UEFA EURO 2012

Porthos

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matra, the referee wasn't anti-greek, but this red card is the most ridiculous thing i ever saw

I would agree, the second foul was really the Polish player slipping and falling on the pitch... It was pretty hilarious. See how referee mistakes make for fascinating conversation? :biggrin: Who needs technology?

The penalty against Poland was legitimate, however I am strongly against this business of awarding a penalty AND a red card if a goalkeeper commits a faul in the penalty area. It seems to me that you are punishing the same team twice for the same thing. It is ludicrous, unless the foul is clearly a red card infraction (the German goalkeeper Schumacher almost killing Batiston in the 1982 World Cup semis springs to mind). Penalty should be enough, possibly a yellow if it was anti-sport behavior. In this case it was not - both the goalie and the player went for the ball, the player got it and the goalie missed and got the player's foot - penalty - end of story. However, if a player is fouled in a clear goalscoring opportunity outside the penalty area (so he doesn't get a PK), then yes - a red card is right.

for example arsene wenger (who, ironically, is pretty white-friendly and always gives credit to the good white players, so it was a surprise for you when you heard him say that messi was the best, but not for me
for example he commented the portugal-germany match, and the 2 players who were criticized the most were boateng and varela for his miss, also ozil)
the commentator for the poland-greece match was jean michel larqué, who was part of one of the best french sides in history, saint etienne during the 70's, he played the champions league final against bayern munchen in 1976
he is also deeply involved in football at amateur level
he was also a coach (at paris saint germain)

when he saw the first "foul", he said there was absolutely nothing
when he saw the second one, he couldn't believe it
he said it was even worse than the first refereeing mistake
he saw that there was no foul at all, before even seeing the replays
there was no foul at all, the polish player made a smart move, but the greek player was not surprised at all, and the polish player slipped and was almost already on the ground when he was next to the greek defender
i don't have enough english vocabulary to translate what he said, but believe me, it was one of the worst refereeing mistake of all time
and as a french, he prefered the polish team because they have 2 french players



at one point he tried to control the ball but it looked more like a "big kick", so funny

Arsene Wenger pro-White? This is news to me - I wouldn't say that if I look at Arsenal's racial makeup. However, he does seem to create little racial "islands" (little "apartheids") based on playing positions. For example, defence seems to be pretty white, same with middlefield, while Blacks are concentrated in attack (except Van Persie, the best scorer:biggrin:).

Regarding St. Etienne in the 70s - is Georges Bareta still around?
 

Matra2

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So why then does the Greek defender, Sokratis, use both his hands against the Pole. It was a legitimate yellow card. The Asian, oops, I meant the Greek:wink: , deserved to be booked.

for example arsene wenger (who, ironically, is pretty white-friendly

Is that the same Arsene Wenger who has littered the English game with negroes?
 

frederic38

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yes, it's the same arsene wenger
i think that he buys all these blacks (usually french or african - which is basically the same with all the ties that france has with africa) to make money (for example he bought clichy for nothing in french 3rd division and sold him to manchester city)
but when it comes to soccer, it's different
you can tell that his favourite players are/were whites, except thierry henry
when he sold fabregas, he replaced him with arteta, another spanish middlefielder
this season he bought mertesacker
i think that he always had white goal keepers
he has a 100% white central defense
he buys french players, so ofcourse there are blacks amongst them, but he also bought koscielny, squillaci, maybe giroud in the future
back in the day there was robert pires, gilles grimandi (i think that now he is in charge of the scouting for the club), emmanuel petit (nicknamed the viking), flamini
you can tell that van persie is his favourite arsenal striker

i watched tons of matches with wenger as a commentator, and he is often asked to say what he thinks about english football here, and i pretty much always agreed with him, and he often puts over-rated black players in their place (he commented the 2010 world cup)
he's the kind of guy who is not affraid to say that african football is inferior to european football, that some arab players are too selfish, he said that capello should have been able to choose his captain without any pressure, and when asked about the next coach he said that he should be an english coach because english coaches might not be superior to the others, but it's better to go to a competition like the euro champs with a guy who is from the country he will represent

he also supported john terry when he insulted anton ferdinand

regarding the french quotats scandal, he said that he was against quotats (increasing the number of white and arab players at the expense of the blacks), because the best players should play regardless of skin colour
without quotats, there would be no black players in the french national team, our black players are token black players
he said that spain helped reminding everybody that football is a skill sport, which is exactly what the french who discussed about the "quotats" said, so he agrees with the main point

wenger is not the worst, there are others french currently who work for manchester united and chelsea, they are responsible for gael kakuta playing for chelsea, lassana diarra also probably, pogba to manchester united, ngog to liverpool, mavinga to liverpool also, gabriel obertan to manchester united, and a lot more
meanwhile, gilles grimandi has been spotted in a montpellier match to watch olivier giroud, he also wants gonalons

actually, even though there are/were a lot of french players in premier league, i can't think of a white-french player who didn't play in arsenal first, except the players who won the 1998 world cup like laurent blanc or leboeuf
they are the only 2 white-french i can name who played in england whithout starting their career at arsenal, and that's because they won the world cup
it shows that wenger likes white players, which is not obvious at first glance

but you have to take into consideration that when he is scouting for young french players, this is what the "talent pool" looks like:
afp-luis-robayo-l-equipe-de-france-des-moins-de-20-ans-le-5-aout-2011.jpg


the thing i don't like with him is his cosmopolitism, the fact that he buys french players
if he wants to buy french players, then he should be a coach in france, he would do well there






Regarding St. Etienne in the 70s - is Georges Bareta still around?

he's sometimes asked about french teams, but he is relatively unknown compared to larqué
he said recently that he was very happy to watch the euro champs in poland, since he is of polish origin
 
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Matra2

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If Arsenal have another season like last year Wenger might well end up back in France. The problem the French league has it that it is perceived to be below England, Spain, Germany, and Italy. Also the big teams from those countries have more money than those in Ligue 1 (AFAIK).

