Euro 2020 and Copa America Football Tournaments.

Phillips had a great game, and I agree he was England's best player.

I was even more pleased to see Sterling get off the schneid. I can't believe he almost didn't start....

 

LOL - WTF was with Turkey on those last two corners?

Did Bale buy an Easy Pass to the Turkish goal?

 

My two-cents on the First Round of Group play:

First of all, it looked like the First Round for most of these teams, and I have to think England and France will play better in their next matches.

Second, of the teams I saw play, Italy and Belgium were the strongest.

Third, my unexpected surprise of the past week was Netherlands.

Fourth, my best player of the first round goes to Romelu Lukaku, who continued his awesome play and scored 2 goals against Russia.

 

Phew, got a bit tense towards the end there.
Great game from Bale, penalty not withstanding, a deserved win in the end.
They can go on to play Italy now with no pressure on them.

 

I just watched the highlights on ESPN and it looked like the Gareth Bale Show. Great game, indeed.

On the other side, it looks like Italy and Wales have silenced the talk about Turkey being a dark horse/Cinderella in this tournament. Two analysts were breaking down Turkey's defense on video and it was not pretty....

 

@CenterField
Taping the match again?
You need to sort out that work/life balance.
Italy looking good again anyway...

 

This match was over before it began...

 

Let's see how they do against the mighty Wales on Sunday.

So long as England win against the sweaty socks on Friday I don't really care what else happens.

 

"Sweaty socks"! LOL

Well, I hope England wins. I don't want to be watching an orgy of drunken chav violence on the news Friday night.

 

Cockney rhyming slang for Jocks, in case you were wondering.

 

My opinion of Ronaldo just went up a bit.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-billions-wiped-off-drink-giants-market-value

 

Yes, I taped all 3 matches, only finished watching a while ago.

Italia! Italia! Italia!


OK, folks. We can hold possession. We can counter fast and dangerously. We can score from mid-distance. We can defend exquisitely and in the rare occasions when our defenders fail, we still have Donnarumma to man the fort. We were comfortable the whole game, with the outcome never in doubt.

Spinazzola is developing into a great player. He's the kind of player who will learn with more experience; still in some plays lacking awareness of where his companions are, trying to do too much, but anyway, he is a force of nature, all over the pitch.

Locatelli, superb today! I've always liked him.

Berardi was good too and almost scored. He's an AC Milan (my club) transfer target. I hope we get him. He would be so much better than Castillejo!

Immobile had three great opportunities late in the game, squandered two of them wide right but nailed the third one. I'm very happy that he scored again; we need Immobile highly motivated and confident.

Insigne worked hard but made some dumb decisions in the final third. Oh well. One of the few low points. I guess he just had a bad day.

Like I predicted, Di Lorenzo became the starter over Florenzi, and he did fine.

Jorginho was again good in orchestrating the midfield.

The one sad note was Chiellini's injury. He was all over the pitch last game and while he was playing today, and it's too bad that he accidentally committed a handball that disallowed his goal. He deserved that goal. The team suffered the impact of losing the very energetic captain (despite his age of 36) but anyway, Acerbi is good too.

So, 29th undefeated game, 10th straight victory, 10th clean sheet in a row, first team to advance to the knock-out phase, 6 goals for, none against.

It's good to be Italian, at this time... I'm growing more and more confident. France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, England... beware. You've been served notice. We are serious contenders.

For Sunday, I don't care if we win, draw, or even lose the game. I think we've suffered some attrition already with some violent play against our players by both Turkey and Switzerland; we've collected a major casualty already (Chiellini) so if Mancini decides to field a Team B to rest our main players, it's fine with me.

 

Yes, I liked that, too! I can imagine the faces of the Coca-Cola executives! LOL!

 

Oh, the first two games, Finland-Russia, Turkey-Wales. Meh. Light snack. Appetizers before the main course, the Squadra Azzurra. I don't even feel like commenting. I'm too happy about Italy to pay attention to other teams, right now.

 

No one is playing better than Italy right now. I'm beginning to think they can win it all.

Mancini would be wise to limit his starters' minutes Sunday, but it would be fun to see them throw down with Wales now that Bale & Co. appear to be back on top of their game.

 

Not terribly flattering from what I understand, but I'll give you credit for not engaging in any rhetorical hooliganism involving skirts and windbags.

 

Not as unflattering as the rhyming slang for Americans.
Rhyming slang involves a lot of dark humour.
A raspberry for example.

 

I'm sure...

It's funny, over here so many Americans have a hard time understanding Cockneys that a lot of TV shows will include subtitles when they speak. Heck, we've got some folks here in Virginia I can't understand half the time:

 

Oh my, Denmark's up on Belgium...

 

...and deservedly so thus far.

 

Indeed.

I wonder if we'll see De Bruyne in the 2nd half...

EDIT: Yes, we will...

 

It didn't take De Bruyne long to impact this game.

9 minutes in and he assists on Belgium's first goal...

 

And now we see Eden Hazard...

 

The last quarter is going to be interesting. Will the talent of the Belgians overcome the grit and determination of the Danes?
My head is with the former but my heart is with the latter.

 

Ha, didn't take long to get my answer.