Soccer Thread

[The Benmeister]

Methinks a Portuguese win would be more surprising than the Danish win that just happened.

On paper this is one of the games of the group stage though, here's hoping it doesn't bitterly dissapoint eh?

[Fenix]

What in incredibily disappointing game. I root for the Netherlands, but they were awful, 0 pressure on Denmark, and Denmark abused that by playing one of the most boring footballs I've seen recently.

It got so frustrating to watch that I almost got up and left more than once.

[The Benmeister]

Don't see where Denmark played boring football at all. All I saw was the Dutch missing lots of chances.

[Fenix]

Did you see Bendtner in the game? All I saw Denmark do was pass in the defence, or midfield when counter attacking. Holland missed a lot, yes. But I think the Denmark keeper and it's defense had the ball for most of the game.

I don't know about you, but I don't enjoy watching a team play where their goalkeeper has more passes than the midfielders.

[Zantera]

Denmark hardly played boring. Even in second half they tried keeping the ball when they had it, but it's quite obvious that they wont risk anything by doing crazy attacking. By saying that they played boring it sounds like they did a Chelsea against Barcelona, which wasn't the case.
If anything you should blame Netherlands for displaying one of the worst games of missing chances that I have ever seen. I'm not that surprised, even if Netherlands made it to the final in the world cup, they've shown enormous problems with scoring goals, and I wouldn't be surprised if they go out of this tournament in the group stage without any wins.

[Fenix]

Chances are Denmark wasn't as bad as I'm making it out to be, I'm just incredibly frustrated at how awful Holland played and when you are rooting for a team and the opposing team plays like that it gets on your nerves.

If I were to rate the Netherland players out of 10:
Stekelenburg 4
van der Wiel 1
Heitinga 5
Vlaar 4
Willems 4
de Jong 4
van Bommel 5
Robben 5
Sneijder 8
Afellay 6
van Persie 4
-
Klaas Jan Huntelaar 6
Rafael van der Vaart 3
Dirk Kuyt 2

[Rezzo]

I didn't see Van der Wiel do anything at all. Same goes for Van der Vaart, but he was on the pitch for a much shorter time.

[KickAsh]

Wow, this is huge for Denmark. First opening game of the Euro tournament that they've won, and even more importantly, now they're competing for advancing past the group stage.

Denmark didn't play boring, though. They played excellent defensively, but weren't timid on the attack. It wasn't Chelsea vs. Barcelona type football. It was a bit more aggressive--Denmark had 47% of possession, Chelsea had 28% on both legs. Denmark had 8 shots, Chelsea had 7 in the second game. Denmark didn't just park the bus, they moved forward some, too.

Van der Vaart had a couple of nice touches, he probably would have had a greater impact on the game if he was in longer. He'll certainly be starting the next game.
van Persie was garbage, he seemed to not be in the game, Huntelaar will also most likely be starting the next game.

[~Nicole~]

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL GERMANY SCORES THROUGH A MARIO GOMEZ HEADER!!!! DEADLOCK BROKEN!!! YES!!!!

Germany 1-0 Portugal

[7 tyranitars]

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL GERMANY SCORES THROUGH A MARIO GOMEZ HEADER!!!! DEADLOCK BROKEN!!! YES!!!!

Germany 1-0 Portugal

Ugh no now portugal needs to score.

[KickAsh]

Good win for Germany, they actually played pretty bad for most of the game, I thought Portugal might have had a chance. Mario Gomez's header was fantastic.
Glad to see Germany win because Ozil is my favorite player in the tournament.

[Sietse23]

Portugal created a few good chances at the end, but Germany has incredibly strong players...
We would've win or at least played a draw if van Persie scored one of his 2 great chances, Robben scored in stead of hitting the pole, Huntelaar scored after that Great pass feom Sneijder or if we just had that penalty in the end -.- (HANDS!!!!!!!)

[~Nicole~]

In other news, Argentina defeated Brazil 4-3 with Messi scoring his second hattrick for Argentina. Looks like Messi is gonna be a monster on the international stage now too ^^

[Steelers_Fan]

Russia won and Germany won. Hope they play each other in the final

[~Nicole~]

Final Prediction: Spain VS Germany

[Garnet Til Alexandros XVII]

Russia won and Germany won. Hope they play each other in the final

Can they meet each other in the final?

Edit: Apparently they can. I can't see them making it though.

[Sietse23]

I hope the finals will be The Dutch - Germany.
If the Dutch win the rest of the matches abd becine 2nd, the half finale will be The Dutch - Spain :0 and the finals will be Germany - The Dutch, which would be 2 awesome matches to watch.

[abrar14]

I didn't know you liked football, sietse

[masukippa]

In non-Euro related news, Sandro Ranirere captained Brazil against Argentina at the age of just 23. Love that man. Going places in a big way.

[The Benmeister]

Congrats to Sampdoria for returning to Serie A, what an odd few seasons they've had, eh?