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Only 11 days left and counting until euro 2004!! Everyone in england is getting all hyped up for it. Who do you think is gonna have a good chance this year?

(sorry i couldn't fit every team in the poll >.&lt

Erm...Czech Republic deserves more to be there than Switzerland or Russia...

I voted Portugal, for all the other usual big teams have been unable to play really well recently.

I for one am just dying to get the party started !

still have to place the bets, but my bet would be Portugal-France in the final (if it's possible)

i was jus wunderin.. who everyone's gonna be goin for this year.. i think everyone knows my answer..

The French or The English, tho I wouldn't mind seeing the Italians win it

England, although there are around 9 other teams I would say have as good a chance with France and Portugal the hosts topping the list.

~


Thanks, but Portugal have been unable to play weel too

I hope you are right GP, but I think France has better chances to win.

And Czech R. has a big solid team. They are playing for the semi finals at least.

I voted England, dunno why

You missed Belgium off the list, oh wait they're not in it and you've gotta be in it to win it

It is possible, but it is possible in the quarter finals too. I hope not

Sorry, but England has no chance in winning. Im all for Italia!

what a cheap shot

was especially for you and Yerss. I would have said Norway to get at finti except that he never comes here much anymore.

I don't mind at all Corran, if we would have made it, I would be upset that such a sucky team could make it in

Im obviously hoping that England will win it, although I really think that spain have a good chance of winning it this year. If england get knocked out I'll be beting on spain to win it.

i'll bet italy if not, then i'd go with germany

England 6 - Iceland 1 in the friendly warm up match

Theres a bit of hope for us!! (england are gonna be so crap this year -.-)

2 goals for Roonaldo too.

i wasnt confident of england of winning the world cup two years ago but now i am very much confident and excited..the team we have got is superb and has got the ability to win it...but so has france, czech, portugal, spain, italy and holland.....
england will have a good chance of beating france if they played like they did against ukraine..
CMON ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!

I doubt that france will do very well, considering their performance in the world cup ( they scored no goals and came last in their group ).


I really think that england should do well this year, and spain are looking good as well.

why are all the government peeps telling everyone to take the england flags off of their cars?

france

It will be France or England. I voted for France

its bloody england i tell ya...cant u understand what im sayin, cor blimey!!!

hopefully this euro won't be another World Cup 2002, coz that was a disaster for all of us besides brasil (who i beileve cheated)

i think italy will go into final, with england (who are my second choice to win euro and i'm hoping will win to france sunday)

Go Italy! Im for Italy all the way....my second choice is France or Spain!

w00t!

think we should make an official 2004, after seeing the opening game I think Portugal gave it away against Greece, if anyone is to blame in that game is Portugal itself, C. Ronaldo was IMO the best player on the pitch (too bad he made that stupid penalty fault)

quite a disappointing Portugal... their goal was typical: Figo and Ronaldo... they either ignored the others or demanded the ball
very disappointed in Figo's behavior of ignoring Deco

I wasn't that displeased with Ronaldo

I live in the US, so it's hard to watch them, but Euro 2004 and The World Cup are great. I watched most of the opening match... Portugal was disapointing.

Yeah, we dont get American sports here much...England is mostly conserned about...well....England

Spain VS Russia wasn't bad.

I hope England VS France will be a good one today

damnit, didn't saw Spain-Russia much, studied and hope to finish on time for the following two

Portugal was disappointing yesterday, the spain v russia match was brill though Spain were the better side and deserved the win

England v France today!! COME ON ENGLAND!!!!!

Always the same stupidity. Lets see if Portugal plays better next game with Deco replacing Rui Costa and with no fear of playing with one more center forward next to the striker Pauleta. If not it will be very difficult to score.
How it is possible to left Karagounis run 10 meters all alone with time to shoot? The Greeks played well as they played against Spain in the qualifications when they won 0-1 away.

bleh..disappointing opening match...
portugal is one of my favourites...

hope to see a good match betwen england and france tonight..in a coupl of minutes, even.
though i don't know who i like best....i kinda like neither.

disappointed in Romania not making it huh

i'm backing england, cos I'm english

those poor englishmen

heck yeah i;m disappointed....and it's all cuz of that freakin refferee (sp.)

first half 1-0 for england, so far

my money was on France to win, but by the looks of today's match....

