY!!Playing Footie at the top level, you are going to get limited space, good marking, and its definately not going to be like the Premier LEague where you can run through the defences.
With all due respect, neither Gerrard nor Lampard nor young nor mannny others have the technical ability to compete with the Zidanes and Vieras. Plain inspiration and running your legs off isn't enough. Finding space is a premium and the technique should be top notch to find that.
In the present English setup, apart from Joe Cole and maybe to an extent Rooney and Hargreaves(Hargreaves only because he has trained in Germany) have the technique of international standards. Only saving grace of the english are the strong center backs. But good Forwards will find them out once in a while.



France issue: Last WC, domenech dumped all wingers like Giuly etc etc/. He has alwaysliked the narrow formation and Abidal and Sagnol at excellent wing backs. France traditionally have bossed teams with their imposing midfield and this time too they would. Viera, Ribery, Makelele all narrow...


PS: Mahip... Which team will win???? Keep support na!!! I support Czechs and Spain and i know neither will win... What to do then???

[coolroy]

Originally Posted by joel1702

dunno abt Madrid & CR7..after all the Man Utd fans forgave him quite easily after WC 2006..remember the winking incident after Rooney was sent off? Everyone said the English fans would make life hell for him & he would be forced to leave Man utd...never happpened

Read above. Manchester United >>>>>>>>>> England. So whatever happens in the England set up is secondary to all that concerns Manchester United.

Plus, you have a 'Unkill' (courtesy Sumit) called Sir Alex Ferguson who has handled umpteen situations such as this in the past.

Regards.

[joel1702]

Originally Posted by polpot

haila.. Odd selection... Portugal is plain boring... Italy i respect but play counter football and Dutch just keep trying to out do each other...

Portugal..boring??

the rest of the world seems to disagree:yell:
FIFA.com

[polpot]

Originally Posted by joel1702

Portugal..boring??

the rest of the world seems to disagree:yell:
FIFA.com

World Cup 2006:

Portugal 1-0 Angola

Portugal 2-1 Mexico

Portugal 2-0 Iran

Portugal 1-0 Netherlands

Portugal 0-0 England

Portugal 0-1 France

Not really the torch bearers of entertaining football, eh????

Entertaining only because of all the cards they get...

[sumitrocks]

Originally Posted by coolroy

Read above. Manchester United >>>>>>>>>> England. So whatever happens in the England set up is secondary to all that concerns Manchester United.

Plus, you have a 'Unkill' (courtesy Sumit) called Sir Alex Ferguson who has handled umpteen situations such as this in the past.

Agreed! SAF is a great leader and he not only got over the Rooney-Ronaldo 'war' but also forged a winning team with these two at the centre.

I wish someone like him would manage the England team. Fabio Capello, in my opinion, will be able to get great performances out of the current English side. I do think the team has lots of talent, but they've always been underperformers. Hopefully Capello unkill will change that.

[fire_kris]

Originally Posted by sir roy keane

that was the greatest wrestling match the world ever saw

i would like to see a spain - portugal face off in the business end of the competition , preferably the SF.

one screw up during the game between the 2 teams with ronaldo being in the midst of it all , and madrid will never bother CR7 again

Well apart from it being a Famous Wrestling Match this match will also be remembered.

It was an all time FIFA Record for the highest number of Red and Yellow Cards shown in a World Cup Match.

Also a funny incident took place in the same FIFA WORLD CUP 06...

One of the most respected england refree Graham Poll Dished out, not one, not two but three yellow cards to the same player... Now how it is possible read on..

In a WC first, Croatia’s Joe Šimunić received three yellow cards in one game. In the 61st minute of the Croatia Australia clash was the first, to be followed by the second in the 89th minute. At this point you would figure that Joe would be on his way to the dressing room, but he stayed on.

