Euro 2016 Discussion

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Thats an awful pass from Kane

Can't see them beating Germany or France but who knows.

Be interesting to see how Wales do now going into the world cup qualifiers.

I'll be keeping a close eye as they are in the same group as Ireland.

Ramsey was their best in France. Probably the player of the tournament until the quarters.

As for Bale, to quote a quote attributed to Kobe Bryant, which isn't actually from Kobe Bryant, "Every time I pass the ball, I'm passing to a player worse than me". Sometimes you've got to be selfish

Fancy Portugal to do a French team who'll freeze in the spotlight.

Germany would beat them though.

Wales will make Russia. Austria/Serbia are awful, Moldova are abysmal, as are Georgia & then there is Rep. Ireland. Wales are tough nuts to crack, so should make it in that group.

westisbest wrote:Be interesting to see how Wales do now going into the world cup qualifiers.

I'll be keeping a close eye as they are in the same group as Ireland.

Ireland have a lot of work to do to match Wales competitively in the group. Time for O'Neill and Keane to construct a team that can play football mostly on the ground and intricately so.

Think for Wales, some of their limitations really came to bear. Ramsey the obvious miss, but Davies was also their best defender for me.

But mostly, think the occasion got to them.

Disappointing from Wales.

Portugal offered very little throughout the game, and if the Welsh could have summoned up a 20-30 minute spell where they replicated Friday's performance then they could have blown them away. Instead they replicated the strange mentality they showed against England and Northern Ireland.

And that's what will hurt the most. The regret. The feeling that they never really laid it on the line. Aaron Ramsey was a huge loss, far bigger than I had anticipated.

I think, in my lifetime, that Portugal must be the worst team to make it to the final of a major international tournament. I said pre-tournament that this was a competition empty of serious quality and a quarter-fit Ronaldo-led Portugal exemplify this.

Oh Wales. That's the best chance you'll ever, ever have.

Roy Keane struggling to complement Nani lol.

GSC wrote:Fancy Portugal to do a French team who'll freeze in the spotlight.

Germany would beat them though.

Agree at least they stand a chance against the dodgy French defends specially on set pieces. Germany and Neuer are a different animal though.

"Can you stick my bin out for me when you get back to Madrid, mate?" #POR #WAL https://t.co/DYzZR4tpB5

I'm crying

Is that the first game Portugal actually won in a normal 90 minutes at Euro 2016?

And into the final..... Good work! Great luck too.

Watching Giggs on tv makes me very glad we didn't hire him as manager.

13 games all unbeaten under manager Fernando Santos now... Apparently that guy coached Greece before... How fitting!

SecretFly wrote:

westisbest wrote:Be interesting to see how Wales do now going into the world cup qualifiers.

I'll be keeping a close eye as they are in the same group as Ireland.

Ireland have a lot of work to do to match Wales competitively in the group.  Time for O'Neill and Keane to construct a team that can play football mostly on the ground and intricately so.

I think the 2 games will be close like woth the Scotland games.

Big fan of Alan Judge, hopefully he wil come back after his injury and do well.
Harry Arter to.

Need another McGrath type at the back.
Hopefully young Kevin Toner can make the step up into the forst team, as a Villa fan looking forward to see how he progresses.

We have great team spirit as it showed, lacking that bit of class.

I'd fancy us to get to Russia.

GSC wrote:Watching Giggs on tv makes me very glad we didn't hire him as manager.

Giggs is an utter clown. Will never make it as a manager

Stella wrote:The 82 world cup had some classic games, goals (mostly from Brazil) and the greatest goal celebration I've ever seen.

Yes, an excellent World Cup and Brazil did play some very good football. The 1982 Brazil team is rated as one of the best teams not to win the World Cup and also rated as one of Brazil's best ever teams. Brazil v France would have been an excellent final as France also played some good stuff but got beat by West Germany on penalties.  

Best goal celebration? You must be talking about Marco Tardelli's in the final.

Worst World Cup has to be 1990.

Duty281 wrote:Disappointing from Wales.

Portugal offered very little throughout the game, and if the Welsh could have summoned up a 20-30 minute spell where they replicated Friday's performance then they could have blown them away. Instead they replicated the strange mentality they showed against England and Northern Ireland.

And that's what will hurt the most. The regret. The feeling that they never really laid it on the line. Aaron Ramsey was a huge loss, far bigger than I had anticipated.

I think, in my lifetime, that Portugal must be the worst team to make it to the final of a major international tournament. I said pre-tournament that this was a competition empty of serious quality and a quarter-fit Ronaldo-led Portugal exemplify this.

Oh Wales. That's the best chance you'll ever, ever have.

Now they know what it feel like to be English

I really hope Portugal don't win it, even that game, which they won, they looked pretty rubbish.