Back to Euro 2012...

I had to go out so I missed the second half of Germany v Portugal. I was a bit surprised (though one can never be too surprised when Germany wins) to see the final score as the Portuguese looked better in the first half. Watching the highlights I see that Silvestre Varela came on and missed a great chance.
 

frederic38

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If Arsenal have another season like last year Wenger might well end up back in France. The problem the French league has it that it is perceived to be below England, Spain, Germany, and Italy. Also the big teams from those countries have more money than those in Ligue 1 (AFAIK).

i would even have the french league below the portuguese league
lyon was one of the richest clubs in europe at one point, but it didn't show and the only good players they had were brazilians, and not even the best brazilians
now paris saint germain was bought by an arab billionaire, you will hear about this club a lot in the future
right now they have thiago motta, pastore and lavezzi, both titular in the argentina national team, some brazilians, sirigiu, the italian goal keeper, some good french players like menez who played in italy and is young, some less good french players, and carlo ancelotti as a coach

they wil try to buy other players this summer (kaka, higuain...) but the french league has a bad reputation so good players don't want to play in france
the fact that good players like lugano or pastore have trouble with the fans and don't get the respect they should get probably doesn't help either

-----------------------------------

spain is starting the match without llorente aparently, i'm a little bit disapointed
i REALLY hope that balotelli won't score, but the spanish defence is not very good right now
it is a mix of barcelona's defence and real madrid's defence, while both weren't very good this season
barcelona for fitness problems, and real madrid because sergio ramos is not a central defender

the quality they have in the middlefield is incredible though
beware of thiago motta
 

Jack Lambert

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Let's go Spain!! I hope Italy and their "Italian" Ballotelli will lose every game durin Euro 2012.
 

Matra2

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Ballotelli swings an arm in the direction the linesman questioning his decision. Petulant brat.
 

Matra2

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Spain reminding me a bit of Barcelona against Chelsea. What they are doing shows no sign of working but like Barcelona they probably haver no Plan B. Maybe they could bring on Torres, who is quite tall, to give them an option in the air.
 

Jack Lambert

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Ballotelli just blew a huge chance to score. He simply waited too long, not doing anything, and allowed Ramos to get the ball away from him.
 

backrow

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Ramos got lucky just now... luckily Balotelli was indecisive and looked really slow there or else he would have gifted him with an easy goal!

HAHAHA and they pulled Balotelli off! loved it. Di Natale in for him.
 

backrow

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damn, and what a striker Di Natale is... great change for Italy. lackluster player who's yet somehow full of "flash and promise" for "old and unexciting" - and somehow better altogether!
 

Irn Bru

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GOAL Di Natale!!!

I was holding my nose and pulling for Italy with Balotelli on just because I love Pirlo, and now it pays off! Maybe this will mean Balotelli's benched next game.
 

Arend

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1:1 Fabregas. Really good game so far

Jesus Navas for Silva
Giovinco for Cassano

Great play by Buffon^^
 
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Matra2

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Torres had a wide open player to his right with Italian keeper Buffon completely out of the goal and instead of passing it for the open net he tries to chip it over Buffon...and misses. That was Robbenesque selfishness.
 

frederic38

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Torres had a wide open player to his right with Italian keeper Buffon completely out of the goal and instead of passing it for the open net he tries to chip it over Buffon...and misses. That was Robbenesque selfishness.

why did torres came in and not llorente?
he has been the best spanish striker this season, 17 goals in liga and 4 in the europa league !

i can't wait to hear what they will come up with to explain balotelli's horrible match
he was just as bad as ever
his miss was one of the worst i ever saw, when he took the ball and was absolutely alone, no defenders around him and an easy goal, i thought "oh no, the black striker will score and the media will talk about it for months" but then he didn't even try to shoot, it's like he was lost, it was not even a miss actually, because he just did nothing

and to make it even more embarrassing, the white striker who should have been a starter instead of balotelli came in and scored just 1 minute after coming in :whoo:
 
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Europe

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why did torres came in and not llorente?
he has been the best spanish striker this season, 17 goals in liga and 4 in the europa league !

i can't wait to hear that they will come up with to explain balotelli's horrible match
he was just as bad as ever
his miss was one of the worst i ever saw, when he took the ball and was absolutely alone, no defenders around him and an easy goal, i thought "oh no, the black striker will score and the media will talk about it for months" but then he didn't even try to shoot, it's like he was lost, it was not even a miss actually, because he just did nothing

and to make it even more embarrassing, the white striker who should have been a starter instead of balotelli came in and scored just 1 minute after coming in :whoo:


Lalas on ESPN was ripping Balotelli saying he couldn't even describe how bad that play was when he was alone on goal. He should have at least had a shot or passed. He couldn't even control the ball that well.

I don't know why Di Natali didn't start .He has scored so many more goals than Baloletti the last 3 years.
 
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