Today started with Russia against Slovakia in England’s group. Everyone is
hoping Russia get knocked out so there fans can all fuck off home and it was
looking good as Slovakia were the better side and took the lead when Hamsik
played a great ball over the top to Weiss and he made two Russian defenders
look like twats before scoring with ease.just before half time they doubled
their lead as a short corner was played to Hamsik who simply cut inside and
lastly sure enough the far post. A brilliant goal but quite shocking defending
again. The second-half continued in the same brain with Slovakia the better
side and Russia doing absolutely nothing until out of nowhere they pulled one
back with 10 minutes to go. The last 10 minutes was of course all played in the
Slovakia penalty area but they hung on to win and the big fat Russian coach
looked like he was about to have a heart attack. I’m sure they have a Siberian
equivalent of BUPA because that’s where you’re going Fat boy.
Switzerland against Romania was basically the game to see who finishes second
behind France and we are none the wiser are as it ended in a 1-1 draw. Romania
took the lead through their second penalty of the tournament when Lichsteiner
was penalised for shirt pulling and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke. Stancu stuck it away once more. Both teams had and missed decent opportunities but it
was eventually Switzerland who equalised after a corner was half cleared and
Mehmedi smashed the shit out of it and it flew into the far corner of the net.
Both of these teams are pretty dull and devoid of any personality. If they get
through they will get knocked out in the last 16 and everyone will forget that
they were even in the competition at all.
France against Albania was surprisingly even with both sides having chances to
score in the first half. If anything, Albania had the better of it and hit the
post from a massive bundle at the start of the second half. Giroud hit the post
from a header and it looked like it was going to be 0-0 until a cross got
tossed into the box and Griezmann put a header just inside the post. Then, on
96 minutes the scoreline was given a more flattering sheen for France as Payet
again did well to beat two defenders inside the box and make room for himself
before smashing it past the keeper. Albania are probably going out after two
defeats but they’ve done pretty well and I don’t think France are as good as
everyone is making out even though they are two wins out of two and in the next
round comfortably. Hopefully somewhere, Michel Platini is enjoying this on his
TV in prison whilst his cell mate tries to search him to find where he hid all the money.
Thursday 16th June
It’s time to put us through the pain of watching England again, this time
against the Welsh. Roy Hodgson has predictably bottled making any tough
decisions so we have to watch Sterling trying to have a good match for the
first time since 2014. If Sterling managed to keep his place you could
therefore guarantee that everyone else would as well.
There has been a lot of noise out of the Welsh camp this week mainly from the
two stars Bale and Ramsey. If an Englishman spoke like that then we would be
accused of arrogance of course but it’s obviously fine if the Welsh say it,
saying none of our players with getting their team (Bale) and outright saying
that Wales are better than England (Ramsey). Reading between the lines I think they
were trying to stop the lesser players in their team from having an inferiority
complex. If not that then I have no idea what they were going to achieve by
basically making comments that would do the England team talk for them.
From the start England looked up for it and Kane charged down a Williams
clearance in the first minute. We had a glorious chance on five minutes as Kane won the ball and put Lallana away on the right and his cross was perfect for Sterling but the useless little fucker manage to put it over the bar from about
5 yards in a display of complete fucking uselessness, deciding to throw himself at the ball instead of just running into it and sidefooting it home.
Walker and Smalling are looking a bit suspect when put under any pressure at
the back but luckily we’re not having much defending to do. One definite
improvement is that Kane is not taking corners. That job has gone to Captain
Rooney and to be fair he is at least putting it into areas where some players
can attack it including Kane of course. It really wasn’t rocket science was it
Roy?
Unfortunately, Kane is still on free kicks and one from a decent position about
25 yards out is smashed into orbit. That changed when Rose has a dive on the edge of the box and wins a free kick
off of Ledley. Rooney pinged it in and Cahill heads it straight at Hennessy.
It all goes to shit as we approach half time when Rooney gets caught in
possession 35 yards out and trashes Robson-Kanu in retaliation. Bale smashes
the freekick straight and Hart makes a total bollocks of it and can only push
it into the net by the post. The original free kick was about 3 yards from the
post so this is a goalkeeping fuck up of the highest order to make it 1-0 to
Wales from the first time they got in our penalty area. It’s a good free kick
by Bale and I guess that’s what big players do, a moment of brilliance after
doing fuck all for the entire match so far .
Roy, or more likely Gary Neville, rolled the dice at half time because we
fucking had to and Kane and Sterling were hooked in favour of Sturridge and
Vardy. Immediately England had more purpose with Sturridge dropping deep in
almost playing a number 10 role and we equalised after 10 minutes when
Sturridge’s cross was accidentally headed into Vardy’s pass by Ashley Williams
and the Leicester man put it into the net whilst anyone who was blind appealed
for offside. It was all England in the second half but play kept breaking down,
either due to good Welsh defending or to Dele Alli having an absolute shocker.
