Let's be having you (Euro 2016)

[The Red Baron]

and the best bit of this  competition is thankfully there is no play-off for 3rd place

we all knew france had  a rubbish defence -and would get nowhere - I didn't even realize kosheney qualified for france
nor griessmann*  just shows how much I watch international football  look forward to watching Solihull motors (as I call them )  prefer non league football any day

 this competition is just a "space -filler"  do you agree wigley ?

They are not "Solihull Motors," they are  "Solihull Moors." Formed from a merger of Solihull Borough and Moor Green. They are my local team.

Already looking forward to seeing them in action in the National League. My first game should be against Macclesfield on August Bank Holiday Monday.

[BillyStubbsTears]

So you don't like the Euros?

Sheesh man, we've got the message already. Move on. Adapt. Stop squawking about it. Life's too short.

[IDM]

The half ends when the referee blows the whistle. So you have to play to the whistle.

Just ask Paul Caddis!

Ah, I was wondering where this thread had got to

A classic example of Rigo not reading, or ignoring, what has been posted.

I was querying the source of the added time - both sides were playing to the whistle so that aspect wasn't in question at all, simply where the time had come from..

[IDM]

No injuries, no goals, nor substitutions, so 2 mins added time is questionable.

Everything else is irrelevant, as this was the only question I raised - I wasn't even asking YOU to answer it, just a general question about timekeeping.

Nothing more, nothing less, but of course you chose it to be something else...

[Filo]

Well, Portugal will probably go down as the worst team to ever win an international football tournament.

Under the previous format, they'd have been back in Lisbon over two weeks ago.

They will, however, probably go down as the best team ever at winning awful football matches at major tournaments.

Greece

[Copps is Magic]

Tournament of the team. Iceland, Wales, Portugal. Work as a unit, hard to beat, moments of attacking quality. There is plenty to admire in all of them. I picked up on how difficult Portugal were to beat when they played England.

If you follow a club regularly you know that more often than not it isn't the beautiful game.

[Copps is Magic]

Do you think on the steets of Lisbon they will be saying 'are we worthy champions?', will they f**k. Every cup competition is about winning and that they did.

[Draytonian III]

2002-2003 a team that finished 3rd did rather well in another competition. The rules were set in place years ago ,not on the 1st of June. Every  single post or thread that is put on here Rigo comes on and tries to pull it to pieces, it doesn't matter if it's teams winning their first major trophy or some omes misspelling he is on here. Now for someone who doesn't care about OUR club he spends an awful lot of time talk/posting about it. Cue some smart arsed reply. .......................

[Draytonian III]

Why have you inserted only part of my post ,or is that what they call in your previous profession editing.

[Draytonian III]

Like I said why have you only put part of my original post in, is it to make way for the results of the biggest marrow competition or the under 8's egg and spoon race

[Sammy Chung was King]

If England, are looking for a foreign manager, Santos the portugal manager wouldn't be a bad choice. The fa will no doubt appoint another 'yes man', and it will be the same old crap!.
I thought there was an improvement in options for the manager to use, but overall Roy had a bad tournament with his choices. He wasn't bold enough to pick the right ones, and as always the 'shoehorning' of players into the side carried on.
Roy is a decent guy, but england got him about fifteen years too late!, he did decent jobs with countries not expected to do anything, but i think the england job was too much for him.

The players were the biggest disappointment, i didn't see a determination to stay in the tournament, i saw a side that still can't pass a ball, when under any pressure. I saw a side devoid of real belief in the whole or themselves.
 A manager short on tactical ideas. And a team that didn't look like any england side i have ever seen against iceland.
The group stages were an improvement on other tournaments, just looking plainly at results, we were unbeaten, but on performance things didn't improve enough.

The last time i saw an england side, with a manager who made them believe, they could win any game they played, was the Glenn Hoddle era.
Yes we didn't win anything, but he got them organised in the qualifiers, and we lost a game against Argentina that could have dropped to either side. There was a togetherness between the fans and team, there was an excitement about england games, as there was with Venables when he was in charge!.

The fa really need to organise it, that the england manager gets something like a three day training period each month with his squad.
A squad needs to be picked, and not swapped and changed about too much.
 There should always be room to break into the squad, but it needs to be that the manager starts working with a squad, with the next qualifiers and tournament in mind. A squad picked to bring the best from the team, rather than individuals. Portugal showed by winning, that all was needed was togetherness, a bit of threat on the break and the manager making the big decisions and of course a bit of luck.

