Some serious shock results tonight, very uncommon in international football. Armenia drawing away at Italy. 10 man Azerbaijan drawing with Russia. Wales nullifying Belgium away. Scotland beating Croatia (though I had a feeling that would happen and had them in a accy that Italy and Bosnia plopped on) Spain had 15 shots (that must be a record). What looked like a rob the bookies night as sure as there could ever be turned into the bookies robbing the public like normal.
Just checked flights from Miami to Rio over $2000 going non stop and the flight time is over 8 hours. Better start saving up. Never been to a World Cup this might be the first.
I think the airlines do deals to football events, because of the mass of interest to go there the prices come down. If you book in good time of course. It's well worth looking at flying from all kinds of destinations, france, germany or whatever. I looked at flying out to Ukraine for the Italy game in the Euro's, when demand was high and flight seats were few and far between, it was actually far cheaper to fly to somewhere in Germany (whichever major city is closest on that side, I can't remember which) then fly out to Ukraine from there, than it was to fly straight from any English airport. It also barely took any longer. When it's a major event like this, once places start getting booked up, demand is high and prices start going up to match, it's well worth looking at flying to destinations there's not likely to be much interest in flying from and going from there, you get a bit of holiday in between as well I'd reccomend Bratislava.
A great, enjoyable game, that only suffered from a bit of a wobble between our defence and midfield; we looked very vulnerable to the break and they were half a player's quality from exploiting it. Rooney was stand- out, the skipper excellent, most others pretty damn good. Our defence carries a ball well, but defensively we will get caught - it has to be Cole for me. The quality of our forwards brought the very best out of their average back four, who can hold their heads high. I wonder how ours would have coped against our attack? Woys got a bit to do, but all things are achievable.
Tbf, most of the teams England play against are going to look at playing on the counter against us. They were never going to dominate so they will always be dangerous on the counter,much like City are. You say they were half a player's quality away from exploiting it, what do you mean? They had Kuba and Lewandowski, you're not going to find too many better players at playing on the break. I think England coped well with Polands threat and rarely looked troubled, except for the Lewandowski chance.
I think we pretty much agree, although I think that on another night we might not of escaped the goal that could have turned the game; but we did, so fine. When you have two good attackers, as you rightly say Kuba and Lew. . are, sometimes they both don't quite get their act together and miss a key chance that you would expect them to take, you miss that little bit of quality or half a player out of the two. We got the opposite at the other end were average defenders played above their game and mage it ugly for our powerhouse attack who couldn't quite get it right at their feet. It made it a very good game to watch.
It was a lot more entertaining than I would have liked, or expected from England tbh. I wish it was a boring game like normal.
Will anyone be flying there? The 4x4 will be coming out for that one... [video=youtube;WTVPPTV-bQM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTVPPTV-bQM[/video]
aye, it got a tad twitchy there - I thought Butcher was excellent value on the punditry, as even the Irish Ego came across as reasonable.
I don't think Scotland beating Croatia is much of a shock. They beat them in the first match in Zagreb as well, & Croatia aren't that good anymore.
These are the playoff teams in Europe: Seeded: Croatia Greece Portugal Ukraine Unseeded: France Iceland Romania Sweden The draw is next Tuesday, agonizingly enough for them. I so hope Iceland get through, that would be class. I also hope Portugal draw France...
Just seen this on BBC website - a bunch of goals from England's previous World Cups... Platt's is the best just because of the situation alone. Michael Owen's and Joe Cole's are bloody marvellous.
It's encouraging to see other top nations get crap results now and then (I'm referring to Italy drawing with Armenia of course, as well as France and Portugal needing playoffs). The way people go on when we get results like a draw in Ukraine you'd think all the other top countries win every match. The rest of the world aren't as good as we think...
We were also third highest scorers behind Netherlands and Germany, joint second least conceded behind Spain, who had a smaller group... Nobody seems to mention that either.
Im sorry but that's not comparable. Italy stop playing when they've qualified, which they did with 2 games to spare. They do it every single time in qualifying, adopting the attitude "the job is done why do any more than that?" avoiding injury and tiredness as well as bollockings from their parent clubs. My only regret is that I didnt have a bet on it cos I said to a bloke at work this is exactly what would happen. Do you really think if they'd not qualified theyd have drawn with Armenia? I bet most people could correctly name 6 of the last 8 as soon as the groups are drawn. There really arent many surprises and teams tend to be as good as we think. Perhaps look at how many semi finals Brazil, Italy and Germany have made between them.
