Germany and Italy, but I'm generally interested in football and any team can win my heart (as did Croatia at the last World Cup).

By the way I think that Italy will do well, and this would've looked more knowledgeable had I said this before today's game (as I did in a footie forum ). I have seen a number of predictions that have Italy somewhere between rank 6 and 10, whereas Germany seems to be predicted around 2-4. I have seen both in numerous nations league games and friendlies, and Italy has looked so much better to me over the last 18 months. France are probably favourites still, followed in my view by the block of Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal. England and the Dutch are not that strong in my view  but still better than Germany (who will have difficulties to get out of that group). The underdog doing well could be Denmark or Switzerland.

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: Good result for Italy, very impressive

They're very well organised and they're really hungry after missing a World Cup. Mancini is the optimal manager for them. They may lack world class players but will be a tough nut to crack even for the likes of France and Belgium.

If Ronaldo can keep going with assists as well as ego moves, Portugal may be ones to watch. 

That was a really horrible situation. Eriksen is hospitalized. Thankfully they were able to save him with CPR, and he is conscious and going through various medical examinations right now to determine what happened.

Regarding the result it´s of course a disaster for Denmark losing to Finland, who produced exactly one chance in the whole match...and scored on that chance ...oh well Denmark didn´t produce many chances either and when you don´t score from the spot...meh not the best performance.

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: Terrible decision to award a penalty followed by a terrible penalty

Arajuri´s thigh hit Poulsen´s shoe...that´s a penalty no?

I was at work this evening, so I didn't get to see what had happened with Christian Eriksen. I only read about it during my breaks. It must have been shocking to witness. Hope he will recover.

The city of Aarhus (where I live) was full of football fans. It must have been a strange experience for them too.

Contact is contact. If Poulsen´s foot was hit by Arajuri´s thigh in the tacke the rules says it´s a penalty. The judge and the VAR team ruled that it was a penalty...so I´m pretty sure there was a contact (I saw it with my own eyes too). It doesn´t really matter now though as Højbjerg missed the penalty kick. Most Danes don´t think much about the game now, but only the health and well being of Christian Eriksen. That was some of the most unpleasant TV I´ve watched in a while. Thankfully my son is old enough to understand what happened, but he still cried.

Contact alone doesn't make it a foul. 

The rules say

A direct free kick is awarded if a player commits any of the following offences against an opponent in a manner considered by the referee to be careless, reckless or using excessive force

It could also be dangerous play, however there's no rule that states that a contact makes a foul if the referee thinks none of these other things is the case.

Once more Croatia seem to create some headache for England, despite England having dominated the first 15 minutes big time. I like this.

Edit: Well, this was the wrong moment to write it for sure...

Of course I didn´t mean any contact is foul play. This one was an illegal contact though in the goal area, and naturally the judge...and the VAR room deemed it a penalty. I´m not sure why we´re even disgussing this .

They will probably win the group, but I don't see them up there with the likes of France, Belgium, Portugal, Italy.

Netherlands vs Ukraine was the best entertainment yet even though as a German I hate to see the Dutch win.

Shadowyzard wrote: Today, I'm supporting the 3 S': Scotland, Slovakia and Sweden.

Good on you, we Scots need all the support we can get. Our style (or lack thereof) is not pretty to watch. We are a bit like Stoke City but wearing dark blue, capable only of wearing teams down with attritional running and defensive organisation. That said, we do have some quality in Kieran Tierney, Andy Robertson, John McGinn and erm...Scott McTominay (only kidding about the last one, he's mince)

Well, Scotland can create chances for sure... if only...

Please beat England, that would put some excitement into the group!

I've checked this list three times now and still can't find Canada.

No Vote !

Shadowyzard wrote: Well done Slovakia and Sweden. I'm especially happy that Spain couldn't win. By far, the most boring "big" European team for me. So much control, but hollow rather than with passion. Even Greece's defensive strategies are far more interesting for me.

I actually find it always very interesting to see Spain play. They play this very characteristic concept football, and I'm always curious how well it works out, why, or why not. The illusion of total control - how do they do it, how can the opponents spoil it, will they use it for their own good, and what if the opponents try the same thing? Deep questions of life treated here.   The players they now have on the pitch are surely not the grandmasters of the past (Iniesta was maybe never the best player of the planet, but surely for many years he was the one I loved most to watch, a true genius), but apprentices. For this style they make too many mistakes and often they don't think fast enough. I'm curious how fast they learn, or whether they ever will. Still on a good day they can shred a lesser team to pieces (as they've done with Germany not long ago).  Sweden had the two biggest chances in the game (which clearly shows that the concept didn't fully work out), but Spain had about six pretty good ones; a win would've been OK as well. It's not that generally I want Spain to win, still, they always put up something out of the ordinary, and I can appreciate this. 

