Well that's my dark horse and top scoring bet well and truly out of it and I must say 'we' were robbed. Should have had a penalty when Busquets nearly pulled Corluka's shirt off his back with three minutes to go thus preventing him out jumping him and scoring the winner. I also think Iniesta hand balled it in the build up to the Spain goal. Robbin' bastards. That's nearly a tenner wasted. ****in' robbin' bastards.
Not only that, but that long-range shot which should have been a simple catch came directly from the one where Di Natale rounded him on the edge of the box with total ease. I agree with you he's been terrible at the euros, and you can't blame it on his team-mates. The quality of his team-mates don't make him drop simple catches, be rounded easily and show crap reactions. Busquets is a total cheat, Spain should **** him off and play someone else. They've gotr enough talent on the bench who don't hit the deck every few seconds and rip their markers' shirts off.
Never, never, never, ever, rated Busquets. Every game I see of him, he's constantly diving, shirt tugging and just making no impact on or off the ball. People like Juan Mata are missing a first team place to him...
Thank **** for those last couple of minutes of each game. £40 on a Spain win, £50 on Italy -1.75, £5 on Italy to win both halves. All I lost was a fiver on Spain to win both halves, which the £150 odd profit more than made up for. For all those moaning about the head to head system, seriously just think about it properly, it's not complicated at all. All it does is force teams into attacking and scoring as many as possible every game rather than making games like a Nigel Pearson vs Gary Megson match up playing for draws or sitting on 1-0 leads. It's better than the average points/gd/goals scored and so on system.
Croatia where my outside bet to for this tournament, got their tactics spot on tonight to just had some luck go against them with the penalty shout and not taking their chances when it come. Just if Germany win the thing i just can't wait to see what genius idea we try stealing from them, is it playing on tiny size pitches or making six year olds run laps or some stupid idea we think we need to steal as where not good enough to come up with our own. If Spain win it will be until your 12 you can only have three touches of the ball before you can pass or something daft.
Great goal by Balotelli, maybe perfect as a sub at the moment until he matures as a person, the kid has phenomenal talent
I think with Balotelli, it's a case of 'fame came too quick'. He was young when his wages soared and he unfortunately didn't mature because he has never felt he needs to. He's got everything, and therefore won't change anytime soon.
He's only a kid, plenty of time to grow up! Maybe if he was late 20's you could say that? Hope he doesn't go the way of other players with that kind of ability, amazing how many of them crash and burn and like you say easy money isn't it. Thats why I like players like Messi and Scholes who got and are getting the most from their talent.
I think you need to mature earlier. James Chester is a brilliant example. He can't use his age as an excuse when he's earning over £100k a week and causing all the problems that he does.
It was there goodbye wave. You wont have to worry about Croatia anymore now. It was not going to last and it did not. 2nd spot and easy meat for either England and France,, imo. Blame FIFA and UEFA. Having Septic Bladder and the big girls name Platini in charge,, what do you expect ? Not anymore. Both England and France will be wanting top spot so to play the Italians. Given IMO has not been fit enough to play at this level but the ROI had to go with him. Keiron Westwood should have played last night imo along wioth maybe 3 or 4 others. I meanm fancy Paul McShane not getting a chance ? Worst team at the euros sadly are the ROI. But wait until 2016 when 8 extra teams play in the finals. Yes 24 teams will take part in euro 2016 and it will take 2 weeks just to get to where we are at now ? thanks micheal. Both Denmark on sunday against the Germans and Croatia last night were denied penalties IMO. I wonder why ? The only player who worries me in the Italy squad. At least Lescott will know how to play against him if we meet.
That Cassano knows a trick or two. Our own pkayers scare me more, best be careful not to give away free kicks around the box.
Each day we've managed to work out what on Earth was going on in each group in terms of head-to-heads, mini-leagues etc, what happens in ours? If both France and England win (or both draw) how's it going to work? I'm hoping it's going to be a simple case of Goal Difference, though it would be amusing if we avoided playing the Spanish purely through the ruling of alphabetical order.
I'm afraid England won't go against the age old tradition of putting the fans through as much torture as possible. The Ukrainian fans will turn that stadium into a couldren if they get a sniff of a goal so the game will pan out as follows: 7th minute - Ukraine score and the locals go into raptures. Ukraine 1-0 England They continue to press looking for the second, but England's goal seems to have a charmed life and for the next 70 minutes every English fingernail is gnawed to the root. 77th minute - Milner tangles one of his fetlocks in the legs of a Ukraine player and brings him down. Penalty; Ukraine 2-0 England 77th minute - Rooney gets a yellow card for a 15 second unbroken string of profanities aimed at the ref. 87th minute - The Ukies have been playing 'Ol'e passing football' for the last ten minutes when their central defender gets so bored he runs into the crowd to take part in the next Mexican Wave. Gerrard sees his chance and fires in a shot that deflects off seven players before hitting the bar and going in off the goalies ar5e. Ukraine 2-1 England 87th minute - The excitement is too much for Rooney's three brain cells to deal with and he drops his shorts and gives the Ukraine bench a celebratory moon. - Rooney sent off. 90th + 6 minute - The ref has the whistle to his mouth ... Joe Hart takes a huge hopeful punt upfield ... The Ukey fans are singing ... The England fans are crying ... When from nowhere a huge clap of thunder shakes the whole stadium ... In absolute terror the Ukulele goalkeeper leaps across his goal and clings to the post as the ball bounces three times before dribbling into the net. - Ukraine 2-2 England Full time. The England fans go wild. We're the greatest. Look out Germany!
It works on coefficients before it goes to lots, though there can't be many teams that are level on that, ours is 34819 and france's is 32551. So if we win our game by one more goal than them but they score one more than us (ie we win 2-0 and they win 3-2) then we'd be level on everything but we'd finish top because our coefficient is higher. Don't you just love UEFA?
We've got to make sure we win tonight. If we scrape second we'll find it difficult to get past Spain. Just like at the last WC when we were knocked out by Germany, but should never have been playing them if we managed to beat Algeria or the USA