Euro 2008: Official Thread

[ccbrew]

tigerbrew - Thanks for the tip. I had put some thought into West Ham, as well as the Tottenham Spurs. Although I have my heart set on Fulham as 'my team' at this point, in all honestly I'll probably try to catch as many games in as many venues as possible while I'm out here.

 

Bringing the conversation back to Euro..wow, what a game tonight. The first goal by van Nistelroy was puzzling, but the other two were nothing short of brilliant. Two end-to-end goals, both coming off of spectacular saves.

 

No need for me to write anything about France-Romania..yawn.

[utdfan]

As far as the van Nistelroy goal, I think he was actually on sides. As they said near the end of the broadcast, the player that was out of bounds past the endline was still part of the play and therefore keeping him onsides. It was confusing at the time but I think they ended up getting it right. Either way it was a great display of offense by the Dutch and I hope at some point they are matched up against Portugal. Watching those two teams run end to end for 90 minutes would be great.

 

On a side note, I am surprised with the level of quality ESPN has brought to cover the tournament. The addition of Andy Gray, as well as sticking with their other European born commentators durring the game has made it much better than the world cup coverage.

[bacon06]

With the defender laying out of bounds, he isn't on the field of play, therefore, he is not the last defender. If the situation were on the offensive end, offensive players are able to step out of bounds to avoid being offsides, so the same rule applies for defenders.

[blatzlight]

i am fairly certain the rule of going off the pitch to avoid offsides only applies to offensive players or else defensive players could just step off the pitch to set an offsides trap.

[brewers19]

Been waiting patiently for four years for this thing to come around again, and hopefully the Czechs improve upon their performance last time around. Baroš won't come anywhere near his previous performance and it'll certainly be more difficult without Nedv?d, Poborský, and Rosický, but ?ech and Koller are fairly dominating in their own right. I'm excited.

 

And for what it's worth, this event deserves an 'official' thread.

[M Skjellyfetti]

offensive players are able to step out of bounds to avoid being offsides

Correct, but I believe in that case it has more to do with them not being involved in the play than with them being out of bounds.

[TooLiveBrew]

And for what it's worth, this event deserves an 'official' thread.

 

 

Take your silly squigglies & vowels and start one then! I'm glad this thread has exposed the flamboyant & closeted football fans. One bonus of ESPN for me is that they replay matches late-night (or west-coast night). I have no allegiance aside from the US -- I try to pull for Ireland & sometimes Germany. I just like watching the best players in the world play. It's like the Olympics of football to me, and it's great.

[utdfan]

I just read this article on the offsides play.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A37087842

After seeing this I decided to look at the rule. As the guy quoted in the article says, an attacker can't be offsides if one of the last two defenders leaves the field. But the rule also states that this must be a deliberate act, and a defender that does this should be shown a yellow card. Since the Italian defender was forced off, I don't think he did it on purpose and therefore offsides should probably have been called. As much as I love to hate referees, Its plays like these that make you appreciate the difficulty of their jobs.

[owbc]

I've also been watching. I never really cared about international soccer until the 2006 World Cup, but I always enjoy the excitement surrounding the games and the high quality of play compared with what we are usually exposed to in America.

 

That being said, just listening to what Derek Rae and especially Tommy Smyth have to say makes it worth watching. It's fun to try and figure out their random metaphors.

[kalle8]

hope that italy can win both games (romania and france) and qualify but:

 

these are the causes of yesterday debacle:

 

1) materazzi

he's done. forget the warrior of 2006, he should quit. he had an awful season with inter (missing the penalty that could give inter the championship, among other things)

the best two italian defenders defenders are not playing: nesta decided his story with the azzurri was done, cannavaro sprained his ankle.

chiellini (juventus) should get a chance.

 

2) donadoni: he was a terrific player, played under sacchi, capello etc. but he trained livorno (6 months and then he was fired!) and that is for his coaching career. he was choosen because he was the only italian trainer free at the time.

 

3) milan midfield: ambrosini/pirlo/gattuso the whole ac milan midfield that couldn't qualified their club for the next champions league. they are good players but the climax of their career is in the past. where was de rossi (bench) and perrotta (maybe antigua...)

 

4) camoranesi: no need to play a guy from argentina when there are 100 real italians who are better players (cassano and del piero are far better and ready to go).

 

edit: dozen of spelling errors..more to come!

