The (Un) Official Football thread

[Bizza]

ugh, fuck off portugal.

[Tet]

What a joke. Third placed teams should never have been allowed out of their groups

The alternative is to have a drastically smaller tournament (16 teams instead of 24) and go straight from the group stage to quarter finals, or to stick with 24 teams, but only have the winner of each group qualify plus the best two second placed teams. Alternatively, you could expand it to 32 teams and have 8 groups rather than 6. But then you have to fit in many more matches into the tournament timescale. I think the current compromise of having some third placed teams go through is a pretty good option, personally.

Yes, it's a bit of a joke that a team that played as badly as Portugal did can win it, but sometimes football's like that.

[Gandalf the Red]

Yep. How many times have teams only played lower division teams in the rounds, got to the final and won the FA or League Cup whilst the opposition has beaten all the "big" clubs getting there? Quite a few over the years.

Portugal the worst "big" team though? I thought that was England.

[Gandalf the Red]

Double post.

Allardyce for England. So they want someone who's never won anything in his life and is known as being "a bit dodgy". Good luck with that.

[Jobdone]

I'd fucking love Allardyce.

Big angry bloke who knows how to grind out results with a shit team. Have that all day.

[Tet]

I have to say, I'm more optimistic about Vincent Janssen than I have been about any other signing we've made for a long time.

[Jobdone]

I'm very wary of Eredivisie goal tallys, but the coaches talking about his work ethic and the fact that some of his goals seem very much the On-the-turn-knows-where-the-goal-is kind of finishes makes me a bit more optimistic.

Glad he'll get a full Poch pre-season as well.

[Tet]

Yep, it's not so much the number of goals he's scored - let's face it, the Eredivisie isn't the highest quality league in the world. It's the way he's scored them. I watched a video compilation of his goals and came away impressed.

[houston4044]

It's an improvement on what we have and should hopefully mean we can rotate a strong team in both the CL and PL next season. Just need a good quality 3rd striker, Son has been good but we need someone more reliable.

[Gandalf the Red]

Celtic getting beat by a team from Gibraltar must be one of the most embarrassing results ever.

[houston4044]

Celtic getting beat by a team from Gibraltar must be one of the most embarrassing results ever.

So much for Rodgers making a fresh start

[Danroush]

What a joke. Third placed teams should never have been allowed out of their groups, and for a team to win the tournament after only winning ONE game in 90mins is ridiculous. A crap tournament won by possibly the worst "big" team in it.

The 3rd place team thing was weird but I can just about stomach it. Koscielny's bullshit yellow card from Eder's handball/'The Clattenberg Cockup' causing him to pussy out on tackling Eder properly 2 minutes later (due to being on a yellow) causing the tournament winning goal, now that naffs me right off. Video referees asap please.

[houston4044]

What a joke. Third placed teams should never have been allowed out of their groups, and for a team to win the tournament after only winning ONE game in 90mins is ridiculous. A crap tournament won by possibly the worst "big" team in it.

I like the idea of 3rd place teams personally, I mean Portugal did show the flaw in the system that a poorly performing big team can still scrape through but on the flipside it gives smaller nations a crack at it. It's like when small teams have a good run in the FA cup, makes it that more interesting to watch and good to see a team (like Iceland) actually get to make some headway rather than the standard big teams and a mid tier team getting past the group stages. Some might argue this dilutes the quality of the overall tournament but I think it's balanced by that attraction of seeing someone Iceland do well and cheering them on.

[Jobdone]

The thing is, Iceland got through in 2nd. None of the third place teams really jumped out as "I'm super glad these guys are still in it", though I'm biased by the fact I hate portugal.

[Danroush]

The thing is, Iceland got through in 2nd. None of the third place teams really jumped out as "I'm super glad these guys are still in it", though I'm biased by the fact I hate portugal.

Exactly. Wales finished top of their group, and Iceland were 2nd and on the same points as 1st. Iceland won more games in 90mins than Portugal!

Just for reference about the whole wins in 90mins thing, imagine your team was playing in the league, and won 1 game in 7. Unless you were a relegation scrapping Premier League team you wouldn't exactly be happy with that