(UEFA) Football Thread - Football not Soccer

[Jax]

Bent joins Terry on the injured list, which is a shame because this was his chance to nail down his place in the squad. Always bug me with English players we get so many injuries in training, never mind matches. Also Rio confirmed as Captain over Gerrard.

Well the team picks itself it seems...

Hart

G.Johnson Ferdinand Lescott Cole

A.Johnson Gerrard Barry Young

Rooney Crouch

Personally I would play Cahill over Lescott.

 

[Starkers]

Good the more games England play without Terry the easier it'll be to ease him out of the picture for somone better!

 

[Jax]

Lescott is not better though

Personally I think the long term succesor will be Phil Jones who at 18 is a regular for Blackburn and England U21's. He's never looked out of his depth despite his age and with Big Sam as his manager you know he will only become a better defender...If theres one thing Sam can do its organise his players especially his defenders.

Rio/Jagks/Jones/Cahill/Dawson/Shawcross/Smalling

Maybe even Roger Johnson whose been brilliant at Birmingham since he joined last year and Ciaran Clark from Villa, whose also in the U21's.

could be better but could be alot worse.

 

[Count Zero]

Because the German game against Kazakhstan started so early and is over already (3-0, hooray! Even Gomez scored ) they are now showing Scotland vs. Spain. I'm rooting for the Scots.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Ah, thanks, I almost forgot Austria's playing today too.

Nice goal by Arnautovic again just now. I haven't seen an Austrian footballer with such a skill level in a long time, if ever.

 

[Count Zero]

Wow, Scotland equalises after already being 2 goals behind. Great atmosphere in the stadium, too.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Hahaha. Belgium 4:4 Austria. Crazy fucking match.

 

[Count Zero]

Geez, it was 3-3 two minutes ago or so. Sounds like an entertaining game.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Yup, it was fun.

 

[Iasius]

Austria has pretty decent chances in group A now, especially with Turkey having lost in Azerbaijan earlier today.

Two or three points vs Turkey and things are looking very good.

Also, three points clear of Belgium now and if you end up tied, direct results count, so those four away goals could become important as well if you draw vs Belgium at home.

 

[Shaytan]

2-0 against Luxembourg over here. Ok, it's only Luxembourg but I'm starting to forget the last world cup. The new team is interesting

 

[Eyes]

Meh, sounds like a boring game for England, I didn't watch, but at least we didn't go the same way as Switzerland or Bulgaria to these Montenegro upstarts.

They are starting to worry me though. Coming from nowhere to top of our group is very worrying when they're supposed to be the worst team.

 

[Count Zero]

Austria has pretty decent chances in group A now, especially with Turkey having lost in Azerbaijan earlier today.

And Austria has one game less. Before the qualifying rounds started, I thought Turkey and Belgium were the co-contesters in this group, and now Austria has the best chances. It's still a long way to go, though.

ETA: Wow, due to violence and vandalism by the Serbian fans the game Italy vs. Serbia was aborted. Together with what happened during the gay pride parade in Belgrade on the weekend, way to go, Serbia.

 

[Jax]

Capello the guy with no plan B and only half a plan A...

Even when we win he pisses me off half of the time so you can imagine what I feel about him, his tactics and some of the players after that game. Lets start with how he refuses to let Gerrard loose and infact for the last 20 minutes had him playing deeper than Barry, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME.

We couldn't break them down we needed to create space no the wing and a way to do that was to go 5 in midfield to draw more of their players into the centre but no he kept the same 4-4-2 for all 90 mins. He didn't even try to switch Young/Johnson around at times to confuse the full backs.

70 odd minutes to make a sub and this is why we have strikers like Owen in England becasue when there is little space you need someone like him to find it but Capello refuses to pick him but pick SWP who does not play for MAN CITY. Also why was Wilshire yanked from the U21's ? to sit on a bench

Hart - 6
G. Johnson - 5
Ferdinand - 6
Lescott - 6
Cole - 6
A.Johnson - 6
Barry - 5
Gerrard - 6
Young - 5
Rooney - 5
Crouch - 4

Thats how bad we were fucking digusting.