[SeriesFinale]

I'm already chomping at the bit for the potential Netherlands-Spain match

 

France and Italy seem like birds of a feather: older than the hills in some aspects and some questionable choices for the squad by the coaches (would've liked to have seen Trezegeut for France...would've made them even older of course but he's been pretty good the last couple years still and Gomis doesn't seem to be the answer yet)

 

Should be a good one with them next Tuesday, winner take all I'd imagine

[TooLiveBrew]

The Dutch sure are fun to watch. No defense whatsoever, but man can they score.


http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/c/c7/Goldmember3.jpg


"There are only two things I can't stand in this world: Those who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the Dutch"

[ccbrew]

The boring backfield play of the Greeks is only justifiable when they're successful..otherwise it really is brutal to watch, as exhibited in the game tonight.

[utdfan]

Now that the every group has had their first games, A few things are evident:

 

1) Offense has been prevalent. With only one draw so far it seems that teams are not siting back playing cautiosly and waiting for their chance. And the teams that do (Italy and France) are not getting the results. As a neutral fan this makes it much more enjoyable to watch.

 

2)Age. The teams with a majority of younger players and maybe a few older players to lead are playing much better. Teams with the opposite (again Italy and France) are not playing well.

 

I know its still early and anything can happen but if Italy and France don't make changes I could see Romania sneeking through. Also, I am hoping for a Holland vs. Portugal Final.

[ccbrew]

If you're not already watching Netherlands-France..tune in! Heck of a game going on.

[NastyTwig]

Anyone who doesn't "get" soccer/football needs to watch the Netherlands. Easily the most fun team I've seen play this year (Arsenal is great too when they're really clicking). Would love to see them throw the game against Romania just to get rid of both Italy and France.

 

Much respect to ESPN for the great coverage of all the games so far. Really think soccer would take off if a good chunk of the the country could consistantly see the best in the world duke it out rather than some MLS scrubs.

[M Skjellyfetti]

I have to bump this thread up to complain about the announcers yesterday. I think it might have been Andy Gray or whoever it was covering the Germany-Austria game really got on my nerves. The dude started going on a huge rant about the referee having a bad day for throwing out both coaches and he wouldn't stop berating or ridiculing the ref from his announcer booth. I think it seems pretty obvious that the referee had a reason to make the coaches leave, and it's also a pretty good chance that it was because of stuff they were saying. Because ESPN's announcer isn't on the field, he can't hear what's going on, so why in the heck should he be blatantly ripping into a world-class referee for something which he knows little to nothing about? I really can't stand the referee bashing that has been going on constantly throughout the tournament, but this in particular made me kind of angry. Get off your high horse, dude.

 

Back to the action, it's too bad the Dutch had to win today. It would have been nice to see France and Italy both leave early after how poorly they had been playing.

[utdfan]

I didn't get a chance to see the game live but I saw the highlights, and from what I saw the coaches did not deserve the sending off. In terms of Andy Gray, I have enjoyed listening to him during the tournament. His years playing in the EPL really show when it comes to his analysis of the game. There has been more than one occasion where he perfectly breaks down a play before seeing any replay. I feel like he knows perfectly when point out the mistakes made as well as the brilliant display of skills during the match. I don't know if you saw the Turkey-Czech game but it was great to both watch and listen too. I have no problem with the commentator speaking their mind about players or refs. And on the topic of the referees in the tournament, I can't remember seeing so many bad calls, especially offsides. It seems like every offsides called/not called has been wrong.

 

I still think that it will be Portugal vs. Holland in the final, but I would not be surprised if Turkey somehow pulls off an upset after the way they played in that second half the other day.

[Diskono]

Didn't see that game, but if the ref was Howard Webb, he deserves all the bashing he gets.

 

Otherwise, the refs have been pretty good IMO.

[M Skjellyfetti]

from what I saw the coaches did not deserve the sending off.

 

That's my point. Odds are pretty good that we're not going to see or hear what they did to warrant the sending off. What got to me was that Andy Gray didn't even bother to give the referee any benefit of the doubt there. These guys are the best at what they do, too, and it's pretty absurd to insinuate that he's throwing coaches out of the game without a right to do so according to the laws of the game. Yet that's what Andy Gray did for the rest of that half.

 

Other points:

I don't believe the ref was Howard Webb.

 

It's easy to get an extremely close offside call correct when you have that fancy axis spin technology thing that ESPN uses, and when you have a pause button.

[utdfan]

In my opinion, the comments made by a coach would need to be extreme (racist, life threatening, very inappropriate directed at a specific person) before being sent off. Since nothing like that has been reported, and it most likely would have, I still don't think they deserved the sending off.

 

It's easy to get an extremely close offside call correct when you have that fancy axis spin technology thing that ESPN uses, and when you have a pause button.

I am not talking about the extremely close ones, there have been many obvious one that you could tell were wrong in real speed. The problem seems to me that they are not always watching when the ball was kicked and all they see is a player a few steps ahead when they receive the ball.