Re: Euro 2012

Spot on John,
the whole structure has been fractured for many years and needs a radical overhaul. I also think Roy has come out of this with a great deal of credit.

Re: Euro 2012

I think that Roy Hodgson has answered his army of critics with dignity and certainly the England players seem to have more belief in themselves in the Few weeks that he had to try and mould them in to a useful unit. Fair comment, he didn't have a lot to work with but for me at least he has instilled some pride into the squad which should bode well for the future, especially with the Burton development gathering momentum, we can but envisage a big improvement if the manager is left to do his job as he wishes to, without the usual assistance of the media bandwagon. So we missed a couple of penalties again? nothing new there!
Many a famous name has dropped the same clangers over the years so it seems that we must develop a mind set centred on winning matches within the allotted 90 minutes
It will be interesting to see how the Germans deal with Pirlo, I will certainly have a look at both semi finals and fully expect both games to be close affairs.

Re: Euro 2012

Evening Hammer,nice to read you. Well heres my bit just to add numbers to the thread, I thought that the teams were well matched and at the end all were played out, pity they couldnt have met again and one score a goal.looks like we did well with mr Hodgson, the team seemed more like a team and less "Oh look at me ,i am great." Carrol in my opinion is a dirty player and why did they have Rooney on full time again.Oh yes Bob I loved the pics of your Hostas, they look lovely.

Re: Euro 2012

Thanks Annie, must admit that I do like Hostas and always have.
Back on topic, I suspect that Roy Hodgson can now relax a little and concentrate on bringing in good young talent to gel with the rest of his squad and he does have a bit of time left before we start the process of World cup qualifiers commencing in September, it is to be hoped that club versus country does not raise it's ugly head but I won't hold out much hope on that one!

Re: Euro 2012

Hopefully Roy can persuade the dinosaurs from the FA to sit down with him and together put a realistic strategy in place for, in the first instance the 2014 World Cup in Brazil but more realistically the 2018 competition nearer to home in Russia.

It has to be a concerted effort and if we are at the very least to compete with most other nations there has to be a seismic shift in attitude, both from the clubs in respect of a winter break or less competitions and the players, training, tactics and selection.

Someone has to realise that the way we have played for years is just not relevant in todays game.

It is long past the time when we could flit about like butterflies with sore feet and it is deemed acceptable to get nowhere.

I have no problem with Roy as the manager but he needs to draft in a new breed of coaches that are nothing like the old guard. It all has to be started now, and sorry to say a lot of the current squad should be put out to grass.
It is not realistic to even consider some of them, by the 2014 tournament at least nine of them will reached or passed the veteran status in footballing terms. Forget the friendlies and unimportant matches, get the kids in and build a squad of keen lads that are prepared to work for the common goal not personal glory.

All that said there is always the exception, we saw Andrea Pirlo at 33 dominate the the midfield and thus the match for Italy. It did not just happen, he was able to do this partly because we had no strategy to negate him and partly because his movement on and off the ball was way beyond our thinking.

Onward.

Re: Euro 2012

Just sat through the Spain/Portugal semi, which went to penalties. Not too much to get excited about, both teams seemed to cancel each other out. I hope tomorrows is a little bit more interesting, possibly with a goal or two if thats possible. I just wish the BBC would get rid of them three bores, Hanson, Shearer and Dixon. Same old cliches flying about, and if you're looking for the most humourless person about, then Hanson is your man. Much as I dislike Adrian Chiles, I'll be watching the final on ITV, hoping Martinez , Strachan and Southgate are in the chair.

Re: Euro 2012

Portugal v. Spain. Despite no scoring for 120 minutes I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Spain had their share of chances and withstood some early pressure from His Highness Chris Ronnie. I think both teams played a pretty clean game considering their Latin orientation and it really could have gone either way.
The we come to the penalties, Spain start off with three central defenders which shows Del Bosque's confidence in his team system, but Portugal's big mistake was trying to pshyche out Casillas by replacing Bruno Alves with Nani almost at the penalty spot. Nani did what expected of him, but Alves had too long to think and wasted his chance. Cue Fabregas and his sublime post to post score denying Ronnie his chance at glory.
Great stuff!
Tomorrow: Germany v. Italy which isn't a foregone conclusion despite Germany's amazing depth. Mario Balotelli provides the biggest challenge to Germany since he's talented, explosive and due for a great game but the sheer depth available to Joachim Loew could be the difference.

Re: Euro 2012

Makes me wonder what feed we're getting here in Canada on TSN because there's only one English commentator with no annoying colour commentary guy and the commentaries have been brilliant and understated. Credit to TSN for getting the best feed available.

Re: Euro 2012

What game did you watch? I thought Spain v. Portugal was entertaining, unless of course you're a Chris Ronald fan.

Re: Euro 2012

We didn't need to watch the match to know Spain won, the sky was lit up by fireworks, we could hear car hooters and lots of cheering from local bars. Must admit we were beginning to wonder if they had lost because of the lack of fireworks throughout the game. Don't know how they organise it but when Spain are playing in any major match fireworks go off all along the coast whenever they score a goal. Looking out this morning so many houses flying the Spanish flag, virtually all the vehicles have little Spanish flags stuck on them somewhere.

My OH is glad they won, he is going to hospital later today for a minor operation on his ears, the surgeon is of course Spanish, so hopefully he'll be in a good mood