The Official Euro 2004 Thread

Time for another caption competition!

ref:-

Why are you English ********'s trying to lose me my bet?


Regards


NB

Ref;-

ha, you see David Beckham isn't the only one to have a dog!

Regards


NB

"Honest, ref. It's a Toblerone. Try some..".

Listen, I tought this dog everything I know about refereeing!, he'll be taking over in the second half!

A very poor England Display, exacipated by a diabolical referee.

The defense (Terry excepted) played well, but far too deep, they were very poorly organised for set pieces (throughout the tournament) and constantly failed to push out with any form of understanding.

The midfield were diabolical, especially Gerrard who was awful (and looked as though he had run a Marathon before the game). Owen played well for the first 20 minutes and after that never touched the ball (not his fault on this occasion).

However it was the tactics that caused the problems. Clearly a midfield with 4 forward thinking attacking players can't play a holding defensive game. When Rooney went off he should have put Scholes into the striking link roll with Hargreaves on the left. When Scholes subsequently went off there was no chance of ever getting the front players into the game.

Beckham again was poor, and since the 2001-2002 season has been poor (with the exception of about half a dozen early matches for Madrid), however I wouldn't have taken him off last night as the only chance of us scoring after the first 30 mins was from set plays and at least he can still deliver a good cross.

Ultimately we've gone out without doing ourselves justice in the final match again.

Sven out!!

Latest News - Tim Henman is giving David Beckham lessons on how to get the ball in the net and David is teaching Tim how to get the ball over the net!

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

Damn those goofers!

I think I've said this before but... once more with feeling!!!

The tournament is characterised by poor refs. but England have a poor keeper who fails to dominate and organise. They are not vulnerable at set pieces. They are vulnerable to crosses and their full backs let the opposition have plenty of practice. Five minutes in last night and Figo (I think) is surrounded by three players and still gets a cross in. Pathetic is the word I believe.

I grant you Cole had an excellent second half but that does seem to have obscured a first half in which the best I can say is he tackled like Gary Neville and his pathetic protests after wrestling and pushing people to the ground are just embarrassing. Terry was exposed for the passionate but positionally clueless defender that he is and Sol Campbell was a colossus and was, as many others (neutral or otherwise) have said, England' splayer of the tournament.

The fundamental problem though is a midfield that

a) cannot tackle back. They can tackle to break forward but I challenge anyone to find footage of any of that four chasing back twenty yards and winning more than one defensive tackle per game.

b) lacks fundamental football intelligence. France and Portugal were given the ball and ran into space with it; played for time for their colleagues to join the attack and so on. The number of times Gerrard (does he pass to anyone other than Owen by the way?) and Beckham picked up the ball in acres of space, ran 20 yards and then tried to pick out one of two strikers around 40 yards away despite having another 20 yards of space ti run into beggars belief.

Yes, the ref. was poor. but England were losing possession before and after they scored because of the above and before Rooney went off.

Happy days. The Welsh, Scottish and Irish didn't qualify. They got over it. I'm sure England will.

yep I'll get over it eventually. Also looking on the bbc website at the papers over in uk they all seem to be blaming the ref and bad luck.

I wish they would show a bit more dignity and accept that it was due to England playing defensively for most of that game that probably got them kicked out.

Does anyone else think that Beckhams penalty taking style is bad? Beckham should have known that the ground was not great around the penalty spot (as he placed the ball he should have noted this). If you look at his body position when he is taking the kick he is standing on his left foot and leaning over a lot to the left which means if the ground is not firm he will slip.

If he altered his style and when kicking the ball had more of his weight over his standing foot then he wouldn't slip even if the ground is not firm.

This happened against Turkey and it looks as if it happened last night. Thats twice now for someone who is supposed to be world class (and certainly paid as if he was), he should have altered his style after the Turkey penalty and he should definitely change it now.

It has taken Beckham 20 years to perfect his rather odd technique and the peculiar stance and the funny angle of his run up are apparently all part of it. I don't think it's practical for him to change it.

Rui Costa nearly fell over as well.

Matthew

Amidst last night's debacle there was one particularly funny moment for me: the sight of Luis Figo being substituted right after he had missed his umpteenth free kick of the tournament!

Figo gives the impression of someone on a par with royalty and accordingly it appears he feels he can play as well as he likes for as long as he likes. It's certainly not for some upstart manager from Brazil to tell him when he is not wanted! So the sight of him gracelessly walking straight into the players' tunnel without even acknowledging the man who replaced him (Postiga) was hilarious indeed.

Needless to say it was Postiga who did what Figo repeatedly failed to do, ie. score a goal to keep his side in the game!

And so to the defeat. A lot has been said here about tactics but since this is a subject I know next to nothing about I can't really comment. What did occur to me though was fitness. I got the impression that England's players were run off their feet last night and appeared simply to have no energy to mount any serious attacks on the Portuguese goal. Maybe tactics played a part in this, maybe not.

