Euro 2004

[Turbo Yannis]

All of Scotland must've jumped right up at the same time when Zidane scored both of them.

Personally, English people can say what they want, nothing can fuck it up tonight.

I wouldn't be so bothered if the commentators weren't fucking chugging themselves over every thing that England were doing.

Best.Game.EVAH.

[wbafanlee]

Well there goes my England shirt with Gerrard's name and number on out the window.

I'm gutted, we played well defended superbly. Thumbs up to Ledley King for a good performance. Thumbs down to Sven for even including Heskey in the squad let alone bringing him on for our most creative player tonight.

On the upside Switzerland and Croatia were terrible earlier so hopefully the team can keep their morale up.

[Rage]

England would of won with fucking Peter "The Cat" Bonetti in goal. Calmity James is so shit. I bet all ye english are sickened! Good though. Ye are too cocky. "Oh we're gonna win Euro 2004!". Face it, England are SHITE.

[Thomas]

You have 4 people to blame.

Rooney - Why the fuck didn't he pass to Vassell when he got the penalty? Vassell had miles of space, and an open goal, Rooney should have fucking passed.

Beckham - He shouldn't be taking penalties. Especially when they're at an easy fucking height for the keeper to save.

Heskey - Jesus, what a stupid fucking tackle. Just going into injury, no need to give that away on the edge of the box.

Sven - Fucking hell, you DON'T take off Rooney, the best player on the pitch, for fucking Heskey, when he's having one of the best games of his life. Sven fucked up bigtime.

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You're missing thwe whole fucking point.

You can't honestly say that you know for certain Rooney could have slotted the ball throguh to Vassell, you'd take a fucking penalty over that anyday.

Nothing wrong with the penalty at all, it was a fucking amazing save.

Heskey was just trying to get the ball back, silly tackle I know, but it would've been Rooney (was was amazing tired) in that situation instead and may well have done exactly the same thing, or even given the ball away in an earlier incident due to his tiredness.

Sven- what did he do wrong? Owen- ineffective. Scholes- Hargreaves is a more defensive option. Rooney- he was absolutely knackered and wanted to bring Heskey on to hold the ball up upfront to waste time.

The only the I would've done would be to question Beckham actually taking the penalty, because if you think about it, the way he hits the ball means he can't hit it into the keepers bottom left without making it blatantly obvious.

You're being an idiot for blaming people, we're a team that wins together and loses together. People make mistakes all game, but for the guys who give away a goal by it have to put up with people like you being a cock about it.

Edited June 13, 2004 by Tom

[MDK]

Well said, Tom

[Thomas]

James was a total dickhead. "Hey, Zidane's stepping up to take a free kick... Wait a minute, there's the ball... Should I move? Nah, I'm too comfortable. I'm still getting paid, right?"

So was Wayne Rooney. For some reason he seemed to think he was the fucking reincarnation of Maradonna and started trying to take everybody on. He's simply not good enough for a major tournament like this, whichever way you look at it. Rooney kept hogging the ball and instead of passing to somebody else, he thought he'd try his luck at being the most fancy player in the world. Didn't work though, did it?

France had one player on Owen at all times, which should have led to England playing more midfielders up to their net. Since everybody was crowding around our number 10, the only option was Rooney because nobody else could be bothered and look where that got us!

Why in blue blazes is Beckham taking penalties? He scores one lucky penalty and suddenly he's our number one spot man? Seriously, is it not enough for him to be captain, corner taker, crosser and free-kicker? He's not fucking Zidane no matter how much he tries, so he should just stop trying to be something he's not and stick with his flukey crosses and free kicks.

I was impressed with King since this was the first game I'd ever seen him play, and he wasn't actually that bad. He was trying his best, and for a youngster he played well. Lampard played amazing, Campbell played amazing, Gerrard played good, Scholes played as good as his limited talent would let him, Cole made a few good forward runs and everybody else was total shit.

Sven was right to take off Owen and Rooney. Owen was being marked so tightly he didn't have a chance to do anything at all, and Rooney was trying to impersonate Pele. Vassell can play good when pushed, and Heskey is a good supplier, just what the youngster needed. Having two average (although Heskey's good in my opinion, but most will disagree) strikers is a much better scenario than one great striker that isn't getting the space to do anything and one okay striker when paired with somebody, but when on his own tries to take too much on board and becomes utter crap.

