Vincenzo Montella against Willy Sagnol. Two managers who were fantastic players. Neither's done much as a coach yet, though.
Level! Lovely bit of play by the winger. Matches like this always produce, far better than when you see two big guns face off.
Nothing to lose, lesser quality often makes more excitement as more mistakes especially in defence. Preferred 16 team euros personally. These group stages where it’s almost impossible to get knocked out are pointless
Its been a true celebration of football. Many tournaments have been very tight boring games. This has been attacking football so far. Apart from England's second half.
I think that the atmosphere in this game has been helped by the fact that the crowd are like a league game. Very few neutrals, lots of enthusiastic "home" fans and a dedicated bunch of "away" fans. Probably benefits from being at the Westfalenstadion, too.
I've found this to be true of most intl tournaments in recent years, especially those since Covid. Euro 2020 was a quality tournament and as much as it pains me to admit it, Qatar was the most entertaining world cup I can remember. Not sure why it is happening but there is definitely a trend away from the stale, play to avoid defeat tournaments of yesteryear.
Terrible miscommunication there. Either player lets the other hit it freely and it's a goal, I think.
Harsh on Georgia, they absolutely had to send the keeper up there. Doesn’t essentially make a difference to the result. Great game of football, probably game of the tournament so far.
That was like an F.A Cup tie. Both teams probably looked at this game as their best chance of 3 points - where that alone could be enough to get them through to the last 16 in 3rd place.
Proper end-to-end stuff in League Two weather that. I wonder how they're going to follow that? ...oh ****, Portugal
Pepe the legend still going. He was batshit mental in his prime, I loved it. Almost half expected one of him or Ramos to commit a murder on the pitch when they were at Madrid.
Shoehorning the “best” players into the XI, even if it means playing them out of position and not getting the best from them is probably not the way to go. Portugal have an abundance of good midfielders - but they can’t all play. It means some very good players are on the bench. That’s the reality for England too. However good a player is individually, if a suitable role can’t be found for him within the best team, then he has to settle for a cameo off the bench, unless he can prove himself capable of adapting to a different role. It happens in other sports too. But in cricket or rugby, specific roles are more easily definable; if you’re a great leg spin bowler, you won’t get many games if Shane Warne is in your team.
Agree, we discussed it earlier (see above) about whether Southgate is doing that or if he genuinely thinks that better for the team.