Our side just does not have the togetherness as a squad, with the manager and the fans who watch, until all that changes, we can't win anything.
You can't expect a manager to get any cohesion, when he doesn't have the time to build the squad togetherness and confidence, they spend all that money on the best facilities, but can't rectify that.
 I also think they need to stop making them unavailable to meet with people during a tournament. They were stopped from going to a memorial because they were ''too tired'', the manager was paranoid about people spying on his tactics, what tactics?.
If we don't get a good manager to start off with, the fa reorganised on how we do things, and more respect from clubs in releasing players for training get togethers, we can't get any better!.
The fa need to realise, that some things are more important, than the money, that has corrupted our game.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Sammy

This Hoddle 1998 thing.

It feels like a bunch of folk half-remembering what happened, listening to an old man talking half-sense on the telly for the past month and building a past that never happened.

WC 1998

We stumbled out of a weak group.

We lost to Argentina in R2

Argentina lost to Holland in the QF

Holland lost to Brazil in the SF

Brazil lost to France in the Final.


Under Hoddle, our Golden Generation was as far away as any squad in in the past 50 years from achieving.

Hoddle wasn't that good. We weren't that good. We ended up pretty much where we deserved to be.

[Sammy Chung was King]

No i'm not remembering back thinking it was great, more that he organised them. There was structure to how he wanted things done. He talked up the team, rather than show no confidence in them.
I do think if he hadn't been such an idiot with his comments, the team in next tournament, would have carried on to improve again.

 I'm not saying the guy is the best out there, i'm just saying english managers, with the limited collection of possibles, he fits the situation.
Even though he hasn't managed for some time, he has still been involved around the game. When he managed on the whole his teams were well organised and good entertainers.
The Golden generation, were a little after Hoddle's time if i'm remembering right?.

[DevilMayCry]

Ha ha 

[Sprotyrover]

Seen one of those buses in Leeds I reckon 💩💩💩

[The Red Baron]

That Tournament is why I still get misty eyed over the greats of my youth- Pele, Cruyff, Best, Bobby Charlton et al.

It is probably right to say that they would look out of place in the modern game. However I wonder if I would have fallen in love with watching 22 athletes and the "spectacle" it produces if I was a young lad now.

Says it all that a very average Portugal side won it when their one player of world class contributed Diddly Squat. And the winning goal was scored by a bloke who is a standing joke among Swansea City fans.

Roll on League Two!

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB

Back in the late 80s, a journalist at the Melody Maker coined the term Excess of Access to describe the way in which speciality radio and video stations which gave listeners exactly the music they wanted, when they wanted it, was blunting tastes.

It's exactly the same with football. We loved the tournaments we saw as kid because that was the only time you got to see the big names, and names you'd never heard of, in your living room.

These days, we're gorged on the f**king game. There's no anticipation. No surprise. We pig out on every name in football whenever we want. So there's no allure in a major tournament.

The tournaments are no worse than they used to be. The players certainly aren't. Like I've said times many, go back and watch that England-Brazil game from WC70. The one that was supposed to be football at its peak.

It is dreadful as a spectacle to today's eyes. Slow, poor technique, worse than anything in this tournament. But we loved it back then because it was the one and only chance to see the top players doing battle.

Now, we're all jaded. That's the issue.

[darren61]

I agree BST, when i was a kid FA cup final day was a major event, come kick off the streets would be deserted, nobody cares that much now.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Exactly Darren

Objectively, the goal that Robson Kanu scored, Ronaldo's header and even Sisoko's turn and shot last night were better than ANYTHING seen at any World Cup in the 70s.

But we're fed a diet of processed superlatives now. We barely bat an eyelid when Ronaldo jumps to 9ft and hangs in the air like he's on sky hooks before crashing a header into the net.

The games are just as much of a spectacle as they ever were. The past never really was that good. But it WAS special. That's the difference.

[Sammy Chung was King]

As humans, many of us have a tendancy to look back on things, as everything was wonderful. When you look back at those players you thought that nobody could ever get near them, it's sobering to see just how slow the game was, the quality lacking, and the player you remembered as fantastic, wasn't quite as good as you remember.
 It's like tasting Tizer when you were ten, you try it years later, and it just isn't the same. The programme you thought was really good was back then, but watched now isn't.