James sucks as a keeper. Always has, always will and as long as he plays for England, every time the opposition takes a free-kick he'll simply stand there like a lemon.

Still, I'm glad they tried King as he was pretty consistent throughout the game and may have been a better choice than Carragher who has good games and bad games at even amounts. I'd personally start ol' Ledley just to see how he does now that he's grown familiar with the major game.

That's enough for now and I'd better stop before I have a damned heart attack.

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I agree with you pretty much here, but there were two things I picked up on that kinda ruin your little speech.

The freekick was unstoppable. Just let that be. The only way that would've been stopped would be to have a few extra men in the wall to have to make Zidane get it up and over the wall. Going on about James being shit puts you on the bandwagon with the Heskey hating morons.

You also seemed to stamp on the performance as a whole. If we had won, you'd have different views on everything. We outplayed them for ninety minutes, and in three minutes of madness we lost the game.

Again, everything else I agree with, Rooney was tired (although he played very well), Owen was marked out of the game, and Hargreaves came on to provide a more defensive option.

Oh, and the Scholes having limited talent.... come on. You seem to know what you're on about then come up with that.

Edited June 13, 2004 by Tom

[Rage]

Heskey should of never came on. When he did, his facial expression suggested, "Where am I? All these players are better than me!" Damn right they are. You have to admit that Sven should have replaced Heskey a long time ago in the squad. He just isnt delivering the goods. It is a team game, but in the end, the team bottled it and lost confidence.

[Thomas]

Heskey should of never came on. When he did, his facial expression suggested, "Where am I? All these players are better than me!" Damn right they are. You have to admit that Sven should have replaced Heskey a long time ago in the squad. He just isnt delivering the goods. It is a team game, but in the end, the team bottled it and lost confidence.

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Ok, random guy who can't spell. Or Sven, who beat the Germans 5-1.

Hmm, who shall I choose to make the decisions?!

[TheArsenal]

Why the fuck did Gerrard pass it back to James? Why not hoof it out of touch?

[supergrass]

There are so many questions that'll be asked.

I think Heskey coming on wasn't that bad, he's a holding forward which is helpful when you're trying to keep a lead.

But we didn't need 2 men up front. He should have brought on someone like Butt to help hold the midfield rather than a second forward who was only going to play as a midfielder anyway. We were defending way too deep too early on.

But the positive is that we had France, the European champions, beaten (until injury time). If we can do that we've got a decent chance of beating anyone, especially France again should we meet in the final.

[Johnny Latino Heat]

A bit late on my comments about Portugal, but I was out for the weekend. Anyway, it's no surprise to me, really. I have always said that Portugal wouldn't make it this Euro. I have no faith in the team with Scolari in charge. They did jack shit in their friendlies, and they're doing it right now. The game was a joke, plain and simple, as is the team. I would have more faith if they had deserved their spot in the Euro, but from what I figure, they kinda relaxed a bit since they were automatically qualified and had to do NOTHING to deserve being in the Euro. It's times like these I'm ashamed of being Portuguese, and I fuckin' hope they really fuck up this year. They act too arrogant for their own good and are more concerned about looking pretty for commercials than about playing well and that cost them yesterday. Hopefully they'll wake up for the next games, but I wouldn't count on that.

[Jonny D]

Sven should of brought on Butt instead of Heskey in my opinion. Heskey isn't bad, but common sense would tell you not to bring on more strikers when your trying to defend a lead against the best team in the world.

Zidane's freekick was unstoppable, as was the penalty, James can't be blamed for either. The people who can be blamed, are Heskey and Gerrard, and I intend on doing that, along with Beckham for a piss poor penalty.

[Guest BigDirty]

The freekick was unstoppable. Just let that be.

We outplayed them for ninety minutes, and in three minutes of madness we lost the game.

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The freekick was unstoppable what?!?!?!? Maybe for a english goalie. It was right in the goalkeeper's corner how can that be unstoppable?!? Seriously James might be even worse than Seaman and that's nearly unthinkable.

