What a bunch of fools! Couldn't they stay focussed just a little longer? That penalty was the direct result of two huge faults. How can people at this level do this?

fucking joke, terrible needless tackle from heskey for the free kick, then awful backpass for the pen, but beckham should've scored to make it 2 and silvestre should've been sent of. would've been game over.

nuts.

Zidane is GOD! Sorry for you that they lost BJ, hehe, but in the end they weren't playing well, at all. A win would kinda have been stolen. Then again, we play like that all the time with Belgium. Is Joe Cole in portugal btw? If so, they should seriously field him imho. Not that France was so great but blah. At least they're still on course for my bet with mates (France beats Portugal in the final), damn Greeks screwed portugal over.

Btw Arathorn; Holland is gonna get its ass whooped in the group stage they're playing 3 teams with a style that always troubles Holland; compact teams with impressive physiques, apart from Stam the Dutch are a bunch of wusses, physically speaking so...i'm SO looking forward to Stam-Koller. Koller is da man. Do I love the EC or what? Keep it coming!!

as if Ox...we should have won that big time, our defense was awesome, praise is definatly deserved for Ledley King, the boy didn't put a foot wrong all game

I blame Emile "the donkey" Heskey for everything, if France hadn't scored the free kick then i doubt the would have got the penalty.
Shame Beckham missed a peno though...

Heh, I wonder if he will ever try another one after the one he missed against Argentina. You sure Beckham doesn't have any Dutch roots? hehe

The defense wasn't really awesome btw, it was just a wall of 10 ppl in the English sixteen, with Owen/Rooney (God he's ugly) up front. I'm not saying that it isn't efficient, but it's not really hard. Heck, Belgium is master of lying in front of our own goal, ask Arathorn (0-0 in WC '98, lucky 1-0 win in WC '94).

As a neutral (and sexy and brilliant) viewer i would say it went like this: France is the better team, has a few attempts on goal, then England scores its first chance, then decides to draw back a bit and counter, but in the entire second half france pinned england completely to their goal. Don't manage to create much danger tho cos there's tons of English in their own sixteen. Rooney put down by Silvestre, Barthez stops penalty Becks (penalty was taken ok, but Barthez' safe was great), Heskey makes stupid mistake, Zidane finishes freekick and penalty off cos England is panicking.

So efficient yes, masterful tactics nah. England would have created more counter-attacks if it really controlled the situation, but instead the French recuperated just about every ball that they kicked out of their penalty area. The difference between France and all the other teams is: Zidane. Rest of the french team is ok, but not great.

The moral of this story... don't fall back after you score! At this level one goal difference just isn't enough.
The British had a bad midfield, because of that their strikers were void of chances. Their defense was very good though.

I'm not too afraid of Holland getting their ass kicked this poule btw, we can handle Germany and Latvia, though I fear for the Czech Republic (it's about time those people find a shorter name for their country). Our preperation for the championship was pretty bad, but that doesn't say anything, that was the case in '88 also. at least we're playing in a good lineup now.

I must agree that the english defense wasn't awesome, sure they didn't give away chances, but it was always panic and hit the ball away as far as you could .. don't understand why exactly, the english midfield has enough technical skill to try to set up a counterattack through fast combination. Tactically i think they made the mistake to crawl back and hold on the 1-0 like arathorn says, but if beckham scores the 2-0 it's game over for the french .. i would blame him for losing as well.
But if you go camp with 10 players in your own box, it's always very hard for the opponent to create chances, but one ball that falls right or one fault can be enough. So i wouldn't blame Heskey, if the english had hold the french further off, the fault wouldn't have been commited near the penalty area and wouldn't have been dangerous. It's a failure of the whole team (tactically) and Beckham (personally).
Big players do it at big moments, like zidane in this match, but beckham failed. Too bad for england, but if you're a neutral spectator you must be happy, since england only played anti-football. The french weren't that great either btw, they tried but you could see the great form wasn't there, another reason why the english shouldn't have crawled back so far, against a super-france that would have been justified, not against this france.

Well that's what happened in the second half yeah, france had us under a lot of pressure but by about 20mins after half time we'd sorted that out and it wasn't until a couple of mins left that it went into panic.

In the first half we were very good all over the pitch (except Owen who didn't touch the ball...)

and we don't have a bad midfield, it's just not as good as the best one in the world (suprisingly enough) you try and field a team that can compete against Pires, Viera, Makalele and Zidane, it's not easy

we'd destroy holland if we play like in the first half that's for sure

I must agree that the first half was pretty good on english side, especially the first say 20 minutes. But your midfield was playing the ball around in that part of the match, which they didn't do anymore in the 2th half. They were throwing long balls towards Owen .. mm that doesn't seem a good tactic. That way you stay under pressure of course. And owen was kinda invisible yeah, he didn't seem sharp to me, he got a half-chance in the beginning of the match which gallas (sp?) easily defended, a top michael owen would have scored it, or at least would have gotten a shot on goal.
On the english midfield: i think you have a pretty decent midfield (they showed it in the first half with a good ballcirculation), but what might have been a problem is that it wasn't very balanced: if you look at the players in the midfield you had 4 offensive minded midfielders which is good if you need to score a goal obviously, but if under pressure you need someone who can plug all the holes, recuperate the ball and deliver it to beckham for instance who launches a quick counterattack, now they all retreated to do their defensive job at the cost of the offense.
Dunno when the substitutions came, but maybe the coach should have substituted one of his midfielders for a more defensive minded one, or change michael owen for a type of player which can hold the ball and win duels in the air if they wanted to keep playing the long ball.

Btw i didn't see zidane play a great match, he didn't find the opening, but at the decisive moment he took the ball and scored .. beckham didn't, that's the main difference in the match to me.

Oh and Rooney was good imo, revelation of the match was King to me, never heard of the guy (don't follow premier league that close) but he played outstanding.

Can't wait for Holland-Germany Anyway, saw Italy today, boring as hell. Sweden-Bulgaria better be good...I think it will. Sweden has Ibrahimovic, prolly one of the most talented players in Europe when it comes to pure skill, and Bulgaria has a whole load of young talented dudes.

Heh, Italy is always boring. I'm afraid Holland-Germany will be boring too, Germany is prolly gonna build a brick wall around their penalty area.

That was a very nice match tonight, lotsa action.
Although I must say the result was a little off the mark, 5-2 would have been better.

Hehe...yeah. Too bad they fished up that dork larsson, but blah. At least Ibrahimovic owned the match. Feeling the tension rise for the big clash tomorrow Arathorn?

Not really. I know winning is necesarry, because if we don't win from Germany we won't win from the Checks either, and then we're out.
But I think the tension will start only a few minutes before the match.

Is this about soccer again? *ducks*