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: Scotland created lots of changes, some pretty good, Czech scored 2 great goals, keeper should never get beaten from that far out on the second.

My initial reaction to the second goal was that Marshall would have been struggling to save that shot even if still on his line but having seen it played back (umpteen horrible times) I think yeah, brilliant piece of audacious skill but an international keeper should be saving that. The most annoying thing for me was that Schick aside, the Czech republic are bang average at best and were there for the taking. Once the Scots went behind and had to chase the game, we were always vulnerable to counter attacks (it could have finished 5 v 3 to the Czechs all told) Tierney was missed and Steve Clarke surely regrets playing Patterson at RWB and not starting with Che Adams up top to assist Dykes. It was, as I anticipated, route one 'Stoke' bollocks most of the time. I'm dreading the England game as I fear we might get a real slapping.

Shadowyzard wrote:   I laugh at the people who always say that playing offensively is more valuable than playing defensively.

...which, as you probably know, was totally not my point.

Well, maybe one can say the Spanish style alone won't win them tournaments, they need genius players on top of that, and it doesn't look like they have them this time (in 2018 those who were there were clearly past their prime, and I enjoyed Croatia tearing them apart as I had enjoyed Spain in their best days, say 2012 Euro final). But at least they have some style. Not many teams can claim that. 

And Germany do Spain's style without the style... 

OK that was against the world champions. One lucky point against Portugal and a 2-1 last minute win against Hungary is my plan to get out of the group.

Germany scored the goal for France in order to make up for that.

Edit: Oh actually I was kind of wrong, the rules also say, a little bit below, that "impeding an opponent with contact" counts, so that's probably the best case to make here. One could still argue though that Mbappe wasn't really impeded as the ball was lost anyway. 

More edit: Even later they say: "Impeding the progress of an opponent means moving into the opponent’s path to obstruct, block, slow down or force a change of direction when the ball is not within playing distance of either player." So then, if "impeding" is the same as "impeding the progress" at least, it wasn't "impeding" as the ball was there.


Haha, a mathematician reads sports rules... and finds himself puzzled about all those ambiguities.

Shadowyzard wrote: Sorry but I see absolute clarity that this is a penalty. All the things I said aside, the German defender's contact with the ball was affected by and after his contact with Mbappe. So, his "tackle" (!) would surely have been different, if he hadn't touched (it is even a "hit", sorry) Mbappe's leg.

You talk about what you see. I talk about what's in the rules. The ref didn't give it and the VAR didn't challenge that. These are trained professionals. Personally I'm not even sure. I'm not trying to make the case that it wasn't a penalty, I'm rather saying that the typical fan tends to not make such calls based on proper knowledge of the rules, but that's required. "Absolute clarity" is a nonsense. 

If the referee had given the penalty I think VAR would have backed him as it not being an obvious error. Similar by not giving it they didn't see it as an obvious error.

Also remember the referee is seeing it once in real time at full speed and needs to make a quick decision. It is then checked to see if it was an obvious error.

In another forum (actually a footie forum) I was declaring my dissatisfaction with how Germany had played yesterday and everybody told me, but it was against the world champions, they were quite good actually etc. Maybe we are too critical when our team loses...

I found the game super entertaining, I liked it a lot. Lots of chances on both sides. Some genius moves by Gareth Bale. Not denying that Turkey made some big mistakes in the defence and offensive play was often spoiled by cheap mistakes as well. But that's football. We're never going to have perfection. Wales won a point against Switzerland and Switzerland were quite good. I think this is just a strong group.

FIFA removed the previous 'obstruction inside the penalty box' rule in 1997 (which was punishable with an indirect free kick and NOT a penalty kick) and replaced it with 'impeding the progress of an opponent.' as noted by Lewian above

Psychedelic Paul wrote: None. I'm much more interested in Euro Prog, and Euro Disco too, admittedly.

Scotland suck at those also (probably)

I loved to see Italy playing yesterday against Swiss.

Will they win them all ? No one can say, but I surely hope they continue providing good entertainment !

Some of my favourite bands are Scottish, including:- Camera Obscura; Deacon Blue; Marmalade; Simple Minds; Texas & The Waterboys. 

Wales surprised me against Turkey (as they were very ordinary against the Swiss)

I'd be more than happy for ANYONE to thrash England in ANY game but I fear the Scots will lose again on Friday

That's not neutral ground, the Irish hate the English as much as the Scots do. Have fun, I may see if I can get to the pub.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity/uri-geller-tells-lorraine-kelly-24337893" rel="nofollow - Uri Geller tells Lorraine Kelly he's 'summoned the spirit of Robert The Bruce' to help Scotland beat England - Daily Record