Surprisingly it wasn’t Alli who came off but Lallana and on came Marcus
Rashford. I bet there’s never been a game in his entire career where Hodgson
has made three attacking substitutions. Rashford did well without being
spectacular but we arrived at the 90th minute still at 1-1 with Wales barely
getting out of their half before Sturridge fed the ball into Vardy in the box
and via Alli and a deflection it came back to Sturridge who hit it early at the
near post and Hennessy couldn’t keep it out and we all went fucking mental and
I’ll even forgive Sturridge his wanker dance. The celebrations of the goal
certainly stuffed Bale’s words about a lack of passion down his throat’s and it
was nice to see the expression on Aaron Ramsey’s face as well as he’d been shit
again and spent most of his time being a niggly little tosser. Get in there.
qualified for the next round. We need to put Slovakia away to win the group and
we surely will as long as Hodgson learns the lessons from today and starts with
Sturridge and Vardy. I would also give Ross Barkley again instead of Alli who
was pretty poor all match. Not Henderson or Milner. I repeat not Henderson or
Milner.
The answer to the question of how many Wales players would get in a combined
team is one. Ramsay would get in the squad ahead of maybe someone like Milner
and Henderson and Bale would get in the team somewhere but we’d expect him to
do a little bit more then take a couple of free kicks. I’m sure that Chris
Coleman is expecting him to do a little bit more as well.
Finally, a word for Wayne Rooney. He was absolutely fucking brilliant again
today aside from giving away the freekick which Wales scored from. I didn’t see
him waste a pass and the best bit of the entire game for me was him screaming
down the camera when England scored at the end. I’ve been a big critic in the
past but he’s been absolutely fantastic in the first two games.
Everyone thought that Northern Ireland were terrible in their first game and
Michael O’Neill obviously agreed as he made five changes to the starting
lineup. They certainly seem to be more up for it from the start against the
Ukraine side who really don’t look that good. A goalless first half that the
Irish shaded was followed by Gareth McAuley getting his head on a Norwood free
kick to put them one up. It wouldn’t have felt like it to a Northern Ireland
supporter but the rest of the game was Ukraine trying to break down a resolute
defence and they just didn’t have the capability to do it. Hughes and Evans at
full-backs totally nullified the best two Ukraine players (Konoplyanka and
Iarmalenko) and having a defied everything, including a bad weather break when
hailstones were crashing down from the sky, Northern Ireland broke away up the
right, a cross came in, a shot was blocked and there was Niall McGinn to make
it 2-0 in the 95th minute. An absolutely brilliant result for Northern Ireland
and even if they lose to Germany, they will still be finishing third in the
group in all likelihood so will have a really decent chance of getting through.
The first half of Germany against Poland was complete soporific shit. Nothing
happened aside from Germany monopolising position and having no clue how to
break Poland down. Poland have got Fabianski in goal who is absolutely shit so
the Germans have to do is get a shot on target.
At the start of the second-half Milik missed from about 3 yards when he tried
to head a ball he should’ve kicked and the Germans got away with it. He’ll
probably prove me wrong at some point but what the hell is the fuss about
Lewandowski. He never seems to get a shot away. When he had a chance he took
too long and got binned by Boateng. Milik missed another chance when he fell on
his arse instead of shooting but the rest of the game was so shit that it
didn’t actually deserve a goal. The Germans are definitely missing something up
front their Plan B was to bring on Mario Gomez who was decent in the last Euros
but is absolutely gash usually. Maybe the lack of anything in this game was
down to both teams winning their first match so therefore only needing a draw
to go through. Not that the Germans would ever do anything like that of
course… cough… Austria… cough 1982. ..cough Algeria.
Italy versus Sweden was incredibly dull with neither side really going for it.
Italy just seemed quite cagey where as Sweden didn’t look capable. If Zlatan
doesn’t score then no one will. Italy at the bar in the second half which was
the closest we had to a goal until the 88th minute when Eder picked up the ball
on the left and the defenders hopelessly shepherded him towards the goal until
he had a clear shot past is Isaksson which he took to put Italy through to the
last 16 and Sweden in the last chance saloon, needing to beat Belgium to go
through. They won’t be missed if they don’t manage it. Again though, it has to
be highlighted that the Italian defence was superb and didn’t allow Sweden a
shot on target. Zlatan said before the game that the legend can still deliver,
referring to himself of course. Needless to say, the legend did nothing of the
sort.