Here is Joe’s explanation: “At first it didn’t even faze me that I received a second yellow, all I could think about was that we need a goal. After a minute or so, I realized what happened and that I should have been shown the red..someone on the field even commented on that..but at this point I did not care. All I could think about was to score.” He adds, “Anyway, it’s the ref’s own fault for not realizing what he did.” “After the game, I went up to him and told him what happened, and that is when he showed me the yellow again and the red. I congratulated him and that was that.”

The ref, Graham Poll added “In the 89th minute when I produced the yellow, I wrote down the right jersey number but the wrong name..I had inadvertantly given the yellow to the Australian number 3, Craig Moore.” “This is the first time something like this has happened to me in my 26 year long career.”

These things generally are not even supposed to happend in a sunday league let alone the biggest gala of them all.

Ciao...
Kris

[sir roy keane]

Originally Posted by fire_kris

Well apart from it being a Famous Wrestling Match this match will also be remembered.

It was an all time FIFA Record for the highest number of Red and Yellow Cards shown in a World Cup Match.

you dint get it , did you?

[swagatsinha]

Originally Posted by fire_kris

I had inadvertantly given the yellow to the Australian number 3, Craig Moore.

Just imagine what would have happened had Moore then got a yellow and got sent-off!! While Simunic stayed on

[zubingeorge3]

Djibril Cisse is one of seven players who've failed to make the France cut on Wednesday and won'y be heading to Euro 2008.

Raymond Domenech unveiled his final 23-man squad on Wednesday for the Austria and Switzerland showpiece.

Cisse was targeted by the boo boys during France's warm-up match against Ecuador on Tuesday, having missed a header. The Marseille star now misses his second successive major finals after a horrific broken leg ruled him out of the 2006 World Cup.

Domenech's other big surprise was perhaps Mathieu Flamini, who was also left out along with Mickael Landreau, Julien Escude, Philippe Mexes, Alou Diarra and Hatem Ben Arfa.

St Etienne striker Bafetimbi Gomis was given the nod after bagging a stunning brace on his debut on Tuesday. He was the first French player to do so since Zinedine Zidane.

Cisse's Marseille teammate Steve Mandanda was another player blooded on Tuesday who has been boldly included by Domenech as goalkeeping cover.

France face a 'group of death' scenario in Group C against World Cup and Euro qualifying rivals Italy, The Netherlands, and Romania.

France squad:

Goalkeepers: Gregory Coupet (Lyon), Sebastien Frey (Fiorentina/ITA), Steve Mandanda (Marseille)

Defenders: Eric Abidal (Barcelona/ESP), Patrice Evra (Manchester United/ENG), William Gallas (Arsenal/ENG), Willy Sagnol (Bayern Munich/GER), Lilian Thuram (Barcelona/ESP), Francois Clerc (Lyon), Sebastien Squillaci (Lyon), Jean-Alain Boumsong (Lyon)

Midfielders: Lassana Diarra (Portsmouth/ENG), Claude Makelele (Chelsea/ENG), Jeremy Toulalan (Lyon), Patrick Vieira (Inter Milan/ITA), Franck Ribery (Bayern Munich/GER), Samir Nasri (Marseille)

Forwards:: Nicolas Anelka (Chelsea/ENG), Thierry Henry (Barcelona/ESP), Florent Malouda (Chelsea/ENG), Karim Benzema (Lyon), Sidney Govou (Lyon), Bafetimbi Gomis (St Etienne).

[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']The coach is going to make the same mistake he did even though he was lucky to find Zidane in prima form to take France to the finals..of WC-How could he leave out prolific mercurial players like [/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Flamini,Ben Arfa[/FONT][FONT='Arial','sans-serif'] from the team-both of whom had great seasons with their respective clubs! Cisse is also good but even I am willing to accept his exclusion but other than that-its plain ridiculous-You select Gomi just because he scored 2 in a friendly…I don’t know what the coach was thinking :X –Already he had left out players like Sagna and Clichy both of whom had a great season for Arsenal.[/FONT]

[swagatsinha]

The selection of Gomis and Cisse's exclusion are still acceptable if they were linked to each other. I mean, one stays, the other goes. But Flamini is inexcusable.!!