We’re now at the final. The first semi-final was effectively decided in the first 25 minutes. Great equaliser from the youngster and from then on France could never really get back into the match. They’re favourites to win a record 4th title and to win all seven matches would be a fine achievement. Though Spain do like to spend a lot of time rolling around on the floor pretending to be injured. All the teams do it to a greater or lesser extent, but they’re the worst offenders. Needless to say, you don’t see it in any other sport.
Well, lo and behold the real England turned up. First of all, they’re only joint favourites because bookmakers tend to shorten the odds for England as an insurance against losing millions. I thought conceding an early goal did England a favour, they were far more fluent and the Dutch were fortunate to be still in the match by half-time. And a winner worthy of Van Basten too. Tournament football is about getting through four one-off knockout matches. If you play badly and win, or have a bit of luck along the way, then all the better.
In terms of quality - with Euro 2000 the best and Euro '80 the worst - I’d say this has been a fair to middling tournament. It should revert back to 16 teams, much the same way the World Cup should remain at 32 teams, but that’s not going to happen.
My staying away from watching this competition (except in highlights) seems to be paying off for England so I won’t be watching the final either. Less stress for me, more success for them. It’s a win win!
Better with 32 than the actual system with 24. The first round with only 8 teams eliminated after 36 matches (!) is a laugh. But 16 was ideal, I guess they went to 24 for commercial reasons, and maybe also to give smaller teams like Georgia or Slovenia a chance to participate.
In two years we’ll have a world cup with 48 teams, God help us all.
Lots of discussions here about the penalty for England and a couple of other decisions by the referee.
I also had the idea that the guy was biased and that most of his decisions were in favor of England.
But that’s football. On the internet I saw many people referring to what happened in a Holland - England game in 1993. Our coach, Ronald Koeman, then a player of course, was not given a red card after a cynical foul on David Platt. Minutes later he scored a goal and we went to the World Cup (and England was eliminated).
That’s football also. Mistakes are made, by the players, and by the referees as well. Let’s say that we were lucky in 1993 with some of the decisions made by the ref, and England was lucky yesterday night.
Anyway, we can talk about it for hours, days, weeks or even decades, that won’t change anything.
I wish England all the luck in the final.
A 32-team Euro won’t happen. It would wreck the qualifiers. Which is pretty much what FIFA have done to the South American 2026 World Cup round-robin qualifiers (a probable 7 out of 10 will qualify).
And the Germans discuss the possible hand penalty not given against Spain.
Despite all the new technology doubtful decisions still decide games and tournaments.
Football wold be much more attractive if the average amount of goals, which is since the 60s beneath 3, would be much higher. With an average of 6 - 8 goals wrong decisions and luck would be still a factor, but easier to correct.
Teams who dominate a phase of a game would be rewarded with goals, but yesterday England dominated the first half, but they did not make 1 or 2 more goals.
I assume in handball the dominating teams win the game usually, not in football.
And here too. Of course all English people are happy with the decision. But the discussion still goes on. Roy Keane, who is a pundit here, (although not an Englishman) said something like “anywhere else on the field it’s a foul but I don’t think it should be a penalty”. I can’t see this argument. If it’s a foul on the halfway line it’s a foul in the box. But the truth is that is not usually the way things are refereed. And so we get these discussions. Even when something is completely clear cut and without doubt like Geoff Hurst’s second goal in the 1966 final.
With great pleasure of the outcome etc I had watched Spain’s all other games before the final, but I almost totally forgot this one while concentrating on a digitally summing-up of all my over 700 running races statistics from my own different handwritten sources including several heavy files with training diaries and from race results from newspapers and organizers.
However I was lucky enough to watch the last 10 minutes or so of the game with the very nice second Spanish goal. I think I “visually” prefer the original Spanish extreme tiqui-taca style 2010-2012, but this edition of the Spanish team maybe is even more efficient and imaginative while still keeping some tiqui-taca elements to a reasonable extent.
I am no great football fan but on an international championchip level it can be very entertaining.