You outplayed them for 90 minutes?!? Ok, now I believe they showed a different England-France match on german TV. Putting almost everyone in defense and trying to destroy the flow of the game is not outplaying a team!

And Rooney should've passed the ball. A 5 meter pass is not hard to do (atleast it shouldn't be for a national team player). Putting in the ball in the net when you're alone in front of the goalie isn't that hard either. Plus Rooney had no guarantee that he was going to get a penalty. He was going against three men and his eyes were only on the ball, he never even looked at Vassell (?).

[Malenko]

A bit late on my comments about Portugal, but I was out for the weekend. Anyway, it's no surprise to me, really. I have always said that Portugal wouldn't make it this Euro. I have no faith in the team with Scolari in charge. They did jack shit in their friendlies, and they're doing it right now. The game was a joke, plain and simple, as is the team. I would have more faith if they had deserved their spot in the Euro, but from what I figure, they kinda relaxed a bit since they were automatically qualified and had to do NOTHING to deserve being in the Euro. It's times like these I'm ashamed of being Portuguese, and I fuckin' hope they really fuck up this year. They act too arrogant for their own good and are more concerned about looking pretty for commercials than about playing well and that cost them yesterday. Hopefully they'll wake up for the next games, but I wouldn't count on that.

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oh yeah. you said it well. How i miss those days when portugal was the underdog.

only 3 official losses (one in the overtime, and none with 2 goals difference) between the end of euro 96 and the beggining of the WC 2002.

[Ananas]

I went out after the first half, and couldn't get back until after the match had ended, suffice to say it was a real kick in the shins to hear the result. Like I said I only saw the first half, but apart from 5-10 minutes, England were really solid in that half. I can't really blame James, because from what I saw, he kept them in the match while France was really pushing in the second half. A lot of people are blaming Rooney for something, but from my understanding he did draw a penalty kick. I know my North American understanding of football is limited, but I that is a good thing isn't it? Defence, and senseless errors cost them the game.

[Turbo Yannis]

I went out after the first half, and couldn't get back until after the match had ended, suffice to say it was a real kick in the shins to hear the result. Like I said I only saw the first half, but apart from 5-10 minutes, England were really solid in that half. I can't really blame James, because from what I saw, he kept them in the match while France was really pushing in the second half. A lot of people are blaming Rooney for something, but from my understanding he did draw a penalty kick. I know my North American understanding of football is limited, but I that is a good thing isn't it? Defence, and senseless errors cost them the game.

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I think alot of people are criticizing Rooney because if he had passed the ball instead of being taken down, there's a better than average chance that Owen, at least I think it was Owen anyway, would have scored since he was unmarked. By allowing Silvestre to tackle him, he got the penalty which was missed.

Then again, I'm not too sure. All I know is that Zidane is my hero

[Summers]

Since when was Owen black, and wearing the #23 shirt?

[AJ]

I think the commentator summed it up well in saying "England are playing as if it's the last 5mins of the match, and it's infact nowhere near." They played a terrible second half and kept just hoofing the ball up field in defensive situations.

I don't rate Heskey and Hargreaves AT ALL and I would blame Erikson for putting them on, except at that point we were winning and we just had to keep it that way, so fresh legs, no matter who they were, was a good thing. Beckham did NOTHING wrong with his penalty, so you can't blame him. It was on target, and powerful, it's unfortunate for us that Barthez got to it.

Gerrard however can be blamed, it was a stupid error to pass back to James when Henry was so clearly in a dangerous position.

Ugh, we'll have to hope for better performances against Croatia and Switzerland if we want to meet France in the final and get revenge.

[pigeon]

Gutted for Stevie, as it was a really bad error that led to the winner, which was completely uncharacteristic of him. Guess his lack of major tournament experience was a factor. Thankfully there's two games left in the group for him, and the rest of the team, to put it right, and judging by the match earlier on, they're good enough to qualify from the group.

[Turbo Yannis]

Since when was Owen black, and wearing the #23 shirt?

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Did you even read the post properly? I said I wasn't sure if it was Owen.