Czech Republic versus Croatia was a crazy affair. Croatia totally dominated the
game and Perisic cut in from the left to put them in the lead. After half-time Rakitic put them two up following a defender with no ability attempting to play his way out of
defence and losing the ball. The game was petering out towards a comfortable
Croatia win when Modrić got injured and had to go off and the tide completely
turned. Tomas Rosicky put in a superb cross with the outside of his right
foot that was headed in by Skoda and then the game was interrupted by Croatian fans throwing flares on the pitch and fighting amongst themselves. What the
fuck was going on there is anyone’s guess but just maybe it was because Twattenburg was refereeing. In the five minutes that
were added a ball was launched forward into the Croatia penalty area and Vida
decided to jump for the header and punch the ball off the head of a Czech striker. The only trouble with this is that Vida is not the goalkeeper.
Penalty, bang, 2-2.
Spain turned up for the usual position fest, this time against Turkey. This
again was entirely predictable with Spain monopolizing the ball and failing in
the final third to get any shots away. Fabregas had a free header at goal at one
point and decided to head it backwards to a non-existent forward. Anyhow, they
took the lead on the half hour mark as Nolito bent in a cross and Moratta rose
unmarked to head past the keeper. Turkey’s game plan was now fucked and so
their centre half decided to take things up a level by getting him self in a
right mess and perfectly heading a pass into the path of Nolito Who scored
easily to make it 2-0. The third came just after half time as Jordi Alba
broke the half side tracked and instead of shooting, unselfishly squared it for
Moratta to score his second. Turkey completely gave up and Spain almost
couldn’t be arsed to score any more. Even the Turkish friends gave up and I
don’t know what Arda Turan has done but he was getting slaughtered by his own
fans when ever he touched the ball. Turkey, like a couple of others will not be
missed when they go home.
Saturday 18th June
I always start every one of these tournaments hoping that the Republic of
Ireland do well. That goodwill lasts about as long as it takes them to play
their first match because they are pretty shite. Actually, they weren’t
complete shite in their first game but in today’s match against Belgium they
were absolutely dire from the first minute to the last. The first half rivalled
the Germany v Poland game for outright tediousness with the only interesting
bit being Belgium’s defenders deciding that the best way to stop Shane Long was
to kick the living shit out of him. It has to be said that Belgium were bloody
awful as well in much the same way that they were against Italy. Ireland are no
Italy though and were never going to hold out for the 0-0 draw they had come
for. Belgium took the lead through Lukaku’s very good finish and within 10
minutes Witsel had doubled the lead from the header when Ireland decided not to
mark him. The third goal came from more shambolic defending, this time by
Ciaran Clark again, and Hazard easily beat him down the right hand side before
squaring for Lukaku to tap in. The commentators at the end of the game were
getting all excited about Belgium scoring three goals but let’s just remember
who they were playing today lads. Belgium still looked very ordinary to me and
they were definitely helped by a very lenient referee who allowed continual
assaults on Irish forward players.
In what is turning out to be a very interesting group, Hungary played at
Iceland and were on top in the main until Iceland scored on 40 minutes through
a Sigurdsson penalty. The second half was played almost exclusively in the
Icelandic half and I honestly didn’t think that Hungary would ever score but
eventually they did as they got down the right, fired it across and the
Icelandic right back had to try and do something and that something was
sticking it into his own net. There was drama at the end as Iceland won a free
kick right on the edge of the box but Sigurdsson tried to fire it under the
wall and it was blocked back to Eidur Gudjonsson who is now about 47 and his
effort was deflected about a foot wide. The draw virtually puts Hungary through
and Iceland will go on to their last game against Austria with every chance of
joining them.
match with Nani and Ronaldo missing for Portugal when they really should have
scored. Alaba nearly scored for Austria but for a very good clearance of the
line by Vieirinha who I thought was shite in the first game. As the game goes
on, the shiny one became more important, forcing a great save out of Almer in
the Austrian goal with a low shot. Next up he got twice as high as everyone to
power in a header from a corner but once again the keeper got down well to
save. Unlucky, you big shiny twat. Another chance came his way though as a cross from the left flashed in front of him but he was wrestled to the ground
by an Austrian defender and the ref gave a penalty and fair enough. There was
only one big shiny twat who was going to take it and so up stepped Ronaldo and
pinged it off the post as everyone who isn’t Portuguese pissed themselves
laughing and even more so when he did manage to get the ball in the net with a
very good header, only to be flagged correctly offside. Even though nothing
went for Ronaldo tonight and he still wasn’t taking people on, he played very
well in the second half and looked very dangerous and I’m sure he and everyone
else knows that one team will suffer somewhere along the way.
League 1 Minus 10 
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