Summer Tournaments Running Thread

bayonetbrant · May 26, 2016, 06:59:11 AM

So this summer we've got 2 major tournaments

Euro 2016 - When will England implode? >:D Will Austria & Hungary just reunite already?

Could the draw have done the Germans more favors? ::) Are Scotland going to boycott the TV broadcasts? ??? ICELAND?!?! O0

Copa America Centenario - the 100th anniversary of the South American continental championship, so let's move it to the United States!

Well, 6 of the teams are from CONCACAF, and for a bunch of them, tournaments in the US are the only time they see indoor plumbing and foot not cooked over a fire >:D :o The only real question is that after a completely shite referee decision against the US, will they mentally implode (a la Olympic qualifying against Colombia) or will they shove the ball down someone's throat (a la Slovenia). Given the 20-year-history of bullshit calls against the US and the utter lack of mental resiliency they've shown in coming back from them over the years, I'm going with the former.

Pinetree · May 29, 2016, 02:32:54 AM

Meanwhile, the Oceania Football Confederation is holding the OFC Nations Cup where the [Sarcasm]mighty NZ All Whites get to take on such giants of the game as the Solomon Islands, PNG, and Fiji.[/Sarcasm] The winner gets to go to the Confederations Cup.Woohoo....

To be honest, NZ should do what Aussie did and join the Asia confederation, we might actually get some decent games. The tougher opposition would do wonders for the game here. Playing the 4th placed South American team every four years for a WC spot is just not good enough.

Dear FIFA, please, please, do us all a favour and dissolve this sad excuse for a confederation back into Asia. Blatter's gone, he doesn't need to buy the votes anymore..

bayonetbrant · May 29, 2016, 07:29:19 AM

I always felt like Asia should split into multiple confederations, roughly split around which ocean is closer

SE Asia + Japan + Korea + Aussies + old OFC

India + Pakistan + SW Asia+ 'Stans

bayonetbrant · June 03, 2016, 10:27:14 PM

The US hasn't played poorly, and down 2-0 to the #3 team in the world isn't bad. But despite a lot of great possession in the middle third, it's painfully apparent that there's no clinical finisher in sight for the US, and we so badly need one.

bayonetbrant · June 05, 2016, 09:51:11 AM

Ecuador got robbed.

They called this out right before the GK bungled the cross that went in for an Ecuador goal and a 1-0 lead.

bayonetbrant · June 06, 2016, 09:06:58 AM

Great quips in the article about best-ever Euro winners

1972 West Germany

Quote{Beckenbauer} was so cool he played international football with a resting heart rate.

QuoteMüller was not a natural goalscorer; he was a supernatural goalscorer

Quotethe tournament belonged to Netzer. He was a playboy off the field and a playmaker on it; an heroically decadent individual who had a different concept of exercise to everyone else. In short, Netzercise involved other people doing his running

1984 France

QuoteMichel Platini – who scored nine times in five matches to help France, the hosts, win their first major tournament. Nobody has scored as many European Championship goals in an entire career, never mind a tournament.

QuoteThat goal came from yet another surge from the brilliant Tigana; he and Fernández should donate their lungs to the Fifa museum when they die.

1988 Dutch

Quotewhere Holland won Total Football bingo throughout the tournament by playing a central-defensive pair of Koeman and Rijkaard. At a time when everyone else had stoppers at the back, they had starters

2008-12 Spain

QuoteSpain went into the tournament fancied by many, but with that came the fear they would be the underachieving joke of the tournament (England didn't qualify)

QuoteIn 2012, they mainly used Cesc Fàbregas as a false nine and, as wonderful as their 4-0 demolition of Italy in the final was, their legacy was not a performance but a philosophical debate: whether it was OK to win boring, the aesthetic equivalent of winning ugly, as Spain did for most of the tournament. That was only partially their fault, though there were certainly times when tiki-taka became tiki-takanaccio. It worked, however: Spain concede only one goal in the tournament.

Quotethe 2012 team, though verging on an art project with their indulgent passing, dominated games like no international side in history, with almost 70% of possession in the tournament

bayonetbrant · June 07, 2016, 05:45:20 AM

totally forgot about Olympic soccer this summer, too.

Here you go - and very few of the games overlap each other, since the Euros are on in the morning here, and the Copa is in the afternoon O0

bayonetbrant · June 11, 2016, 06:38:38 PM

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bayonetbrant · June 13, 2016, 09:16:07 PM

Brazil are out. Uruguay is out. US wins their group over Colombia (thx, CR!). US path to possibly winning this thing isn't unthinkable.

bayonetbrant · June 14, 2016, 05:29:58 PM

So there was a dude from Northern Ireland that died a few days ago when he fell over a railing and through the roof of the building below.

Yesterday, during their game, the fans from the Republic of Ireland (hardly Northern Ireland's best friends) stood up in the 24th minute of their game and belted out "Stand up for the Ulsterman" in tribute to the deceased.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-36528373