Shearer9

Gomez has looked unimpressive. Take him off, rotate Podolski up top, and put in Basti on the left. I know keepers always complain about new balls for major tournaments, but I'm starting to wonder about this one as well. Seems like everyone is just blasting this into row Z every time they take a shot.

It also annoys me that they give such weight to those fifa world rankings, which everyone knows are shite.

Cue the obligitary post about how shite ESPN's coverage always tends to be. I'm about ready to strangle Julie Foudy, Steve Bunin, and this other guy, Will something, that they've got on the desk now. Within 30 seconds of coming on, he'd already made 2 mistakes "Welcome to ESPN's coverage of the EUFA Euro 2000....I've got Julie Foudy here to my left along with Andy.........(about a 5 second pause here)..........Gray." Bunin was the worst yesterday, constantly making mistakes with no clue what she was talking about, and of course Foudy knows nothing about the game or commentary. Smyth and Rae have been okay, Smyth hasn't been as annoying as usual. They've actually put together a good team with Andy Gray and Adrian Healy.

Maybe Chelsea should just buy him too?

Took em long enough

Portugal need to find a proper left back, not Ferreira

Still can't believe they played a 451 with someone as immobile as Koller to counter the non-threat of the Swiss.

Scored again yesterday, supersub.

Well no... i don't really know why i'm that bothered tbh. But it's more the symbol. The main point for me isn't really surrounding this game, just that he shouldn't have come back at all (McClaren); and we could have been morphing one of Bentley, SWP or someone else as the permanent replacement, long before this point. Instead, we're still bizarrely clinging onto this apparant sentiment, for whatever reason. So true. First of all, there's nobody that's even had a chance to prove themselves on the RW because Beckham and Gerrard (who should be in the middle) have been there. Second, there's still no real indication of who the next RW is going to be. Bentley, Lennon, SWP, Dyer, and Cole have all been played there, but nobody has any clue about who can really be effective on the right. I still think Beckham could potentially be a first-teamer, but you'd have to set the team up to make up for his weaknesses. Probably not worth it in the end, time for Capello to call it a day with Beckham.

I'm still excited about the tournament, and I think the football community is actually encouraged by good early signs from ESPN. They made some really good commercials (found here: http://youtube.com/user/chesterg1), from the schedule it looks like they'll have more than 5 mins for pre and post game shows, they have a nightly recap (which they've not done before for a major tournament), they have tournament preview shows on now, and they're showing multiple Euro finals on ESPN classic all this week. But we all know what will happen when Dave O'Brien and co. get on the air and open their mouths....

5 games on ESPN Classic (including opening match) not in HDTV.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/internationals/7429342.stm Maybe, just maybe, there's a place for Beckham in the team(and only if you add a lot more drive to the midfield, ie leave out Lampard, put Young or Cole on the left, and Gerrard as AMC), but surely Capello's just turning into McClaren all over again, can't make a tough decision. This must now be the third time he's gone back on an anti-Beckham stance?

I have a feeling like the rest of Europe, with the exception of the Jormans, don't really look back on this tournament the way the English do. The group stages were good, but there were very few goals scored in the knockout rounds, and the tournament sort of ground to a halt, and of course it had to be Germany to win it at that point.

I think Russia and Croatia will be dark horses. Hard to pick who will win, but I think Portugal and Spain won't really show up and I think Italy may miss out from the group of death. Anyone interested in getting a Fantasy league going?

I tend to agree with most of that (minus the Hargreaves bit), I think there are finally some positives to start taking from England's performances. This was a really poor USA side though, I think they'll be really exposed against Spain and Argentina. The more I watch the USA play, the more I think that the 2002 World Cup was a big fluke.

Rooney's been the best, he should be the one that this team is built around. What happened to that kid who scored 5 goals and lit the world alight at Euro 2004?

He's falling victim to the same kind of shit that Eriksson did. Wonder when England will actually get a manager with the yarbles to cut some of the shite. Seriously, how can anyone justify Lampard's inclusion in this team based on his international form. He's dynamite for Chelsea, but come on.

Yes he was. Believe we were looking at Ronaldo too at the time, but we went for Hugo. Ahh well. Aye, and I remember we beat alot of big clubs to sign Viana in particular Juventus at the time As for Ronaldo, I don`t think Ronaldo would have developed the way he has at Man u if he came here especially with the managers we`ve had. And even if he did I don`t think he would`ve stayed long with the likes of Real Madrid etc sniffing around all the time. Probably true, but I still think we'd be getting more, both football-wise and cash-wise if we'd chosen him. You don't think he'd develop under SBR? At the time, SBR probably would have been near the top of the list of managers in Europe to bring Viana along. You just never can tell...

I think it was Young European player of the year?

Good thing they gave him a new 4 year contract...

Deco before Bentley is also crazy.

Luca Toni I think, Italy will at least get to the semis.

"I saw Chelsea fans fighting each other, throwing punches and kicks." That makes absolutely no sense...

Was pulling for Chelsea, but there was still something nice about seeing JT miss the pen and knowing they've done so well, played so hard, spent a truckload of money, and still got nothing in the end.

I'm always more impressed by his passing range than anything else. Obviously he scores loads of goals, but he really pulls the strings for them in midfield, no matter what people wanna say about Ballack. If they can get a Ballack, Lampard, Essien midfield to really click, look out.