This is a soccer fans dream week. We'll have Copa America going on and Euro 16 happening at the same time. How fast will England fade? Will Spain's Red Fury return to form? Will Germany continue their global domination? Why is it that France shows so much heart on their own soil (sans 1938 to 1945), and so little everywhere else?
They are pretty tough at home. Still, the Germans typically do well playing on most anyone's home soil.
I watched the first half of one game where Wales scored their first goal in 58 years. The last time they scored a goal in the Euro Cup was 1958! Meanwhile... the Russian fans attacked the English fans who were begging to be attacked. Who the hell matched up England and Russia?
England has the youngest team they've brought in 50 some years. They are the 2nd youngest team in the tournament. The youngest is Germany. I see their best player once again, Marco Reus, has been injured and can't play. They simply replaced him with Bastian Schweinsteiger who was a hero in the last world cup and scored tonight.
Speaking of the English, they've underwhelmed and Wales won that group. For all the apologists who say that Christiano Ronaldo is working alone with Portugal, they always conveniently leave out Wales who is literally Gareth Bale, and no one. Bale has scored in every match and won that group through sheer will power. It was fun to watch. Today, the Germans should have an easier time with Northern Ireland and Poland should be able to take down Ukraine. If somehow the Northern Irish find a way to tie Germany, they'd be in a very good position to advance as a 3rd place wild card. If calamity breaks out, we could see the Germans not win the group and advance as a #2 or a #3 wild card, which would be a nightmare for some group winner. In the other group, Croatia and Spain could be fun especially if the Croatian fans decide to riot.
The knockout brackets turned out odd. All of the Euro heavyweights are in the same bracket while teams that have never won a major championship are in the other bracket. The Croats have a real shot to make the finals although their first match with Portugal will be a tough one.
Bobda, You guys have a good team with as good a shot as most anyone. Hey JOCO, I found the announcer for Iceland losing his mind. This is fantastic. Do note, he starts losing his mind at the pass, long before the ball is in the goal. http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/06/ice...-team-scores-last-minute-goal-against-austria
Haha! That recording of the Iceland announcer will become a classic in the mold of GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL!
My favorite part of that video, and it is all pretty priceless, is that the announcer actually loses it during the crossing pass. He realizes that this is it, 20 years of national effort into becoming a soccer power about to come to fruition. That really is a fantastic call, even though no one knows what he's saying.
So both N.Ire and Rep of Ireland made it through to the knockout rounds of Euro16? What were the chances of that happening? BTW, have you ever watched Gaelic Football? I have a few times, it's more exciting IMHO than soccer. I wonder why it never caught on, since the whole soccer thing started in Englan/Scotland way back when.
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Those are fantastic JOCO. We even get to see the dude lose his mind. It's funny that you don't see that same inspiration to stay neutral in the media when we're talking football. Terry, Irish football is a great game, but like all things Irish, the English worked hard to kill it for so long that it's just an isolated thing that most folks don't know about.
Yeah, you can find other copies of it but it's a pretty sincere open fan letter to the Irish fan base.