O______O
OMFGOMFGOMFG!!!

I CANT BELIEVE IT! did u see the match???? OMFG!!! *faints*

crybaby

shitty beckham and james

****ing beckham hes a dick

SHITTY OWEN MORE LIKE!!! and beckam, stoopid *******

we were destined to lose.... henry, zidane, trezeguet, veira.... who do we have?

ROONEY!!!!

rooney was a bit too agressive but no matter....it seems he wasnt agressive enough *sob*

I can't believe it...How's it possible ? Becks and Campbell played really well (I saw the last 40 mins).

When the French team begins to play like that, with so much luck (1 penalty stopped, 1 free kick and a penalty from Zidane in 3 mins in the additionnal time) I think that's a strong sign.

It reminds me of the '98 World Cup when in Semi final the Right Defender Thuram scored twice against Croatia ( these are the only 2 goals he has ever scored with the national team so far)...

Yep. A bit luck for France with that awful pass from Gerard to James. France deserved to win. And Beckham misses a penalty again. And great free kick from Zidane.

Nice game and comparing to Switz-Croatia - the worst game till now - I thing England squad will not have any difficult to get the second place in the group. But...

Lisbon is full of sad english fans shock

yay France I wuv it when a bet is made correctly

boy now THAT was a game...least expected result byt the end of the macth. wow..great show

IMO it wasn't France winning from England it was ZIDANE winning from England

Great game.. very tense... well..I can afford to say this, since I'm not a fan of either team...

France didn't play too great, England was better on the whole, though there were some moments when France controlled the game.

I think we might see Italy France England and Spain in the semifinals, if no great upsets occur..

neah i doubt spain.
maybe germany

are you serious???? England played real catannachio! with 10 behind the ball
they got what they deserved for ruining the game: they deserved to lose

yup...that rooney (sp).....talk about agressive.
i loved bartez smacking the ball with his face ...funny

You can't blame single members like that.

England for 90 minutes saw that France were constantly finding single opportunities and counter-attacking. For 90 whole minutes they did this.

We had a goal, we won, we knew there was nothing they could do. We were lazy and complacent by the 90th minute.

How stupid was that? You never let your guard down to a team that has been counter-attacking for the whole bloody match!

No worries. Even though it was a bummer to kick it off on, I'm sure France and England will be going through anyway, and hopefully that one match proved what weaknesses are in their armour and they can strive to mend themselves before it gets serious.

There's no need to get all outraged over it, people who start saying "Gerrard should be shot" and "Owen is rubbish" should be ashamed of themselves. I only hope the likes of Beckham, Owen and Gerrard pull something amazing out of the bag in the upcoming matches just to shut the so-called football experts up. Experts my arse.

Besides, England also lost their first qualifier match in 1966, which is encouraging.

like.... woah

Greece have some 56 year old keep and Portugal have like.... everyone (including the "fake" Ronaldo)

anyone here care to explain how the hell they lost 2-1?

they couldn't handle the pressure is one reason according to me
another is that FIGO needs to learn that Soccer is a TEAM sport.

nice prediction

I think so...this is some kind of 'default answer'

Seriously I think that the Portuguese team has a good team (especially very good offensive players: Figo, Rui Costa, even Cristiano Ronaldo can do something), and not-so-good defenders ( but that isn't a problem, for this year no national team has a very good defence...).
Most important thing: they're playing at home.

After that I think that obviously France (despite of its defenders), England (despite its unability to make all its excellent players do well at the same time), have a chance...

i say france are gonna win if england ****s up

The same way you can explain the Greeks ended up 1st of their group with 6 victories (better than Spain) : good tacticians, realism (I don't know if the word also has this meaning in English : comparison between the number of goals scored and the number of shots/occasions), solidity.

I think they use effecitiency in english G.P

Now Germany VS Holland was a fair game germany dominated the first half Holland the second, germans thought they would be safe with their 1-0 lead, but in the end Van Nistelrooy did score. making it a tie.
I really dont get the dutch team I mean they have 4 very decent strikers and they always start off with just 1, very weird.

that was a nice game ...
looking forward to Greece-Spain...or Spain-Greece? oh well, cheering for the underdog cause they played a fair game against Portugal... and their keeper is droolilicious

YEAH! go Greece! 1-1!

portugal russia 1:0 (but it was some time ago)
and i know that russian goal keeper got red yyhhmm.. card (?)

why there is no denmark on th poll?