The game now is played at an unbelievable pace, the technique has almost disappeared, everything is done just too fast. Players back then, many could have adapted to today's game, but some wouldn't have.
I think the game is evolving into something that barely resembles football, the game is played at such a pace. The tricks on the ball become less and less, the player who takes players on by dribbling past them is almost extinct.

 It has become a pass the responsibility game, where players have to have minds that react much quicker than any computer processor. They are constantly on the turn, and have a million thoughts racing around, all at the same time.
This tournament just passed, was eleven athlete's on each side, and in each game. Each side trained to almost the maximum of human capability, and they just don't have the time, to slow the game down, to create any real quality.
The game as a spectacle, is receding. I don't have sky, but remember when i did, as much as i loved football, i got sick of too many games being on. Less is more, sometimes.

[The Red Baron]

BST

I have to say I have a rather different take on it to you. Will expand later when I have a bit more time.

[Mike_F]

They are not "Solihull Motors," they are  "Solihull Moors." Formed from a merger of Solihull Borough and Moor Green. They are my local team.

Already looking forward to seeing them in action in the National League. My first game should be against Macclesfield on August Bank Holiday Monday.

I've always thought they should've gone with "Solihull Moor Green" which sounds more like a proper football club name in the vein of Bradford Park Avenue and Preston North End.

[The Red Baron]

I have to say that reading back over my posting it does sound like a lament for  "The Good Old Days." I stand by my point that increased athletic fitness makes it more difficult for pure skill to flourish. However my main point was to contrast the 1970 World Cup and football of that time with what we've got now.

Apologies for coming over all Hegelian, but I see football as essentially a Dialectical struggle. A coach, a team, develops and hones a style of play to perfection. That style becomes dominant until counter-measures are developed which become effective.

At the moment we are in the last days of possession-based football. (Ironic that Manchester City have appointed its High Priest at the moment of its passing.) No other dominant style has quite evolved to replace it, so you get a tournament like the one we've just had.

Go back to 1970. The defence-dominated 60s had given way to attacking football whose standard bearers were Brazil. Looking back, the 1966 World Cup was a mixed bag - the opening game between England and Uruguay was a total bore- but the good guys won out. England, West Germany and probably the best team to watch, Portugal, reached the last four and the defensive Italians and spoiling Latin Americans went home early.

It is quite possible that by 2018, or 2020, a dominant style will have emerged. I actually think it will involve a more direct game. Not 80s big boot but less emphasis on building through midfield and more on using fast, skilful forwards. If that particular Thesis becomes dominant, even for a short time, the next Tournament will be worth watching.

[DonnyNoel]

I think you definitely have a point TRB re the evolution/revolution of tactics every 5-10 years and at this moment in time I'd say we're moving towards teams being willing to sacrifice possession with a view to countering in a quick/direct style thus creating fewer but perhaps better chances.

Maybe in a year or two it will all be about 352

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB

I like the dialectic analysis and I fully agree about the possession-based football style having had its day. I won't be sorry to see its passing. It certainly squeezes the visceral enjoyment out of football, and it's the natural end point for a game where power and wealth is distilled into fewer and fewer clubs. They can produce or buy the very best players, and they can develop a style that simply throttles a game by denying the opposition the ball. Dreadful to watch and dreadful for the spirit of the game.

What will replace it I've no idea, but top level football will be better when some disruptive style emerges that re-sets the power balance.

I do take issue with your comment about skill not flourishing in the modern game (or rather, it's implied corollary, that skill did flourish in the less controlled game of old).

Fact is that the old game really wasn't that skilful, even with the time and space that they had. The moments of individual brilliance were few and far between and were pale shadows of the individual moments that we've seen even at this latest tournament.

Watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ehomsdGeRE

This was the two best sides in the world in 1970. It's turgid stuff.

[Pancho Regan]

I like the dialectic analysis and I fully agree about the possession-based football style having had its day. I won't be sorry to see its passing.

What will replace it I've no idea, but top level football will be better when some disruptive style emerges that re-sets the power balance.

Haven't we already witnessed the beginnings of this with Leicester winning the Premiership title?
I believe only 2 Premier League teams had less possession than them last season.

[The Red Baron]

Quite possibly. It depends on whether other leading teams adopt that approach.

If a team, perhaps not one of the European big hitters, was to play like that in the Champions League this season and exceed expectations, it would be another step along the road.

[RedJ]

You are Sam Allardyce and I claim my £5.

[The Red Baron]

Nah. I always did wonder what happened to John Beck though.