Strange as it may seem, I think England were undermined by the fact that they scored so early in the game, because for the next 87 minutes they had to deal with having to defend a lead, which I think must have contributed to the impotence of their attack. To compound it all of course was the injury to Wayne Rooney. I suspect his outstanding ability as shown in the group games served to mask what is otherwise a fairly average midfield, which was subsequently exposed in his absence in the face of the skillful Portugese.

That said, I think that in spite of the diallowed goal and the absurd lottery that is a penalty shoot-out, the best team won on the night.

I take the Czech Republic win overall.

JonR

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Does anyone else think that Beckhams penalty taking style is bad? Beckham should have known that the ground was not great around the penalty spot (as he placed the ball he should have noted this). If you look at his body position when he is taking the kick he is standing on his left foot and leaning over a lot to the left which means if the ground is not firm he will slip.

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yeh, you are dead right. I said early on in this thread that Beckham was no penalty taker. He goes for power in a randow direction in the geneneral area of the goal, this sometimes works, but if you look at any good penalty taker (Van Nistelroy, Shearer, LeTissier) they don't/didn't just blast the ball, you need to place it (with some power) high and wide, or low and wide.

Of Englands penalties only Hargreaves took what I would say was a good penalty.

quote:

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Also looking on the bbc website at the papers over in uk they all seem to be blaming the ref and bad luck.

I wish they would show a bit more dignity and accept that it was due to England playing defensively for most of that game that probably got them kicked out.

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It's asking a bit much to expect dignity from the British Tabloids, however I expect there will be a fair bit of editorial blameing Beckham/Erikson etc in the next few days.

quote:

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Of Englands penalties only Hargreaves took what I would say was a good penalty.

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Totally agree, I think his was the only one that would not have been saved had the keeper guessed right. I feel sorry for Vassel, at least he hit the target, but the keeper guessed correctly.

I did have a little chuckle after Hargreaves penalty since the keeper guessed to stay still after Owen's and Lampard's(?) had gone straight down the middle.

He obviously didn't read it before the tournament

Regards
Clive

I think it was resolve the issue of where Beckham will be playing his football next season - he will probably have to stay in Spain for his own safety!

JonR

Ultimately England failed because the 'big' players did not perform to their capabilities...

Beckham had a poor tournament, by his standards. At his best he dominates games (think Greece in the World Cup qualifiers), in Portugal he seemed to spend most of his time defending the right flank as England retreated. Even in England's most convincing game (against Croatia) he was ineffective. Even his free kicks were below par.

Scholes has never looked comfortable stuck out on the left. I fear that his goal was a false dawn, maybe its time to relegate him to the bench until (unless) he rediscovers his golden touch again.

Gerrard seemed to run out of steam.

Terry, I think this tournament is at least one season too early for him. He has made great progress with Chelsea but he needs more experience of playing against the best that Europe has to offer.

On the good side…

Owen started slowly but was steadily improving, his goal last night was brilliantly executed. He wasn't helped by the distance between himself and the midfield quartet - not his problem. The partnership with Rooney was definitely showing signs of being the best we've had since Beardsley/Lineker .

Campbell was a rock, as usual. Some of his tackling and blocking was outstanding.

Neville played as well as he has ever done so that's all you can ask of him.

Shock horror, Cole can defend!

Rooney is now indispensable. He was sorely missed after he went off last night, which shows his value to the team.

Sven needs to appreciate the strengths of the team - on the evidence of 10 goals scored this would seem to be the attacking side. The midfield spent two games forming a line in front of the back four but we still conceded 4 goals in those games.

4-4-2 or diamonds or what ever, the tactics should suit the players not the other way round given that he picked his 'best' four midfield players and his best strikers but did not get the best out of them

Bzzzzzz
Paul Merton: "Repetition, too many bests"
Nicholas Parsons: "Good interruption there, you now have 2 seconds to talk about 'Why England didn't win Last Night"
Paul Merton: "England didn't win last night because the ref was still smarting from the 3-0 defeat in the group stages...

quote:

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think it was resolve the issue of where Beckham will be playing his football next season - he will probably have to stay in Spain for his own safety!

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Unfortunately it means Vassell will get most of the terrace chants, which is a bit unfair. I hope it doen't knock his confidence etc

A little knowledge...

Nice one.

This is in no way because of the refs skills, but am I the only one who felt he looked like a badgers arse?

That Classic George Michael song "I'm forever blowin bubbles" (Cockney Version) comes to mind for the oncoming battle. "Up Der Greeks, innit."

Fritz Von Philip & The Kebabs:

They wouldn't have been in the situation if Beckham hadn't missed the penalty against France.
They all need to take place kick lessons from Jonny Wilkinson. When he was practicing at Middlesborough FC last year, he told the players he was going to try and bounce the ball off the cross bar from the halfway line. He only managed it five times in a row. Perhaps he can teach them how to bounce it in off the post, or would they have trouble listening/understanding?

Greece 1 - France 0 he he.

Lucky you are that there is a Greece team ...

Arye

Hurrah!

Technically that means Greece are better than England.

Matthew