Because you can only put 10 choices in it and there are 16 teams...

3-0 to england !!!!!

Swiss played well...It didn't deserve such a result, it lacks a good forward (Alexander Frei was far badder than he usually is).

Owen was transparent, again.

England owes this large victory to the red card...before it the English team have had difficulty controlling the game...

France-Croatia tonight !

yeah! go France! Beat the ******* out of stupid Croatia!

ah shucks, they only got as far as a draw and got lucky on Mornar's shot late in the game ...and that light penalty etc etc etc

so ... all in all, happy that Croatia only got one point out of this ... I hope they lose their last game with 5-0 and that Prso brakes his leg

Its an open group, that's cool.

France played badly tonight, and proved again that it wasn't able to score during the game...The players were lucky. Zidane had shaved his head. This is the second penalty kick caused by Mickael Silvestre...What the hell is Desailly doing here ?

Croatia didn't play very well either...

This is definitely a boring Euro so far...

yeah! I instantly noticed less hair on Zidane

LOL
The Spanish have started the psychological game! The ref for Portugal vs Spain is the same that ripped them off in Korea so since Portugal is the host they are saying he'll steal for us. So far Portugal hasnt been help at all. 2 penalties that were "missed" by the refs. Unless you count that Ovchinicov (sp) thing, but thats really hard to tell. Sometimes it looks like he touches with his hand others it doesnt

...

what a GORGEOUS goal of ibrahimovic!!!! with the heel!

Bah! We will win And if we lose we always have the excuse of a robber

Italy 1 - 1 Sweden

Great game ! Two good teams giving all they have. Some very good moments. Isaksson was rather good. Amazing goal from Ibrahimovic. At last a good game ; I was beginning to lose faith...

Ibrahimovic is a very good player. A bit of luck at the goal but Sweden deserved it. And Buffon is amazing. I hope Sweden and Danmark get the qualification

yeah, it's ranked as the best till now at the show we have

it was indeed a good game

I didnt see it but according to my dad Italy started putting defenders at like 15m of the 2nd half or something like that. Pathetic!
Indeed that is so far the best goal!

hope the holland game tonight will be any good

So your hatred for Italy is a family feature...

HAHAHA!!!
holland looses!!!

3:2 for Czech rep.

Holland 2 - 3 Czech Republic !!!
Didn't see the game, but it confirm all the good things I thought about the Czech Republic. It's definitely one of the teams that are the most likely to reach the final...

(and they r not in the poll )

i've seen a goal!!!

Indeed, that the first thing I noticed when I first saw this thread...
I heard that's tonight's games was really fantastic...

it was. at least the part i've seen, what would be last 15 minuts with two goals

Great Czech R.
Holland is in serious trouble to pass now.

you quoted yourself?

yeah, terrific game, and those annoying cheeseheads didn't win
one of the best game this far I think

Yup, for I think not enough people are aware that I'm smartass.

Not Italy, Italian football. I happen to like the players, like Nesta, Del Piero, Totti....LOL

Yeh, didnt see the game but my dad says it was great. Czech Republic have always been good. They are quite strong and apparently quite good at turning the game around.

you're right... I am still not convinced

hope portugal-spain will be ace

they r showing everywhere spain-portugal.
or there is a possibility to see both matches on today?

if you have two tv's, the games are on at the same time

Portugal 1- Spain 0 so far

Nuno Gomes just scored in 57th minute, come on portugal!!

final score, Portugal 1- Spain 0

Portugal are through to the quarter finals with Greece

Only the 7th time portugal have beaten Spain

Bah! In the last forty years we won more times than them

WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!drunk hoover band

GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECE!!
WOOOHOOO

nooooo.......spaaaaaaaaain weep

Russia 2 - Greece 1

Russia scored the quickest goal in european history, 1 minute 30 seconds into the game i think, scored by Gusev (sp?)