To be honest, I think a lot of people just have a thing against Portugal. Let's face it, nearly every team in this tournament has looked rubbish, nobody looks deserving. Been a dire tournament, whereby solid defensive units have prevailed, with one or two great attacking options, so no surprise to see Portugal prevailing. Can easily see them seeing off France in a final or even Germany, seeing how average they've become since the WC

Portugal got to the Semi Finals without winning any of their five games in regulation play.

Agree that Portugal have been spectacularly average for most of the tournament - their game with Hungary being the exception. Far too reliant on Ronaldo, the team as a whole are nothing special.

I predict they will be schooled by Germany in the Final.

Think last night's game showed Wales do lack strength / quality in depth. Even so they easily matched Portugal in the first half - I would argue they were marginally better and created the better chances.

First Portugal goal was well-worked and exposed Wales' defence...think it would have gone in against most teams tbh. Second one was lucky...Hennessy had Ronaldo's shot covered but was totally wrong-footed when Nani deflected it.

Fancied Wales to come back from a goal down, as they did against Belgium, but conceding 2 goals so quickly I think knocked the stuffing out of them. Credit to them, they kept trying, but Portugal always looked fairly comfortable after that.

Still amazing that they made the semis...they did something England haven't managed for 20 years. Think their lack of tournament experience showed in the end. Maybe they started to feel some genuine pressure, being so close to the Final and recognising that Portugal were eminently beatable.

Well done to the lads and Coleman. Hope this is just the start of a new era for Wales.

Key for Wales is showing they can build on this now. They won't be treated as underdogs too many times in the run up to the WC, and if they make it, their run to the SF is unlikely to be as light.

WC is a different ball game, quality massively goes up, especially coming from the South American sides, who boast the best offensive players in world football. Instead of having N.Ireland in the second round, you get Ivory Coast or Chile types.

If Germany do win the European Championships, essentially coming close to mirroring Spain and France's achievements in the past two decades, do they go up as one of the best international sides? I'm not so sure.

They've got an absolutely fantastic first eleven, even after the retirements following World Cup '14, then they have great depth. Even looking at some of the players who missed out on either squad you could put together a decent eleven.

Despite the opportunity for major success, I'm not sure they as a team stand up to the likes of Spain 08-12 or France 98-00.

I find this German side incredibly boring

Atila wrote:

Stella wrote:The 82 world cup had some classic games, goals (mostly from Brazil) and the greatest goal celebration I've ever seen.

Yes, an excellent World Cup and Brazil did play some very good football. The 1982 Brazil team is rated as one of the best teams not to win the World Cup and also rated as one of Brazil's best ever teams. Brazil v France would have been an excellent final as France also played some good stuff but got beat by West Germany on penalties.  

Best goal celebration? You must be talking about Marco Tardelli's in the final.

Worst World Cup has to be 1990.

Yes the Tardelli one.

LiamB wrote:I find this German side incredibly boring

Löw don't care - he's got his hair.

I'd have this German side above the french one. Didn't realise people saw them as a classic team. I don't think they were the best side of either tournaments they won, as weird as that sounds

Agree with that Dolph.

The Spanish piggy backed on Guardiola's Barca sides hype also.

A great tournament for Wales, they really lifted the nation and it's unlike anything I've seen - I'm very happy to have experienced this. Hopefully this was just the start, onto the qualifiers next and hopefully we make our mark at the world cup!

My footballing mates were none too pleased about this Portugal team making the final... But they played much better than us in the second half so deserve to be there. I think Germany will beat France and then win the Euro's. This competition needs a third place play-off I reckon.

I'm not a fan of 3rd place playoffs to be honest. Usually the players are already mentally on the plane home at that point.

Ah no... gotta disagree there mikey. I'm not a fan of 3rd place play off games. The Humiliation game where players feel they've already given enough of themselves to get to final without having it rubbed in to play for something that the history books really aren't going to be all that concerned about.

Who looks up lists of historic 3rd places?

They're alright at world cups...

............... I'm never interested in them there either.

3rd place play-offs should also be scrapped in world cups. They're only there to make money. No player really wants it after being knocked out in the semis.

Totally pointless game, amazes me that people would ever buy tickets to it anyway!

Watching this with the Radio 1 commentary, much more entertaining

Germany beginning to turn the screw

having played Albania, Romania, Switzerland, Rep.Ire & Iceland, this was bound to be a massive step up in class. France can barely get the ball.

Having said that, Germans have no striker, so look unlikely to actually punish the French

Jerome Boateng playing the quarter back role is taking the pizz

Literally no point having Giroud on the pitch. It's counter football for France, so need Martial on.

No idea why you'd play Matuidi over Kante

Giroud just got outpaced by Howedes

Get a grip ref ffs.

Shocking decision

Pen to France?

France 1-0 Germany - Griezmann pen

Hes punched the ball Mysti

Absolutely terrible decision. Basically 0.5 cm away from him. Ridiculous

How is that terrible? He literally tried to superman punch it