Who's going to win? England? Probably not...

First matches are tonight : Poland v Greece, followed by Russia v Czech Republic

I already know who is going to win. The winner will be ..................... the team which plays the best.

Germany 3/1 to win the euros, money for nowt.

COME ON ENGLAND!

I think we did alright tonight.

So do I. Remains to be seen whether England and France are the two strongest or two weakest sides in our group, but both sides should be pleased with their showing today.

An England team that plays like a TEAM. Amazing!

Perhaps it is the scarcity of Prima Donna superstars in the squad that makes the difference?

And the lack of a prima donna manager?

It's raining quite a lot in Donetsk....

The match is currently suspended.

I know Just my attempt at ironic humour, VH...

England. Always an easy, calm watch...

The-o-o, The-o-o!

I was wondering why you were saying 'The oo, the oo'...what's an 'oo'...?

Well done England! Now, can we beat the Italians?...

I'll be watching to see who can score the best goal - Andy Carroll or Mario Balotelli. Both are always exciting to watch.

First quarter final today : Portugal v Czech Republic. Czech it out (sorry...)

*groans*

won't be able to, will be at band

Reminds me of the chap who went to the Bank, to see if he could hide his dwarf cousin from Prague. He asked the manager, "Can you cache me a small Czech?"

The Germans look ominously good again...Greece didn't stand an earthly...

My Greek work colleague won't be too pleased come Monday........

Spain also looking ominously good...

England v Italy tomorrow...

The boyz dun good......not.

Useless overpaid bunch.

They did an awful lot better than in the last World Cup!

But we still can't do penalties, and poor old Roy Hodgson didn't really have much of a chance to mould the team together : had we got through the shootout, the chances are, Germany would have walked all over us.

Disappointed, but I think we're on an upward curve...

Yup. Even if we had won we would have been hammered on Thursday anyways.

True...Roy played football in my neck of the woods, so we'll give the lad a chance.

Still dire though...

We still can't do attacking football! It's a good job the Italian forwards were so utterly useless, or we could have lost by a landslide. Most of the game was utterly boring, though I have to admit it wasn't as bad as the Spain v France game.

I have only watched three games in the competition, the third being Netherlands v Portugal. The only team of the six that I've really enjoyed watching has been Portugal, because they can string together attacking moves in an exciting way. Who wants to watch teams passing the ball around in the midfield or back towards their own goal all the time? I genuinely have no idea why people pay to watch such defensive play!

When we find an England manager who will encourage his players to attack, we might not have to worry about penalty shoot-outs!

France combined non-attacking football with no team spirit : at least England had that! Jury's still out on Hodgson - he didn't have long enough to do a lot more than he did, really.



The best four teams are in the semis - they combine excellent team spirit with skill. The 12 teams who have left the competition either lacked the necessary skill and flair (England, Greece, Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia, Ukraine, Poland, Ireland), were arguing amongst themselves (Netherlands, Russia) or both (Sweden, France)



That man may ultimately be Hodgson : come back after the 2014 World Cup. Far too early to judge him yet!

The problem with playing attacking football is that you actually need the ball to play attacking football.
We rarely had it and when we did we couldn't keep it. The gulf in class was very obvious. I've noticed that many people involved in English football have already gone into denial. They actually think we have a decent future as an international side. We don't.

Well, the right lot won as far as we were concerned. But that was cos we were sitting in a restaurant in lipari with no other english speakers surrounded by rabid italians. I remember being the only australian ((I am a dual citizen) in florence when for a long time it looked as if we were going to draw with them in the world cup until they got a dodgy penalty. The mood was not good until then...italian women have perfected the despising look especially with snappy designer glasses on to scowl over.

So boring though after a sudden rush of enthusiasm at start. Why can england not do penalties? I was dying to go when extra time started as you can keep track of score by the street noise and hooting in italy. Good natured though and they dont drink like my country of birth do at such occasions!

Any musician should know that no matter how well you can do something in practice, it is different when there is an audience. Taking a penalty in a big tournament must be even more nerve wracking.

As for the team. They played as a team, which was refreshing, and they worked their socks off. But half of them just aren't as skilful as their German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese counterparts.

It's no surprise to learn that England have the worst record in penalty shoot-outs than any other national team*...

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/world-...-124859605.html

*based on teams that have competed in at least 3 penalty shoot-outs

Car Expert

Well, we stopped Italy from scoring, which was more than the Germans did...

Super Mario - brilliant. Roll on Sunday.

You would never guess who's just won...

Car Expert

even I as a complete football idiot know that that was a right proper pasting...

Italy were not in the same league as Spain. Not even close.

Which makes England and the rest light years away...

and what's more, it's never going to end - did you see all the Spanish mini-footballers invading the pitch at the end? Two of them belonged to Torres, and there were about four others - the new squad is being formed while England and the rest of Europe sleeps