Yp Those greeks

Thanks for your congratulations Yers

wait, it was Kirichenko who scored, sorry

Yesssssss.........spaaaaaaaaain. They just need to take the freeway. Its only five hours far from Madrid

Sorry..I am happy

YAY for portugal!!!! I didn't want them to go out

And Ricardo Carvalho is superb!!!! A perfevt twin for Nesta as DC

shuss cor, greece deserved it, portugal didn't

i wanted portugal and spain to get on....but mainly spain.......*sniffsniff*

Thanks

Sporting C.P. stadium gave us luck

Bah. That first game was awfuk for Portugal, but I am sure it would not happen again.

I hoped it wouldn't happen again... that portugal would be knocked off

But it was not. Actually Portugal knocked off Spain. With a bit of luck in that shot at the post from Fernando Torres. But did it

rather spain then portugal

spain was pathetic.
i'm glad portugal won, they were better.

England Croatia tonight!!!!

Portugal - England and France - Greece at he quarter finals

WOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! ENGLAND 4 - CROATIA 2!!!!

ENGLAND v PORTUGAL IN THE QUARTER FINALS!!!!

France 3 - Switzerland 1

France v Greece in the quarter final

Wayne Rooney i love you!!!!!!!!!

we got no chance of winning unless we sort out our defence during dead-ball situations, its pathetic....all our goals have been conceded during corners or free-kicks i think, its not like our defence is small either..some tall people in there, just completely disorganised.

and Sven needs to sort out his random substitutions....taking Rooney and Scholes (our 2 best players at the time) off 30mins before the end of a really important game was ridiculous... it gave their defence breathing space which allowed them to counterattack and almost made us lose our 3-1 lead ><

Well, almost all the goals France scored happened during dead-ball situtation... That's concerning.

Wow what crazy few days! LOL
Well there goes Spain LOL It feels even better because it was them. Again I couldnt see the game but according to every god damn paper Portugals first 30m were awesome. Spain was all pushed back. To bad Pauleta is playing like crap. If Scolari had put Nuno Gomes from the beginning things might have been easier!
Now its England, truthfully I think England is easier then Spain. That however does not mean we'll win. Rooney is playing quite well, well doing his job which is scoring. Hopefully Ricardo Carvalho and Jorge Andrade can stop him. Thank god Pauleta saw the 2nd yellow card. Nuno Gomes from the beginning!!!
Wonder if Italy will pass?! They are all worried Sweden and Denmark made a pact (sp) LOL

i do think Portugal have a good chance of knocking us out.
but we have a really good defence (except for set pieces, and portugal arent a very arial team) so will be tough for you to score, but it'll be tough for us to make counterattacks because i think we'll be under constant pressure.....England are all about the fundamentals, and i think Portugal will try to hurry the game which could cause problems for us....but i think we'll pile on the pressure in the last 20 or so minutes when Portugal have run themselves ragged, whever or not we'll win i dunno....all depends on the first 20mins of the game imo, whoever comes out on top then will win imo

cause it shows more the individual talent, no?

No, for it proves that the French players are uncapable of creating any occasion to score...that they are unable to play offensively and efficiently. Plus they're not perfectly efficient when they defend (4 goals in three games, but 3 out of 4 were provoked by Mickael Silvestre (2 penalties and a mistake against Switzerland that caused the goal))

So I think Greece has a serious chance to win this game...

well, you got a good point about the terrible efforts of Silvestre and (forgot his name, the geezer with over 100 caps who couldn't hit a ball, resulting in a goal)

I hope so But I dont believe it. France will win. Only if France play so bad as Portugal played agaisnt Greece. But I think France will start to play better now.

I agree

As Kes wrote: Our defensive is playing well and I think Ricardo Carvalho and Jorge Andrade can stop Owen and Rooney easily if the portuguese midfield line works well.

The problem may be the defensive task of midfield players.

I hope Maniche and Costinha dont forget that. Scolari can always put Petit
But Miguel attacks better then he defends and Nuno Valente defends better then he attack They are going to have a really hard time stoping Pires!
So far the French have been really lucky. But Greece proved against Spain and Russia that it is not a good team. And they lost their concentration. If they get it back and start defending well making no mistakes, and fouls near the area, the French will lose. Greece doesnt need consecutive mistakes to score.

