Official EURO2004 Thread

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Well done Holland. Another exciting game for the neutral fan. I'm enjoying this tournament thoroughly.

Althought it does seem a little unfair that these games keep getting decided by penalties. Can't they change the rules somehow to ensure more definite results in normal time?

 

@BOC

We got the tickets via the offical KNVB (dutch national soccer channel) and we were drawn at the first 'lottery' so the price of ticket wasn't so bad, about a hundred euros or a bit more (still a LOT of money)

About flying over there it's about 300 euros with Basiq Air, which makes frequent flights over there since a few years. Oh...and I'm staying for a few days more, who knows maybe we hit the finals for which we have tickets also.

 

To get back one last time to the Sweden-Holland game....i've read an interview with the swedish coach, and he says it's always bitter to lose, especially if you lose to a lesser team. That reaction just had me in stitches, how can he sit there and claim such a thing with a straight face ? I've seen Sweden play all their groupmatches, and they played all of them pretty offensively. except against Holland they played from a tight defense, hoping on one or two decisive counters. If you suddenly switch your playstyle THAT drastically, it can only mean that the Swedish coaches were afraid of Holland. They played unSwedish, almost Italian for most of the match, so how can you claim you were the better team ? Sweden chose to hide and wait for that one opportunity, if you play like that you can never claim to be the better team. If you truly believe that, you're only fooling yourself.

And based on a ball on the crossbar and one on the post in the second half of overtime you can't claim to be the better team either, Holland had several chances to put the game away in regulation. So i'm sticking to my previous statement that neither one of the teams can claim to be the better side, they both played too poorly for that. Sweden refused to play their own style of play, mainly out of fear, and Holland couldn't take advantage of that because of bad tactical choices of the coach (again).

Which brings me back to a previous statement i made in this thread, which is that in football most of the time the team with the most luck wins. Neither one really deserved to win last night, but one has to go to the semi's, and Holland had Lady Luck on it's side this time. Anyone else still want to challenge the statement that luck isn't that much of a factor in football ?

 

I really doubt Söderberg or Lagerbäck called Holland the lesser team. That just aint their style, they tend to be very careful and diplomatic in what they say. He might have said that he thought Sweden had been better and judging by the players in the squads it was Sweden who played great and Holland who did not live up to the expectations.

Pac Man, funny you call a defending style unSwedish, it is as Swedish as it gets. The strenghts of the Swedish teams have always been the organisation, tactics, spirit and defence. This year we just happened to have a halfdecent attack to add to that.

 

I second joacqin's comment about the swedish coaches. They would never say that the Netherland team was a lesser team than the swedish.

I don't think Sweden changed playing style more than minimally.
It would have been nice to see a slightly more offensive strategy, but IMHO it's not fair to criticize the coaches for basing the strategy on their resources. The truth is that Sweden does not have more than a few really good players.
Not that having really good players is a guarantee for success.

 

Well, it was translated from something one of the coaches had said during a press conference, so if they translated it a little out of perspective, then i'm obviously not well informed.

And i know Sweden doesn't usually play TOO offensively, more based on the English style of play, with long balls from behind and stuff, but the way they started out this tournament, you can hardly say they had defensive intentions. And a team with Zlatan, Larsson AND Ljungberg, can hardly be described as a defensive team.

 

My first post in this thread.

I saw the last part of the replay late last night (didn't know the outcome yet). Quite entertaining. As a neutral (and relatively uninformed) observer, I was happy to see the Dutch win on penalties this time (as I understand they have not had much luck in the past).

Condolences to the many SP Swedish fans, though.

Edit: I find it amusing the way the announcers now seem to be referring to penalties kicked way over the net as "a Beckham". (Probably not so amusing for the Brits, though. )

Edit #2: why was sudden death overtime taken away? (Not that it would have mattered in this game.) Given the low scoring in football/soccer, sudden death would seem to be a logical way of deciding a tied game.

[ June 27, 2004, 18:10: Message edited by: Splunge ]

 

Dunno, all i know is that they constantly keep changing the rules. The new offside rule has been confusing to defenders as well, just look at Holland's second goal against the Czechs. A few months ago V. Nistelrooy would have been whistled back for standing offside, but according to the new rules he wasn't actually part of the ongoing attack, and when he received the ball from Robben, he was already way out of reach from the Czech defenders, basically because he was running back from an offside position.

Now it's no longer the Golden Goal, but the Silver Goal, which means that a goal in overtime doesn't end the game right away, but they have to at least finish the current half of the overtime. After that, and the score hasn't changed, the game is over, but if the opponent manages to make one as well, a second half is needed.

 

Because it didn't give to the team, which was losing, the chance to score the equalizer and this was unfair. Just one mistake and that was it. One the other hand penalties are more dramatic, they lead the fans to stronger emotions and it is very amusing for the neutrals to see the agony in the faces of the opponents especially if they don't like both of them.

 

You harsh bleeder, lol.

 

It's true though. Even Splunge has noticed how dramatic this tournament has been for us neutral sports fans.

Although it is starting to get a bit unfair for poor old England who have now managed to lose at soccer, rugby, and cricket this week. Maybe Tim Henman will give you guys something to cheer about at Wimbledon.......

 

Damn these Czechs are effective. Denmark has been the better team for almost an hour, and suddenly...boom...boom...boom...three goals out of the blue.

 

LOL. I doubt it. Tim 'The Bottler' Henman just isn't powerful enough to cut it against the big guns.

Roger Federer or Andy Roddick I reckon this year.

 

Sorry for going a bit off-topic there.

Wow, the Czechs look like they're through. Bring on the semi-finals!

 

I reckon that golden goal is one of the worst rules ever entered in the football competition. Silver goal is bad, but golden goal was even worse.

Also, how many more than I thinks that Beckham should start playing rugby?

 

Nah, he isn't man enough for that.

Big chance though, that on the next manned moonflight they recover a penaltyspot in space.

 

First of all i want to say that Greece is not dead yet and we have still 90' minutes of game at least. Secondly i want to say that allthough the Danish were better than the Czechs at the majority of the game, they could not manage to get inside their area with really good prespectives. They were consuming their chances just turning the ball around the Czech area and then tried a long pass with slim or no chances at all.

 

Greece is the way we are feeling.

 

The Danes were not better than the Czechs, at all. The Czechs controlled the game from start to finish no question about it. They sped up for 20 minutes in the second half and scored three goals and then chilled again. The Czechs are really really good, sad for Denmark, they did a great tournament.

The Czechs are the main favourites for the title now. 55% for them, 20% each for Holland and Portugal and 5% for the Greeks.

 

Has anyone named 'Tim' ever been powerful?

(Aside from the wizard Tim in the Holy Grail, that is...)