 

[Starkers]

Well didn't see the game but 0-0 doesn't strike me as a terrible result against a team who are obviously incredibly well diciplined and, lets not forget, have beaten their last three opponants is it? Evil Eyes, I'm not too worried about Montenegro, they seem to be a team based on a hard to break down defence more than anything, and even the games they've won have been by a single goal, so if nothing else we should be able to outscore them in the group overall. They might be a good bet for second place though.

And Jax, come on and calm down the hyperbole. 0-0 result against an inform team isn't fucking disgusting, getting hammered by Germany is disgusting! This doesn't even come close. Dissapointing perhaps but we didn't lose.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Well, Montenegro is not the push-over team people may think it is just because it's a small country and only a member of UEFA since a couple years and all that; I actually think they have a good chance of qualifying for the Euro (I'd rate them higher than Switzerland anyway). But it can't be England's standard to get a draw at home against teams like that either, not if you ever want to win anything again.

 

[Jax]

And Jax, come on and calm down the hyperbole. 0-0 result against an inform team isn't fucking disgusting, getting hammered by Germany is disgusting! This doesn't even come close. Dissapointing perhaps but we didn't lose.

Am sick of Fabio with his rigid, slow, boring 4-4-2 and bringing in the likes of SWP who has never been good enough for England. He refuses to drop people who don't play well, he refuses to change. We are a top 8 team in the world and to not beat Montenegro at home is dissapointing but the way we played and how Fabio refused to shake things up when he saw it wasn't working is digusting.

Capello has the midfield so deep, Gerrard and Barry may of well be centre backs and RIO/Lescott looked so afraid to push up the defence, it makes Capello look scared to attack. Fabio CV and paycheck means he has NO excuse, we managed about 4 shots in the entire game with any meaning, shocking, awful and appauling are more than ample words.

 

[Eyes]

Well didn't see the game but 0-0 doesn't strike me as a terrible result against a team who are obviously incredibly well diciplined and, lets not forget, have beaten their last three opponants is it? Evil Eyes, I'm not too worried about Montenegro, they seem to be a team based on a hard to break down defence more than anything, and even the games they've won have been by a single goal, so if nothing else we should be able to outscore them in the group overall. They might be a good bet for second place though.

The only thing is, if they are so disciplined, we're going to have to watch our step. If they don't make any mistakes in their other games, which seems likely considering they've already played half their games, and we drop any points in our other games, we're going to the playoffs, which is always nervy. At the moment, I can't see anything other than us and Montenegro in the group getting through.

 

[Starkers]

And Jax, come on and calm down the hyperbole. 0-0 result against an inform team isn't fucking disgusting, getting hammered by Germany is disgusting! This doesn't even come close. Dissapointing perhaps but we didn't lose.

Am sick of Fabio with his rigid, slow, boring 4-4-2 and bringing in the likes of SWP who has never been good enough for England. He refuses to drop people who don't play well, he refuses to change. We are a top 8 team in the world and to not beat Montenegro at home is dissapointing but the way we played and how Fabio refused to shake things up when he saw it wasn't working is digusting.

Capello has the midfield so deep, Gerrard and Barry may of well be centre backs and RIO/Lescott looked so afraid to push up the defence, it makes Capello look scared to attack. Fabio CV and paycheck means he has NO excuse, we managed about 4 shots in the entire game with any meaning, shocking, awful and appauling are more than ample words.

Well I didn't watch the game so its probably unfair for me to comment really, but it strikes me that Montenegro are a well diciplined side who rely on nicking the odd goal and winning 1-0 so there was no doubt some caution in our play knowing this. Also judging from the bench Capello didn't have a lot of options to change things round (I know he picks the bench but injuries did dent our attacking options)

 

[Angel4576]

Montenegro played well, very well in fact, particularly in defence, and were unlucky not to snatch a winner when they thundered one onto the bar with a few minutes to play. That being said, when we upped our tempo we sliced through their defence at will, just couldn't get a clear effort in most of the time, and when we did, their keeper was inspired, particularly in the second half.

I still maintain that there are certain players that should not, all things being equal, be anywhere near the England squad, and are only really there because we're so devoid of talent in those areas; namely, SWP, Barry and Glen Johnson, all of whom were awful. Again.

We'll still cruise through the group. Montenegro won't beat us over there. If they try then they'll leave gaps. I can't see them stopping us again. Plus, don't they still have to go to Switzerland? I can see them dropping points there, and potentially to Wales as well.

Wouldn't be England if we didn't have at least one blip through the campaign.