Y'know, Portuguese exhortations that their defence can 'easily' handle the tournament's top scorers so far might sound a little better had they not lost to Greece... I am damn sure if England lose it will be for good solid English reasons- being totally crap at inopportune moments- rather than a problem with our offensive edge. England has always been talented- but rarely TOP talented- but fired mainly by passion, enough to give even an Italian a headache, but very uneven against French finesse and, once upon a time, German efficiency, before they caught 'crap play' disease as well, probably from us.

Heck, you only have to look at the last Euro tournament to see how quickly England can self-destruct if we put our mind to it- up solidly against Portugal and Romania, threw it away to both (and we didn't even care, because we beat the Germans and they went out even worse than we did. Hahahah...). Did it for an encore with the French this year; in fact, before this year England had only won five Euro tournament matches ever, and nearly all of those were at home in '96. Pretty appalling really. In '88, in the middle of the Lineker era (the only consistently top class Hall of Fame player we have had in the last twenty years), when we had only been stopped in the '86 World Cup by cheating Argentinians, when we took it all the way to the semis in World '90... we lost every single damn game in Euro '88. So we're looking to shake the Euro curse right now, but you never can tell what England is going to do on the field.

Oh, and we doubly want to stuff a Scolari trained team, of course. Sodding Brazil... A shame, though, because we've always got on well with Portugal and if only the French had had the decency to stay at 1-1 we would have been far happier playing Greece. I can't remember the last time we played a host nation in a Tournament but no-one ever wants to do it.

Some neat press reaction from the recent games, though. Spain- who, if anything, have an even worse tournament record than England- are not happy.

"Another failure... the same as ever...

...this time there was no glory, not even dignity, nothing to cling on to, not even to good play or bad luck... this time we deserved everything that happened to us. Spain have failed again, and this time without an ounce of anything."

Gloomy stuff. Mind you, the Portuguese were pretty gloomy too at the start of the tournament- all was doom and gloom, which as the Telegraph said today, two products in which Portugal can fairly claim to be World leader, from the Fado onwards. One fan after the Greek match said he was switching sides to England.

"At least you have a coach who picks the best players. Scolari cannot even pick his own nose."

I guess he is keeping quiet now...

The Greeks are giving out fighting talk, however.

"We are not France who can win on command; we are not England who translate passion into kerosene on the pitch; we do not have Germany's ability to stay cool. We are the Euro-kamikazes... just imagine, even the defeat yesterday tasted like champagne."

So, err, kamikaze squadron coming your way, France. Hmmm... Mind you, someone should remind that guy that they score more goals than Germany...

Most amusing right now, however, are the Dutch, who are so convinced they are going out, some fans have bought their team's coach a one way ticket out of Portugal- to Belgium.

damnit, they're playing Italy-Bulgaria now, I wanted to see Sweden-Denmark... cause sweden up till now always had entertaining games

I am afraid Portugal is better in self-destruction

They really dont like Belgium

Italy 1 - Bulgaria 1 60'

Italy has 30' to score 2 goals or will be out. And they are trying.

Nice game

DESAILLY He refuses to retire !!!

not really, they're just to cheap to buy him a ticket to their own country

on the other hand, we gave them an official press release saying they should keep their own crap at their country
we dumb our weed-addicts into holland; they shouldn't dump their lousy coaches in belgium

I see. Its yours contribution to Holland economics. But so its not a fair trade between you and them. They are winning with the deal. I cannot see how Advocaat can help Belgium to play better

that should have been "we don't dumb..."
well, how about we actually WIN next time

Oh HECK.

That is REALLY poor luck for Italy.

And with Italy's departure, that is a five-botes team gone. Spain at 3 votes already gone, one way or anoither Germany or Holland are going tomorrow... I think it is only Portugal going through, which was close, that is preventing this being a bookies nightmare.

GP said italy is out

go greece! go denmark! go underdog!
bbye spain and italy, now hopefully germany will follow

I think that has to be the least fortunate tournament exit I ever saw. Italy have certainly set a points record for elimination, having not actually lost a game.

Sweden/Denmark 2-2!! guess what the Italian papers will be writing tomorrow ...

Line! you're through! just like I said

yeah, those italians will rather talk about how they got screwed over in it, instead of the iltalians lack of actualy WINNING a game... draws are not important in this game, wins are

I must read italian newspapers tomorrow

But the Italians did win a game. It's harsh, however you look at it.